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to say Leicester have not stolen the points. They have earned them, they have quality. If you look at the PFA Team of the Year, they have many players in there, so they are good players.
Leicester have surprised Wenger - but he admits they have been "absolutely efficient"
"I am convinced that all the teams today look at themselves and think 'how could that happen?', but when you win so many times 1-0 like Leicester have done, you see they have been absolutely efficient.
"It is true that technically many teams in the league are better, but many teams have had more problems. Leicester have had no injuries, many teams have had more competitions. Leicester went out of the FA Cup quite early, but you have to give them credit when everybody expected them to drop they didn't and when they had to turn up they did.
"It will be interesting psychologically to study Leicester because it's a very interesting case. There is a theory that says to go to the absolute utmost of your talent you need to suffer in life. When you look at the Leicester team, not one career of all these players was obvious, like starting on the red carpet at 18 years of age in the Champions League.
Wenger says N'Golo Kante and his Leicester team-mates have shown "top mental qualities"
"Many of the players have been rejected before… it is an interesting case. N'Golo Kante, nobody wanted him in France for a while. That is a good explanation for his character.
"These players had a dream that was not easy to obtain, but when they are in a position to reach it, they are ready for the fight. The lesson of the season is Leicester. Maybe they are not the most prestigious in quality of the passing, but they found a way to be efficient and have shown mental qualities that are absolutely top."
SHREEVES: Are you saying Leicester were hungrier than anyone else, a criticism of your team and everybody else's teams?
WENGER: "That is the difficulty of being honest in the media today. As soon as you come up with a quality it shows that you don't have that quality. They were hungry and efficient. My team is hungry also, but we have to deal with many problems and many competitions as well.
"When you play on Wednesday in Barcelona and then Saturday morning, you go to Crystal Palace or Everton, it changes things. Next year, I predict that Leicester will have more problems.
Wenger has urged the club's fans to come and support the team Wenger has urged the club's fans to come and support the team
"They have found a good balance, hungry players who have not had obvious careers. We are accused the most, but we beat them twice. So we should be less accused than others for not having beaten them.
"They go to Man City, Tottenham, Man United, Liverpool and have only lost three games. At the end of the day, you have to say well done. Sport is about performance and when the team performs, you have to be big enough and say well done and respect it and respect Claudio Ranieri for what he has done."
On Leicester's style of play, having the least possession and passing accuracy…
WENGER: "You cannot last like that. If they win a title like that, you have to say well done and respect. But in the Champions League, if they don't touch the ball, it will be difficult on Saturday. When you run after the ball on Wednesday against Barcelona and then turn up on Saturday away from home, it becomes more difficult.
"They will have to adapt, but I am not intelligent enough to see what will happen to them. I am just big enough to say well done to them."
Wenger believes injuries hampered Arsenal this term
SHREEVES: What did for you and your team was the run of results in March?
WENGER: "There were two turning games - Man United and Swansea. At the end of the day, we had many injuries and it was the first time where we could not do a lot about it.
"We didn't have Welbeck, Wilshere, Cazorla, all traumatic injuries, not muscular. The positive thing is we discovered players like Elneny and Iwobi. But we were not clinical enough.
"The quality of our game collectively for most of the season was good and in March and April, but we didn't get the points we needed and we were in a position where we had to win every game so it makes it more difficult.
"Then the coincidence of fixtures. Now we play Sunderland, and we could have played a Sunderland on holiday with nothing to go for, in March and April that has a big influence. I have seen games recently where teams didn't turn up. That has changed a bit in the Premier League as well."
Arsenal suffered a shock home defeat to Swansea in March
SHREEVES: In the Premier League, is the game in terms of effective football, changing?
WENGER: "Yes. The physical levels of teams has gone up and tactical knowledge of defending has gone up. Players who do not contribute to team work are kicked out everywhere.
"Then you go two ways: you say 'look that doesn't work any more so we have to change our style, and I wish you good luck when you kick the ball anywhere after people have seen good football for 10-15 years', or you say 'we have analysed well where we are not efficient enough and we do better with the style we play'.
"We have to go that way. Our passing has to be quicker, our movement has to be sharper and our efficiency in the final third has to be better. We don't have anybody with 20 goals in the league, so that is a handicap."
SHREEVES: Have you ever known a more downbeat atmosphere at the Emirates than against West Brom?
WENGER: "You want your fans to be enthusiastic, and we are not playing to avoid relegation. Ideally, you want fans to be happy and I think they can be very proud of a lot at this club. We want them to be behind the team, to be proud of the club and the values and consistent achievement of the club. It is not enough and we can understand that, but that doesn't stop us from performing. The top level of sport is to master all situations."
Former Arsenal striker Thierry Henry admits the fans are unhappy with the club but it's vital they keep coming to the matches and supporting the team Former Arsenal striker Thierry Henry admits the fans are unhappy with the club but it's vital they keep coming to the matches and supporting the team
SHREEVES: What about the challenge of facing Sunderland?
WENGER: "I think Sam Allardyce has found a settled team that he plays in every game and he has made a decision that it's them or nothing. He knows his team, they know how to behave. The psychological impact of going down or not motivates the players and puts more pressure on this game - on us and them.
"Both teams are under pressure so the intensity is huge and the psychological impact of the result is huge. Both teams have to deal with that. We expect a very intense game, fighting for survival, players are more ready to give everything.
"I watched them recently, they played good football, they have a good midfield and good variety and Jermain Defoe can score goals form nothing."Quests are a new type of card that was introduced with the release of the Journey to Un’Goro. Once they are in play, a certain number of cards that meet the quest's requirements must be played in order to receive the quest's generally “overpowered” reward card. Not all of the quests are easy to complete. For some quests players have struggled to find ways to incorporate them into decks that achieve consistently high winrates. To find out how these quest cards are performing, we decided to take a deep dive into the data and examine how the quest cards performed during the 7 day period from April 15th to April 22nd.
The Caverns Below (Rogue):
Game Mode In Rogue Decks Winrate Standard (Total) 60% 50% Standard (Legend) 50% 51% Wild (Total) 43% 53%
This is probably the most controversial card among the top tier quests. Many players hate it, or more specifically, hate losing against it. And understandably so. When the opposing rogue has good draws it can quickly become almost impossible to win.
The Caverns Below is at its best when completed as early as possible, winning about 66% of the time when completed before turn 6. If not completed by turn 7, winrates drastically drop below 50%. To see exactly how hard it is to win when the quest is completed early, and how dramatically winrates drop after turn 7, check out our new Quest Completion Statistics.
This quest is also one of only two quests which perform well at Legend. It took a while for this card to find its footing, but it appears to have now stabilized above the 50% winrate mark at Legend one week after the release of the expansion.
Winrate at ranks Legend through 5 from 06-04-2017 to 23-04-2017
One of the currently best performing quest decks runs two copies of Vanish. In addition to being useful for initially completing the quest, Vanish also synergizes with the 5 charge minions commonly run to provide a high amount of burst after the quest has been completed. For all Quest Rogue variants check out our deck page.
Fire Plume's Heart (Warrior):
Game Mode In Warrior Decks Winrate Standard (Total) 59% 54% Standard (Legend) 50% 51% Wild (Total) 27% 52%
This is the second of the two current top tier quests of the expansion. Completing this quest has a throughout positive winrate of 55% or more, peaking at 63-65% between turns 9 and 11. Our new Quest Completion Statistics show that even at Legend this quest is getting completed almost 40% of the time by turn 11.
Fire Plume's Heart is very similar in winrate and popularity to The Caverns Below and also similarly stress inducing to play against once the quest is completed. The random high damage of the opponent's new hero power creates an extraordinary amount of pressure. If you can't quickly find lethal, then you better have a zoo of small minions on board to keep absorbing those 8 damage blasts.
One interesting side effect of replacing the warriors hero power is that they are no longer able to gain armor, which can make them vulnerable to burn decks like Freeze Mage. In order to work around that, one deck that has been recently rising in popularity runs two copies of Armorsmith and Shield Block to provide alternative sources of armor gain. For all Quest Warrior variants check out our deck page.
Open the Waygate (Mage):
Game Mode In Mage Decks Winrate Standard (Total) 20% 40% Standard (Legend) 9% 39% Wild (Total) 18% 44%
While this is the first of the mid to low tier quests in terms of winrate, it still sees a lot of play and offers a truly unique reward when it is completed.
It is mostly (35% of games) completed between turns 9 and 13, which results in a winrate that rises from 54% all the way to 63% by turn 13. The quest is at peak potency when it is completed between turns 11 and 15 where it has a winrate consistently over 60%. For more details check out the Quest Completion Statistics.
Open the Waygate is most commonly played in the “Exodia” deck, which uses Sorcerer's Apprentice in combination with Molten Reflection and Archmage Antonidas to create an infinite chain of Fireballs. For all Quest Mage variants check out our deck page. To see infinite Fireballs in action, check out this incredible replay.
Awaken the Makers (Priest):
Game Mode In Priest Decks Winrate Standard (Total) 16% 44% Standard (Legend) 10% 40% Wild (Total) 42% 52%
This was the first of the quests we got teased with during the Un’Goro card reveals. While this is just another mid tier quest in Standard, it actually performs quite well in Wild with the help of many powerful wild-only deathrattle cards such as Dark Cultist, Piloted Shredder, Sludge Belcher, the recently rotated Sylvanas Windrunner, as well as our old friend Dr. Boom. When combined with Reno Jackson, completing this quest really will lead you to the secret spring of eternal life.
Awaken the Makers is mostly completed between turns 7 and 11, resulting in similarly high winrates for both Standard and Wild: 65% after turn 9 and over 70% even later on. As usual, all the details can be found on the Quest Completion Statistics.
One of the more successful decks in Standard is running Lyra the Sunshard, Moat Lurker and Silence. Silencing the Moat Lurker while Lyra is on the board has double synergy as it both draws you a card and makes the Moat Lurker's destroyed minion permanent. For all Quest Priest variants check out our decks page.
Unite the Murlocs (Shaman):
Game Mode In Shaman Decks Winrate Standard (Total) 13% 49% Standard (Legend) 5% 40% Wild (Total) 17% 57%
For being one of the less popular quests, this quest performs very well if you are not playing at Legend. To have the highest chance of winning with a Unite the Murlocs deck, you need to complete it before turn 9, which players succeed at about 35% of the time. After that, the winrates start looking grim. That does not mean you automatically lose on turn 9 but it gets a lot tougher. The Quest Completion Statistics reveal that by turn 11, the card's winrate is barely holding on above 35%.
Jungle Giants (Druid):
Game Mode In Druid Decks Winrate Standard (Total) 8% 40% Standard (Legend) 2% 31% Wild (Total) 9% 44%
If you get this quest done before turn 8, then you are in pretty good shape with a 63% winrate (70% on turn 6), however, that only happens in about 10% of games. The Quest Completion Statistics show that after turn 9 things start going south.
One of the more successful decks in Standard runs Deathwing, Kun the Forgotten King and Genzo, the Shark for reload. For all Quest Druid variants check out our deck page.
Ragnaros the Firelord, Sylvanas Windrunner and Dr. Boom help this deck out in wild, but generally it doesn’t perform significantly better.
Lakkari Sacrifice (Warlock):
Game Mode In Warlock Decks Winrate Standard (Total) 8% 37% Standard (Legend) 13% 30% Wild (Total) 5% 46%
As a Discard Warlock enthusiast myself, I crafted this card day 1. Great. Idea. While having infinite imps spawning can be pretty cool when it works out, most of the time it just doesn’t. The Quest Completion statistics show that this quest only has a positive winrate if completed before turn 7, which happens in only 7% of games. It turns out that discarding 6 cards while trying not to die really is quite difficult!
If you nevertheless want to play this quest, try giving this deck with Devilsaur Egg and Ravenous Pterrordax a shot, and stay tuned to the quest's deck page to find out when intrepid adventurers figure out the secret to making it rain imps.
Lakkari Sacrifice does perform slightly better in wild. Perhaps that is due to the addition of Dark Bargain which can swing the board when the pressure starts getting out of control.
The Last Kaleidosaur (Paladin):
Game Mode In Paladin Decks Winrate Standard (Total) 2% 35% Standard (Legend) 0.5% 27% Wild (Total) 4% 42%
Let’s just say that Galvadon really is the most mythical creature in Un'Goro creator. You are not very likely to encounter this rare and elusive dinosaur in the current meta. The Quest Completion Statistics show that when it is played, The Last Kaleidosaur is only completed about 25% of the time. And even when the quest is completed, the winrate for the card remained below 50% no matter what turn it is completed by.
If you want to try and make this Quest work regardless, try using this deck as a starting point. It runs the The Voraxx and Spikeridged Steed combo. If you can pull it off, that's 12 / 28 in stats across 4 taunt bodies for 10 mana. For other Quest Paladin variants you can check out our deck page.
The Marsh Queen (Hunter):
Game Mode In Hunter Decks Winrate Standard (Total) 3% 39% Standard (Legend) 0.5% 26% Wild (Total) 7% 42%
And finally, we come to what was one of the most controversial Quests before the release, and is now one of the two least played quests with the single worst winrate of the quest cards at Legend rank.
Completing it before turn 9 (which works out 38% of games) at least nets you a >40% winrate. Yup. That’s the most positive sounding data we've got for you. Check out the Quest Completion Statistics if you want all the gory details. Let's hope that Queen Carnassas as well as Galvadon are not winning games because they're actually off with Ben Brode secretly plotting the card synergies in the next card set, so that they can begin their reign of terror right when we all get complacent and think we've got these quest mechanics well understood.
Conclusion
Most Quests, aside from the two top-tier ones, still have a reasonable winrate at 40% or higher. This does not make them the core of powerhouse decks, but it also does not make them unplayable either. It took almost two months after the release of Mean Streets for the meta to realize the full power of Finja, the Flying Star, so we still may have some more powerful quest decks just waiting to be discovered. If you enjoy the concept of a certain Quest, you will most likely be able to find a playable deck - even if you won’t necessarily be able to climb to legend with it.
Finally, most Quests also seem to be performing quite a bit better in Wild, so if you are having trouble finding a deck that works in Standard then give Wild a shot!Michael Keaton, who was earlier in talks to play a prominent role in Marvel Cinematic Universe's (MCU) upcoming instalment "Spider-Man: Homecoming," has been confirmed to portray one of the most popular villains from Spider-Man stories, The Vulture.
According to Deadline, Keaton has been cast as the iconic character along with Tom Holland and Marisa Tomei, who will reprise their roles of Peter Parker/Spider-Man and Aunt May respectively. Robert Downey Jr. is also confirmed to appear as Tony Stark/Iron Man from the previous movies.
The Vulture first appeared in Amazing Spider-Man #2 comic book in 1963. Created by dynamic duo of Stan Lee and Steve Ditko, The Vulture's alter ego is an inventor named Adrian Toomes who created flight harness that enhanced his strength and gave him a longer lifespan.
Toomes decided to take a villainous path when he was robbed by his business partner, which left him with nothing. Enraged, he turned to a life of crime out of revenge and frustration.
As reported by JoBlo, The Vulture will be the central antagonist in the movie. However, the website has stated that he might be joined by Tinkerer, who will help in building The Vulture's suit by leftover tech from the Chitauri invasion as shown in MCU's "The Avengers" (2012).
Several reports also suggest that Tony Stark will mentor the young Peter Parker and will provide him with advanced technology upgrades for his suit, which was shown briefly in "Captain America: Civil War." One of these techs will include the iconic web wings from the original comic books that Spidey will be able to deploy when needed.
Keaton has appeared in superhero movies previously too as he donned the cape of Batman in Tim Burton's "Batman" (1989) and "Batman Returns" (1992). He earned acclaim for his dramatic portrayal of Bruce Wayne/Batman in the movie. Hence, Spidey fans are eagerly looking forward to see him play the iconic villain in "Spider-Man: Homecoming" scheduled to release on July 7, 2017.Anabelle Harari is the Boston-based blogger behind Local Belle, a recipe and lifestyle site dedicated to the enjoyment of fresh, seasonal, and (of course) local food. Here, she shares 15 ways anyone can make 2015 a more sustainable year.
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Illustration: Maria Schoettler (For a larger version, click here.)
1. Eat less meat. Try out Meatless Monday or cut out meat on the weekends. By starting small, you’re making a huge impact on the planet, as animal farming is the largest contributor to greenhouse gases. There are plenty of delicious vegetarian options out there, which will get you more creative in the kitchen!
2. Buy local. Try shopping at your local farmer’s market or sign up for a Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) share with a local farm. Buying local food ensures that your local farmer stays in business, promotes plant diversity, and is the freshest possible option.
3. Buy organic. If you have the means, always choose organic! By doing so, you’re not paying into a system that mistreats the planet with harsh chemicals. If you’re strapped for cash, stick to the clean 15 and avoid the dirty dozen. These are the fruits and veggies that experts believe to be most worth the extra money for organic based on pesticide use.
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Your local farmer’s market is a great place to start eating sustainably. Anthony Masterson Photography/StockFoodThe Freelance Life: Blessing or Curse?
Labor lawyer Sara Horowitz describes freelancing as a way to break free from the authoritarian workplace. But freelancing is not always a choice. (Freelancers Union / Flickr)
The setting for labor lawyer Sara Horowitz’s recent author talk in Chicago was itself a fantastic advertisement for the freelancing lifestyle. The November 14 event promoting Horowitz's new book, The Freelancer’s Bible, was held in Enerspace, a cheery, hip, communal workspace in the West Loop where freelancers such as graphic designers and writers pay to use sleek, colorful cubicles while enjoying a sense of camaraderie.
Horowitz, recipient of a MacArthur Foundation “Genius” grant and one of the founders of the New York-based Freelancers Union, made freelancing sound enjoyable indeed—a way to break free of the fetters of an authoritarian workplace, set one’s own schedule, build alliances with like-minded people and ultimately, to pursue one’s dreams. She touted a complete re-imagining of work and the workplace, where freelancers use their ingenuity to shape their careers and build horizontal (rather than vertical) networks with friends in the same industries who can share resources and cooperatively buy supplies, “outsourcing” work to each other in boom times and pulling together in lean times. She described freelancer friends whose flexible schedules lefe them free to learn a new skill or dedicate time in their day to family.
Horowitz estimates that 1 in 3 Americans now qualify as freelancers, a total of 42 million people. In her Chicago talk, she argued that, thanks to a “tidal wave of change” in the workforce, having a regular job no longer ensures security or longevity. While “being a freelancer used to just mean you’re unemployed,” she said, now “people are just saying I’ll make an affirmative choice to live” as a freelancer.
Freelancers in the audience included chefs, artists, graphic designers, writers, translators, lawyers and instructors, and they all seemed to be converts to Horowitz's vision. A freelancer myself, I, too, appreciated her message, and I have great admiration for what she and the Freelancers Union have accomplished. Since its founding in the 1990s, the union has created and facilitated myriad resources for all kinds of freelancers, including insurance plans, a client rating system, discount offers and networking opportunities. The group, with almost 200,000 members, also does political lobbying on tax code and other issues that impact freelancers.
But during the presentation I couldn’t help but feel that in celebrating the freelance life, Horowitz was making lemonade out of lemons. That can be a helpful process, but attention must also be paid to the highly disturbing and often unjust systemic circumstances that force so many people to become freelancers, like it or not.
The hemorrhaging of staff jobs and the shift to largely freelance-produced work in the journalism and publishing worlds are well-known. Meanwhile, jobs such as graphic design, computer programming, translation and web design have also long been heavily reliant on freelancers, due to the project-based nature of the work. But more and more jobs that wouldn’t have traditionally been thought of as “freelance” are being contracted out: restaurant work, accounting, teaching, personal training, sewing. Even temporary manual laborers hired through staffing agencies, such as workers at warehouses or construction sites, are essentially freelancers.
Countless sectors of our economy have shifted from a direct, full-time employment model to one that relies on contractors or freelancers. And the motivation for that shift is rarely to allow workers more flexibility and control, but rather to relieve employers of costly obligations like providing health insurance, paid sick and vacation days, and making long-term commitments to employees. And of course, relying on freelancers or contractors usually frees an employer from dealing with traditional unions and collective bargaining rights.
During her talk Horowitz noted that the idea of working eight hours a day or 40 hours a week was not some moral commandment from on high. Her implication seemed to be that it’s “okay” to work fewer hours, which few people would dispute. But the eight-hour-day as opposed to a 12- or 14-hour day was of course a right for which workers fought hard—even losing their lives—more than a century ago. And the “freedom” to work less than eight hours a day because you are your own boss might make a return to situations where people will work much more than eight hours a day more likely, since that’s what it takes to make a living.
Depending on the industry, the explosion of freelance work also raises the specter of unregulated, cut-throat competition, where someone is almost always willing to do a job for less, allowing employers to ultimately profit by driving labor costs steadily down.
Horowitz described collegial atmospheres where freelancers in the same industry help each other out, sharing clients, ideas, materials and work spaces. That is the ideal situation and of course a common one. And there are countless inspiring examples of workers centers, domestic workers cooperatives, cab driver or bike messenger groups and professional organizations where people without actual collective bargaining rights do band together to agree upon certain wages and working conditions that they will all demand from employers. But these agreements are rarely actually enforceable when push comes to shove and a skilled competitor is willing to work for less.
There’s a reason that in decades past people often resorted to violence, intimidation and social isolation to enforce picket lines and punish scabs. Especially when economic times are desperate, feelings of camaraderie and solidarity are often not enough to protect wages and benefits. That’s why unions struggled in years past to enshrine collective bargaining rights backed by law. Though situations may play out differently, such dynamics are probably as true in “white collar” work like computer programming, adjunct college teaching or copyediting as in manufacturing or stevedoring.
Horowitz invoked labor history and traditional unions several times during her Chicago talk, but framed the concepts as things we are moving away from, rather than as legacies and structures that are still relevant and important to support in the modern era.
The idea of designing apps for smart phones could at first glance epitomize the exciting modern world of freelance opportunities. It’s a way for creative, smart, energetic people with high tech skills to market their creations with few up-front costs or barriers to entry. App designers can work at home on their own schedules, and increase the odds of success by leveraging their social and digital networks and plain old hustling.
But in just one example of how hard the freelance life can be, The New York Times recently profiled two freelance app designers who sacrificed nearly all their savings and other employment opportunities in hopes of making a living designing and marketing profitable apps. The story describes Shawn and Stephanie Grimes selling most of their belongings, cashing in their 401k and renting out their home to finance their long, largely unpaid hours designing apps for Apple products. Though the article implies the Grimes are good at what they do, they made less than $5,000 a year.
The efforts of such hopeful freelancers play an unquantifiable but clearly important role in helping to keep iPhones and iPads popular and trendy, boosting the brand and value of these products while Apple needs to offer very little in return. The Times noted that “despite the rumors of hordes of hip programmers starting million-dollar businesses from their kitchen tables, only a small minority of developers actually make a living by creating their own apps, according to surveys and experts.”
The Grimes tried their hands at apps after Shawn was laid off from another employer, and he bore Apple no ill well, telling the Times: “People used to expect companies to take care of them…Now you’re in charge of your own destiny, for better or worse.”
There is technically a difference between people starting their own businesses and true freelancers who work on contracts for various clients, but it often equates to essentially the same system, in which established companies or employers have their pick of independent strivers who expect and demand only to be paid for each individual job they do, with no single employer ultimately responsible for making sure that they are able to actually make a decent living and continue providing the services they do.
I have been managing—knock on wood—this type of existence and enjoy it, as do Horowitz and countless other freelancers. I offer this post not to criticize her enthusiasm or downplay the importance of the Freelancers Union, which is needed now more than ever given current economic shifts. But I hope that in our willingness to make the best of the current situation, we do not forget the bigger picture, the power dynamics involved or the lessons of labor history.Washington (CNN) The man charged with the killing of three members of a prominent Washington, D.C. family and their housekeeper did not act alone, prosecutors said they believe.
Earlier reports identified the suspect as Daron Dylon Wint, but newly obtained court documents show that this was just one of several aliases that he apparently used; his legal name is Darron Dellon Dennis Wint.
Prosecutors alleged that Wint did not pull off the slayings and arson on his own.
The crime "required the presence and assistance of more than one person," according to the criminal complaint.
Court documents reveal that the incident began sometime after 6 p.m. on May 13, and continued through the afternoon of the next day. The fire at the mansion was reported at 1:24 p.m. on May 14, but the victims had been held against their will since the previous day.
Wint's attorney questioned the evidence, but the judge went forward with the charges and ordered Wint to remain imprisoned without bond.
As of Friday, no one else had been charged in connection to the killings.
D.C. Police Chief Cathy Lanier said, "it's pretty obvious that there was coordination" in the crime, but cautioned that it remains unclear what form that help took.
Lanier told CNN: "Whether there was someone else that actually took part in the kidnapping and the murder, it's going to take time to get this evidence together, and we just don't want to jump to conclusions or draw conclusions too soon."
While five others who were arrested along with Wint had been questioned and released, investigators are interviewing others, the chief said.
A grisly discovery
The arrest came a week after the grisly discovery of the bodies of Savvas and Amy Savopoulos, and their son, Philip.
The fourth victim, housekeeper Veralicia Figueroa, was found alive at the home and taken to the hospital, where she died.
A day after they "barely missed" catching him in New York, Cmdr. Robert Fernandez of the U.S. Marshals Service said, authorities spotted Wint, 34, leaving a Howard Johnson hotel in College Park, Maryland.
They tracked, surrounded and stopped Wint, who was riding in the back of a Chevrolet Cruze, and they also stopped a small moving truck that had been traveling alongside in northeast Washington.
Officers found $10,000 in cash during the arrest, according to the criminal complaint
Three women were with Wint in the car, and two men were in the moving truck, including Wint's brother.
Though questions remain, the victims' families breathed a little easier knowing that a suspect is in custody.
"While it does not abate our pain, we hope that it begins to restore a sense of calm and security to our neighborhood and to our city," the Savopoulos family said in a statement.
Signs of trouble before the fire
The fire in the $4.5 million home in one of Washington's toniest neighborhoods, not far from the home of Vice President Joe Biden, was a story in itself.
But soon it became evident that the blaze wasn't the full story.
The victims were bound with duct tape, and they suffered from blunt-force trauma, according to a source familiar with the investigation. There were signs that Philip, the 10-year-old son, had been stabbed and tortured, according to the source.
According to court documents released Friday, the boy's body was found in a bedroom on the second floor, which sustained heavy fire damage. The body was on the charred remains of a queen-sized bed, the documents state. The fire consumed a majority of the bed frame.
Figueroa's husband, Bernardo Alfaro, raised the prospect that the victims' torment started a day earlier, telling CNN affiliate WJLA-TV that his wife didn't come home the night of May 13.
Alfaro knocked on the mansion's door the next morning, noting that family's blue Porsche was parked on the street. He knew something was wrong, according to WJLA. He suddenly got a phone call from Savopoulos telling him that Figueroa was at a hospital with Amy Savopoulos, who wasn't feeling well.
"I started thinking, 'Why? She doesn't drive. She doesn't speak very good English,' " Alfaro said.
A second housekeeper, Nelitza Gutierrez, also received a text message from Amy Savopoulos hours before the fire began, telling her to stay home. It came a day after Gutierrez got a voice mail message from Savvas Savopoulos telling her not to come the following day because his wife was sick.
"Sometimes you never understand why something happens, but I'm lucky I'm still here," Gutierrez told CNN's Joe Johns.
Source: 'Whoever was in the house was looking for money'
What really happened is largely a mystery. The motive for the killings has not been divulged, but investigators are considering that money may have been a prime factor.
"Whoever was in the house was looking for money," said the source familiar with the investigation.
According to the court documents, as the episode unfolded inside, one of Savopoulos' employees came to the home and dropped off $40,000.
Wint and other suspects made off with the money, the documents state.
The money had been earmarked for a martial arts studio that Savvas Savopoulos was opening up in Chantilly, Virginia. Savopoulos was a martial arts enthusiast, according to online posts, and Wint once worked for American Iron Works.
Savvas Savopoulos was the CEO and president of American Iron Works, a building materials manufacturer based in Hyattsville, Maryland.
DNA on pizza crust
Investigators identified Wint as a suspect in an unusual way.
On the night of May 13, a Domino's deliveryman brought two pizzas to the Washington home while the family members and their housekeeper were being held inside against their will, according to the criminal complaint.
The pizza boxes were found in the same place where three of the victims were located.
The pizza was ordered by a woman -- believed to be Amy Savopoulos -- and paid for with her credit card, according to the court documents.
The pizza order included instructions for the pizza to be left at the door because the woman who ordered it claimed she was nursing a sick child and couldn't come to the door, the documents state.
The delivery man placed the pizzas on the front porch, rang the door bell, and left.
Investigators said they traced Wint to the scene after finding his DNA on pizza crust.
Ex-lawyer calls Wint 'kind, gentle, nonaggressive'
An attorney who represented Wint in six earlier cases -- none of which, he says, ended in guilty verdicts -- said he believes authorities have "the wrong guy."
Even if his DNA was found on pizza crust, it doesn't mean Wint went inside the Savopoulos mansion, much less bound and killed anyone, attorney Robin Ficker told CNN's "New Day."
A video released by Washington police of a man outside the mansion didn't show any identifying facial features, the attorney said.
"I know him to be a kind, gentle, nonaggressive person; (he is) someone you wouldn't mind your grandmother going to lunch with," the Maryland lawyer said. "... It's a rush to judgment. There's a presumption of innocence, which is not being mentioned by police."
According to court records, Wint has faced multiple charges over the years, including theft, assault and a sexual offense. He was cleared of some of them, but he has three assault convictions in New York.
He attended Marine Corps recruit training in 2001 but left before completing the camp. It was not clear why.
A neighbor of Wint's parents expressed sympathy for them.
"I feel very sad for them, for the pain they're going through, which is not their fault," Devera Zianal said. "Whatever happened, if he is guilty, he had choices. I know he was not raised this way."Something wasn’t right.
My normally close teenage son was checking out, snapping at me, being unhelpful and bordering on being a little “mean”. Miro was clearly agitated and despondent, a state I was not accustomed to witnessing. But I recognized that his frustration and behavior were certainly a symptom of something else. But first, we had to get there, through the behavior to uncover what was really |
room containing dozens of displayed floral arrangements with more stacked almost to the ceiling offering a powerful scent of lilies in the air. Lines of people formed outside of the doors and into the parking lot as they flowed in to see Mr. Rizzuto for the last time.
“Photo’s from Vito Rizzuto wake courtesy of Canadian Press/Graham Hughes”
The Sunday visitation was also a busy time for law enforcement as they gathered outside watching closely as the mourners poured in. Many mafia experts expected many top mob leaders from area’s like Hamilton, Toronto, New York, and possibly even Sicily to show up and pay respect to former mob chief. Both Mafia leaders and police will be keeping a close eye on the wake and funeral watching for any signs of a new emerging power figure. Not everyone attending the funeral will have tears in their eyes and some people will be glad he is gone as they feared they could of also been on Vito’s revenge list as he waged war against those he held responsible for deaths of his father and son.
It is still unclear if a successor was named by Vito before he passed away. Mafia experts have noted the lack of another dominate force with in the Montreal underworld with the same charisma and deep rooted connections like Vito Rizzuto possessed. Also if he did name someone to take the reigns of the Montreal Mafia can this new boss maintain control and keep thing from unraveling into a bloody power struggle. The Sicilian based Rizzuto crime family has controlled the Montreal Mafia for over 30 years now after winning a war between the Sicilian and Calabrian factions in the 1970’s led by Nicolo Rizzuto. Perhaps now the Calabrian factions see an opening with the Rizzuto family era coming to an end to shift power back to their side. Only time will tell as we wait to see how things shake out in the Montreal underworld.
“Vito Rizzuto carried out”
“Vito Rizzuto funeral procession”Many years ago the Chamber of Commerce organized a visit to Chattanooga to see if there was anything Gainesville might learn from the Choo-choo city.
We learned that Chattanooga used to have a really bad smog problem, but fixed it. We learned that the city wanted electric buses — and built them locally because electric buses weren't really a thing yet.
Interesting, but I can't say we learned a lot that we could bring home and unpack for local consumption.
Still, maybe a return visit is in order. Because Chattanooga has been in the news a lot lately.
"Chattanooga... may not be the first place that springs to mind when it comes to cutting-edge technology," CNN Money reported recently. "But thanks to its ultra-high-speed Internet, the city has established itself as a center for innovation... and an encouraging example for those frustrated with slow speeds and high costs from private broadband providers."
And then there's this from The Tennessean, "A pioneer in municipal broadband, Chattanooga developed its fiber network in 2010 with $330 million, paid for with $105 million in federal funds and the rest from bonds. The high-speed access led to direct and indirect economic gains and has been profitable.
"In the past three years," the Tennessean continued, "the city’s unemployment rate has dropped to 4.1 percent from 7.8 percent... and 10-gigabit speed internet has fueled wage growth..."
Chattanooga got tired of waiting for the private sector to connect it to the rest of the world.
All of which raises interesting questions.
In the absence of fast, reliable and affordable broadband access, should a city simply wait for the private sector to hook it up? Or should it declare that — like education, infrastructure, public safety and sanitation — insuring access for all ought to be a basic function of government?
Chattanooga went with broadband access as a basic public service.
Meanwhile, back in Gainesville.
Home of the University of Florida.
Self-styled Innovation City.
Would-be spawner of cutting edge start-ups.
We're still pretty much a sleepy way stop on the High Speed Highway.
"If you compare cost of getting broadband, we are the most expensive city in Florida with a population above 100,000," says Brian Eastman, co-founder of Gainesville Connect, a group that wants to prod the city and county into confronting the community's broadband deficit.
"We pay about $450 more per year than people in Tampa, and we don't have great connection. Even a mile outside city limits, you can't get high speed internet."
Why? One explanation is that Gainesville is captive to a broadband monopoly.
"There is only one company in Gainesville that serves the whole city, and that's Cox," Eastman continued. "As the internet becomes more a part of our daily lives, more data gets used. We're going to need to keep up if we want to be a 21st century city competing with the rest of the world."
GRU has laid about 650 miles of fiber optic cable in and around the city. So should city-owned GRUCom be the broadband monopoly buster?
Not necessarily, says Gainesville City Commissioner Adrian Hayes-Santos.
"We need a study to look at possible solutions to the access problems we have in our community," he says. "Were paying high prices. Accessibility is limited for low income citizens. We need the city and county to define the problem and come up with solutions."
In fact there are lots of examples of cities that have been able to foster competition without getting into the business themselves. Nashville, for instance, makes its public wired infrastructure available to private providers to save them the considerable cost of digging and installing their own.
Champaign-Urbana teamed with the University of Illinois to extend broadband service into low income neighborhoods in a process that began with the formation of a Broadband Access Committee.
Which is really all that Connected Gainesville is asking for right now.
"This is the beginning of a conversation that we need to have with Cox, GRU, UF, the city of Gainesville and others," Eastman says. "We're going to have to talk with one another to find where we go from here."
Time to play broadband catch-up, Gainesville.
— Ron Cunningham is former editorial page editor of The Sun.MA: Supreme Judicial Court Backtracks on Alimony Reform Act
April 14, 2015
By Robert Franklin, Esq., Member of the Board of Directors, National Parents Organization
The Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts has issued three decisions in alimony cases that substantially alter the apparent intention of the Alimony Reform Act. Steve Hitner, now of the National Parents Organization, was a prime mover behind passage of the Act. The Alimony Reform Act passed the state legislature unanimously.
Prior to the ARA’s passage, Bay State courts routinely ordered permanent alimony that was difficult to modify even if the payer retired or underwent some other change in circumstances. Additional problems arose when the payee’s financial circumstances improved as when she began cohabitating with another partner. That system was an artifact of a time in which fewer women worked for a living, so the law protected their well-being post-divorce. By passing the ARA, the legislature recognized that the circumstances that gave rise to the previous law mostly no longer obtain.
The plain intention of the legislature was to limit alimony payments in duration and to make downward modifications easier and in some cases, mandatory. Despite that plain intent, courts in the state have struggled to apply the new law.
In January, the SJC issued three decisions interpreting the ARA, Doktor vs. Doktor, Rodman vs. Rodman and Chin vs. Merriot. The major bone of contention is whether alimony payers may seek a modification of their orders if those orders were in effect prior to the effective date of the Alimony Reform Act, March 1, 2012. The wording of the law applicable to the Doktor case is this:
[A]ny payor who has reached full retirement age, as defined in section 48 of chapter 208 of the General Laws, or who will reach full retirement age on or before March 1, 2015 may file a complaint for modification on or after March 1, 2013."
And this:
"[G]eneral term alimony orders shall terminate upon a payor reaching full retirement age."
Joe Doktor had reached full retirement age and so sought to modify his alimony obligation to his ex-wife. According to the plain terms of the new law, he was entitled to request a modification and the court was required to terminate his obligation. But he lost at the trial court and before the SJC. How is that possible given that the legislature’s vote on the bill was unanimous and that Doktor unquestionably fell under the plain wording of the statute?
Here is how attorney Robin Lynch Nardone described the SJC’s ruling:
The SJC... held that the legislature intended the retirement provision to have prospective application only and thus the retirement provisions are not applicable to Joe's request for modification... the SJC looked to the uncodified provisions of the alimony reform act. Section 4 of the uncodified provisions of the Alimony Reform Act provides that Section 49 of M.G.L. c. 208 "shall apply prospectively, such that alimony judgments entered before March 1, 2012 shall terminate only under such judgments, under a subsequent modification or as otherwise provided for in this act."... Section 4(b) provides the only exception, which is that alimony judgments that exceed the durational limits shall be modified without any additional material change of circumstances. Section 5 of the uncodified law provides the dates when alimony payors may file their modification actions if the durational limits have been exceeded. Section 6 then provides, "Notwithstanding clauses (1) to (4) of section 5 of this act, any payor who has reached full retirement age, as defined in section 48 of chapter 208 of the General Laws, or who will reach full retirement age on or before March 1, 2015 may file a complaint for modification on or after March 1, 2013." The SJC ruled that sections 4, 5 and 6 must be read together, not separately. The words "any payor who has reached full retirement age" apply only to a payor who has reached the durational limit and also reached or will reach full retirement age. The determination that sections 4, 5, and 6 of the uncodified sections of the alimony reform act must be read together defeats the rights of any payor who was married longer than 20 years from obtaining a modification based solely upon reaching full retirement age.
In short, the courts of the state have arguably contradicted the plain language of the statute by importing into its effect non-statutory wording. As NPO’s Steve Hitner said of the decision, “’Shall’ no longer means ‘shall’.”
The rulings in Rodman and Chin are much the same as in Doktor, except that the Chin case adds cohabitation to retirement as a cause for modification of pre-existing alimony orders the legislature recognized but the courts don’t.Coming Soon
Cursed
In this fresh take on the Arthurian legend, teenager Nimue joins forces with mercenary Arthur on a quest to find Merlin and deliver an ancient sword.
Seis Manos (Working Title)
Three orphaned martial arts warriors join forces with a DEA agent and a Mexican Federale to avenge the death of their beloved mentor.
Empress
After escaping from her horrific husband, Queen Emporia and her kids must hide from his army at all costs -- even by teleporting to different planets.
The Irishman
Martin Scorsese's epic saga of organized crime in postwar America, as told by a mob hit man, stars Robert De Niro, Al Pacino and Joe Pesci.
Yankee
A young man from Texas crosses the border into Mexico and becomes an infamous drug lord.
7SEEDS
Natsu awakens to a post-apocalyptic world, only to learn that she’d been cryogenically frozen as part of a program to ensure the survival of humanity.
Paskal
Naval unit PASKAL is among the most elite special forces in Malaysia. But all bets are off when one of its own stages a hijacking. Based on true events.
Always Be My Maybe
Everyone assumed Sasha and Marcus would wind up together except for Sasha and Marcus. Reconnecting after 15 years, the two start to wonder... maybe?Joe Paterno's family is setting itself up for a tough job, downplaying the importance of emails that appear to show the former Pennsylvania State University football coach helped cover up allegations that Jerry Sandusky was sexually abusing a child. Over the weekend two representatives for Paterno's family took different tacks in defending the late coach against the allegation that he and other Penn State officials conspired to keep Sandusky's alleged conduct from police. The most recent comes from Paterno family spokesman Dan McGinn, who told USA Today's Melanie Eversley that the email leak that led to CNN's Friday story about the alleged cover-up was inappropriate and incomplete:
"Our message to everybody is slow down here," said spokesman Dan McGinn. He said the e-mails, which the school turned over to an investigation by former FBI director Louis Freeh, "are all on the record. Everything is going to come out. What's being done here is people are trying to leak something to try to pre-empt the Freeh Commission."
On Saturday, Paterno family lawyer Wick Sollers flatly denied Paterno was involved in any kind of cover-up, saying the late head coach couldn't have participated since he didn't use email. StateCollege.com has the full statement:
“Some number of email exchanges between former Penn State officials have apparently been leaked to the media. Since the Paterno family is not in possession of these emails, it would be inappropriate to comment on their supposed content. To be clear, the emails in question did not originate with Joe Paterno or go to him as he never personally utilized email. “From the beginning, Joe Paterno warned against a rush to judgment in this case. Coach Paterno testified truthfully, to the best of his recollection, in the one brief appearance he made before the Grand Jury. “As he testified, when informed of an incident involving Jerry Sandusky in 2001, Coach Paterno, followed University procedures and promptly and fully informed his superiors. He believed the matter would be thoroughly and professionally investigated and he did not interfere with or attempt to compromise any investigation.”
Of course, the suggestion that Paterno couldn't have been involved in the emails surrounding the cover-up fails to recognize the content of one message in particular, from athletic director Tim Curley to former university president Graham Spanier, saying he had decided on a course of action "after giving it more thought and talking it over with Joe [Paterno] yesterday." Still, as McGinn points out, we still only have a partial record of the men's exchange, and Paterno's not around to defend himself, so perhaps there's something in his advice to "slow down." Unfortunately that's just not how news reporting works.Ubuntu knows how much you love to shop, y'all
We’re starting to get a really good idea of what to expect in Ubuntu 17.10 — and it’s fair to say that the keyword thus far is “change”.
There’s a new default desktop in GNOME Shell, which replaces Unity 7, which in turn brings with a raft of changes, like a new notification system, a new online accounts hub, a new control centre, and so on.
We now know which theme Ubuntu 17.10 will use, and we we’ll shortly learn about which apps will come pre-installed. Plus, there are the results of the recent survey that we conducted on behalf of the Ubuntu Desktop to learn, which we’re told will be revealed shortly.
And today we learn that at least one app familiar to all Unity users WILL be sticking around in Ubuntu 17.10 — and I just know that you’ll be thrilled to hear¹ which…
The Amazon Web App in Ubuntu
The Ubuntu Amazon webapp — that lone holdover of Ubuntu’s former aspirations of integrated web app gloriousness — is staying put in 17.10.
First introduced in 12.04 LTS, Ubuntu’s Amazon web app is a small, pre-installed web bookmark that links to the Amazon website. In a fresh install it is pinned to the Unity launcher by default.
When you click on the Amazon web app launcher in Unity the Amazon website opens in the Ubuntu Touch webbrowser-app², with Canonical’s referral code pre-appended. Each time you buy something from Amazon using the Amazon web app Canonical get a tiny % of the sale price donated to them.
Does Anyone Actually Use It?
Quite honestly, I can’t imagine many people use it. I never quite saw the point of using the Ubuntu Touch browser to frame the app. It would’ve made more sense opening a new tab in my default browser.
Which, mercifully, is what the new version coming to Ubuntu 17.10 will do; Amazon will open in a new tab in your default web browser, and not in separate app altogether!
But better than that it’ll finally load a version of Amazon that matches your location! The first time you launch the Amazon web app on the GNOME desktop you’ll get a location detection prompt. If you deny this (as is your wont) the web app defaults to loading Amazon US.
A commit to the ubuntu-settings package for Ubuntu 17.10 reveals that the new web app is being carried under the package name ‘ubuntu-web-launcher’. This package adds the Amazon shortcut to GNOME Shell’s favourites bar by default.
If you’re super curious to try it ahead of 17.10 you can download the ubuntu-web-launchers package Launchpad and install it on 17.04.
I have to ask: does anyone actually use this shortcut/web link?
¹Sarcasm, obviously.
²Y’know the one; that pre-installed browser that you don’t use.For anyone that doesn’t support Ron Paul, and has ever tried to talk to his supporters, you’ve probably realized that they are unaware of all the things they are supporting by endorsing Ron Paul. Here’s a list of just 21 reasons someone might be a Ron Paul supporter. Feel free to add your own, in the comments on this article.
1. You’ve never researched Ron Paul’s voting record.
2. You think it’s OK for businesses to discriminate against people based on their race, since Ron Paul thinks the Civil Rights Act is unconstitutional.
3. You’re a supporter of the white supremacist organization StormFront.org, which has repeatedly endorsed and stated their support for Ron Paul.
4. You don’t care that Ron Paul was the ONLY congressman who voted against granting subpoena power to the independent panel responsible for investigating the BP oil spill.
5. You don’t like clean air and water, since Ron Paul wants to eliminate the EPA.
6. You don’t want to have a safety net in place, in case your house is destroyed by a tornado, hurricane, or some other natural disaster, since Ron Paul wants to eliminate FEMA.
7. You think all schools should be private, and that you should have to pay for your children to get an education, since Ron Paul wants to eliminate the Department of Education.
8. You think corporations should be allowed to do whatever they want, because Ron Paul wants to eliminate all regulations on corporations.
9. You are anti-choice, since Ron Paul believes that states should have the right to take away a woman’s choice over what she does with her body.
10. You support segregation, since Ron Paul doesn’t think schools should be forced to allow attendance based on race or ethnic background.
11. You support guns on airplanes, since Ron Paul thinks that 9/11 could have been prevented, if citizens were allowed to carry guns on airplanes.
12. You oppose equality for LGBT people, since Ron Paul doesn’t think the federal government should guarantee equal protection under the law for our LGBT brothers and sisters.
13. You don’t have a problem with people carrying guns near schools, since Ron Paul want to repeal the Gun-Free School Zones Act.
14. You oppose same-sex marriage, since Ron Paul was an original co-sponsor of the Marriage Protection Act in the House of Representatives, in 2004.
15. You don’t like having a good relationship with other countries around the world, since Ron Paul wants the United States to pull out of the United Nations.
16. You think the middle-class should have a higher tax burden than the wealthy, since Ron Paul’s tax plan would disproportionately favor the rich.
17. You want a President who would make more unilateral decisions and undo more progress in this country than George W. Bush could have ever hoped to accomplish.
18. You think that poor students shouldn’t be allowed to go to college, since Ron Paul wants to eliminate federal student loans.
19. You believe crazy conspiracy theories about globalization, and that the Zionists are trying to take over the world.
20. You think the 10th Amendment is the most important part of the Bill of Rights, even though it’s last on the list.
21. You’re mad at Obama because you believed him when he said he would end the war immediately, and he didn’t because he didn’t have the support of congress, but you believe Ron Paul could get it done immediately.
22. You think Ron Paul is leading a revolution, despite the fact that he hasn’t won a single primary.The horror of Sunday's terrorist attack in Orlando at a gay nightclub has sent shockwaves throughout the LGBT community and forced many to change their support from Hillary Clinton to Donald Trump.
On Reddit, a gay man who lost a friend in the terror attack at Pulse said that he was never more ready to see Trump take office and wanted to volunteer for the billionaire's campaign.
"I'm shaken, I'm a mess, I'm broken, but I've never been more determined for a leader to actually take charge and make a change, how do i get started. How do I help this man lead us into a safer country?" 4yyyy wrote.
Another gay man posted that he was gay and liberal, but had enough of political correctness and is voting for Trump for his honesty.
"Never thought this would happen, but Trump is honestly the only candidate anymore speaking his mind and not pandering for a living. I guess I'm a gay centipede?" triplebro wrote.
The political correctness coming out of the Left and their ability to blame gun owners instead of radical jihadists infuriated another gay man who said he officially joined the Trump train.
"I am a gay man and this disgusting incident has persuaded me to join the Trump train!" Snowduckling wrote. "I think it's horrible that adherents of Islam are allowed to spread their hate without any criticism and with tons of censorship. What we have clearly isn't working and we need a change. Hillary and Sanders will just roll over and put out the welcome mat for more Islamic influence and terror. With Trump we at least stand a chance."
Read more at Red Alert Politics.Speaker of the House Paul Ryan (R.-WI) told reporters Tuesday that President Donald Trump closed the deal with House Republicans on Ryan’s American Health Care Act, scheduled for a vote Thursday.
“President Trump was here to do what he does best, and that is to close the deal. He is all-in—and we are all-in—to end this Obamacare nightmare,” said the speaker, who was flanked by other members of the GOP’s gang of four: California’s Majority Leader Kevin McCathy (R.-CA), Louisiana’s Majority Whip Steve Scalise (R.-LA), and Washington State’s Rep. Cathy McMorris Rodgers, the chairwoman of the Republican House Conference.
The speaker dismissed the premise of a reporter’s question about the House Freedom Caucus holding back enough Republican votes to tank the RyanCare bill.
“We have a lot of House Freedom Caucus members supporting this bill,” he said.
“We have been working with all of our members with all of their concerns–and a lot of these members’ concerns have been incorporated in the bill,” Ryan said.
If the RyanCare bill goes to the House floor Thursday, the speaker needs 216 votes for majority because of five vacancies. The GOP holds 237 seats to the 193 seats held by Democrats, so if 22 Republicans defect, the bill fails.
The House Freedom Caucus does not reveal its membership or its whip count, but reporting by Breitbart News puts the HFC’s bloc of “No” votes as north of 25.
Changes to the RyanCare bill were announced Monday night, which would add a work-requirement, strike out RyanCare’s abortion tax credits, and would set out rules that would make it more difficult for New York State to shift New York City’s Medicaid’s costs onto the rest of the population.
The HFC rejected the changes as too little, too late.
The Republican Study Committee endorsed the RyanCare bill after meeting last week with the president at the White House with Scalise, the former RSC chairman.
While meeting with the House Republicans, Trump was reported to have threatened members voting against the RyanCare bill with primary challenges, but many on Capitol Hill see Trump’s visit as a preemptive defense against the charge that the RyanCare bill failed because he did not put in enough effort.
The RyanCare bill is not the same repeal bill that all Republicans in the House and Senate voted for in 2015. That bill repealed the entire 2010 Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, which created Obamacare.
The speaker said the House is moving forward with the vote Thursday, and he sees his amendment to the Obamacare program as a promise kept with the voters.
“I think what this comes down to is what it said on those banners last night at his rally in Kentucky: ‘Promises made. Promises kept.’ Obamacare was anything but that. People were promised one thing and they were given another,” Ryan said.
“They were promised that they would get lower premiums,” he said. “Instead, premiums are skyrocketing and people are paying much more. They were promised that they could keep their plan, and many millions have lost their plan. They were promised more choices, and now millions of Americans have no health care choice at all.”Ryan Bourne
The Republican Party must be tearing its hair out. For years, visitors from the US have extolled the strength of the party’s potential Presidential candidates for 2016. The pack is certainly more impressive than in 2012 and, with the exception of one or two candidates, they are ostensibly advocates of relatively free market policies. In a campaign against an unlikeable Hillary Clinton, many conservatives were quietly confident of victory in 2016.But all these voices are being drowned out by the brash businessman and property magnate Donald Trump. Despite widespread criticism for his remarks about “rapist” illegal Mexican immigrants, Trump yesterday topped a poll of GOP candidates, garnering the support of 18 per cent of Republicans. At best, he looks set to draw significant amounts of precious airtime in the coming months. At worst, given that he’s unlikely to win the Republican nomination, he may decide to run as an independent, handing Clinton the keys to the White House.At least in part, Trump’s success so far is likely to reflect his stance on border control. As in the UK, many Americans are worried about (illegal) immigration – and feel that mainstream candidates do not reflect their concerns. But the overwhelming reason for Trump’s success looks to simply be many voters thinking a strong businessman is preferable to someone from a political class that is perceived to be weak.Yet businessmen often make lousy politicians. The US should not need reminding of this – after all, Herbert Hoover was a businessman with no history of elected office before becoming President, and is now regarded as a failure by all sides. The importance of managerial skills and deal-making in delivering clear goals within large, centrally planned firms is not easily translatable to the political arena – which requires persuasiveness and nuance, rather than bombastic fist-slamming.But the most worrying aspect of Trump’s candidacy is his contribution to the economic debate. Trump is a nativist and a protectionist. He laments that America imports cars and exports corn – taking the mercantilist position that imports are bad and exports good, alongside a Ross Perot-like fetish for manufactured “stuff”. This shows complete ignorance of comparative advantage – and trade being about the exchange of things people want and need.Trump therefore promises “fair” tariffs on imported goods, and a crackdown on China’s currency manipulation through taxes which reflect currency “undervaluation”. This would likely start a trade war at a time when a growing Chinese middle class offers untold opportunities for rich Western countries to export services. But Trump doesn’t stop there. He also wants to tax firms that “export jobs” and factories overseas. In particular, he laments the fact that many call centres are based in India.This shows a remarkable misunderstanding of the way the world works. Call centres are based elsewhere because, at the moment, it is cost-effective to do so. But these specific jobs being overseas need not lower US output or welfare. In fact, it helps lower prices for US consumers, and workers are freed up to work in higher-value occupations.Even on fiscal issues, Trump has bizarre views. He’s promised the seemingly inconceivable agenda of hugely lower tax revenues and reduced spending, but balancing the books while leaving the big entitlement programmes – which are the real, long-term drivers of US debt – largely untouched. In the past, he’s advocated a potentially catastrophic one-time high wealth tax to “pay off the national debt” – a $5.7 trillion liquidation of assets that would have seen substantial capital flight and severely affected the US economy. While he’s not advocating a repeat today, he still promises populist “no pain” solutions to America’s long-term fiscal challenges that seemingly ignore reality.Quite simply, Trump’s nativist economics agenda and fiscal fairy tales are not what the Republicans or the US need. They’d better hope he fades sooner rather than later.This was first published by the BSFA in a pamphlet called SF Writers on SF Films: from Akira to Zardoz.
It’s easy to forget that after the imagined, shiny, optimistic techno-future of the Sixties, exemplified by movies like 2001, the Seventies were in many ways characterised by a creeping cultural malaise predicated on the notion that there was no future to be had; that civilisation had reached some kind of apotheosis which could only be followed by an inevitable decline into chaos and anarchy. Although this sense of imminent doom was largely fuelled by the constant and very real fear of nuclear war, there was also a nascent environmental movement to warn of the imminent collapse of the ozone layer — assuming, that is, the oil didn’t run out first. And if that didn’t happen, then nature would find some other way to punish us for our hubris.
Although there was no lack of post-apocalyptic movies prior to the Seventies, the form they took at that time seemed reflective of a genuine inability to see beyond the end of that decade. The hopefulness of the Sixties had given way to the sense that Judgement Day was a-coming, and neither good old-fashioned American know-how nor plucky British stoicism would be able to do a damn thing about it. It was a time that saw the birth in the US of Survivalism as a life-style choice, and cinema found itself reflecting the fear that with the end of civilisation so clearly approaching at breakneck speed, the only sane thing to do was to hole up in the country with plenty of ammunition and a portable power generator. This fear was reflected in the UK as much as anywhere else, manifesting itself in TV shows such as Survivors and the final Quatermass series, with John Mills fighting his way across a collapsing Britain. Even the innocuous back-to-nature comedy of The Good Life was a reflection of this save-yourself zeitgeist with its comfortably middle-class take on self-sufficiency.
To understand Zardoz (dir. John Boorman) in its proper post-apocalyptic context, it’s worth taking a look at Boorman’s previous movie, Deliverance, where Lewis — played by Burt Reynolds — makes it clear he expects the collapse of civilisation at any minute when he delivers the following lines: “Then it’s going to come down to who can survive and who can’t, when the lights go out and the taps are dry. Survival.” Zardoz, made in 1974, crystallises this expectation in a work of visually stunning science fantasy.
The film straddles a curious bridge between the apocalyptic fantasies of the mid-Seventies and the more psychedelic excesses of the Sixties. Starring Sean Connery as a wasteland-warrior commanded by his god Zardoz to slaughter ‘Brutals’ in a landscape clearly made from the ruins of our own, he smuggles himself inside the mouth of his God — which manifests as an enormous flying stone head — only to discover that Zardoz is nothing more than the creation of a race of human immortals (Eternals) who have survived the fall of civilisation within communities known as ‘Vortexes’. Protected by impenetrable force-fields and deeply stultified by unending life, these Eternals secretly yearn for death. However, since they made sure their central computer (The Tabernacle) would always resurrect them upon death with their memories intact, even suicide isn’t an option. Connery’s role, then, is to bring welcome death to the Eternals.
Without giving too much away, Zardoz is effectively a brutal, sexual, psychedelic take on The Wizard of Oz, with Connery as Dorothy, the Tabernacle as The Good Witch, and Arthur Frayn as the Wizard, while the Vortex acts as a stand-in for the Emerald City. Mostly, however, Zardoz is best remembered for its visual appeal, particularly the enormous stone head and the costuming (Connery spends most of the movie in a red loincloth and thigh-length leather boots, as well as a ponytail and zapata-style moustache that would probably have gone down a storm in some of the era’s gay disco’s). Its inventive visual imagery makes the most of a relatively tiny budget, and doesn’t skimp on the plot, presenting an intelligent and carefully woven tale of dissent amongst the Eternals in which Connery’s ultimate role is never quite clear until the end.
Although dismissed by some critics, I consider it a welcome antidote to the modern crop of over-CGI’d committee-produced epics. It was a movie that always seemed to appear last thing at night on the TV schedules in the Seventies and Eighties, usually unannounced; the kind of thing you tended to stumble across after a long weekend hanging out in the student union (or at least, you did if you were me). Plus, Charlotte Rampling gets her kit off. Can’t knock that.Jamaica's reggae artists are unrivaled in their vociferous championing of marijuana usage and persistent rallying for its legalization. A primary tenet of the island's indigenous Rastafarian way of life, which is inextricably linked to the cultural identity of roots reggae, regards cannabis, or ganja, as a sacred herb; since the late 1960s Rastafarian artists have promoted ganja's healing properties in their song lyrics, which has resulted in an organic decriminalization campaign summarized by the title track of the late, visionary Peter Tosh's 1976 debut album Legalize It (Columbia Records).
Despite Jamaican reggae's pro-cannabis stance over the past six decades, the plant remains illegal in the music's birthplace; the single "Legalize It" was promptly banned in Jamaica upon its 1975 release. But the island moved a step closer to fulfilling Tosh's plea last September, when the country's Ministry of Justice put forth legislation to decriminalize possession of two ounces or less of marijuana, amidst increasing pressure to do so from representatives of the island's agricultural and medical sectors and following relaxed laws in several U.S. states, as well as Uruguay's becoming the first nation to regulate legal production, sale and consumption of the plant.
In Colorado and Washington, where sales of marijuana have been legalized for recreational use, thriving cannabis tourism industries generating millions in state tax revenue offer travel package itineraries, featuring visits to marijuana production facilities, classes in plant breeding/growing techniques, sampling/purchasing various herb strains and their byproducts, even cannabis-infused massages. In Jamaica, where ganja grows on an estimated 37,066 acres across the island, making it the top Caribbean supplier of marijuana to the United States and its Caribbean neighbors (according to the US State Department's 2014 International Narcotics Control Strategy Report), a projected -- legal -- marijuana tourism sector could offer everything Colorado and Washington can, in addition to a native soundtrack of thousands of herb-themed songs, visits to recording studios where smoking is inherent to the creative process, and a two-day marathon-length reggae festival, Rebel Salute, that features many of Jamaica's best acts responsible for some of reggae's greatest ganja anthems.
"Most Jamaican artists have herb songs, not just telling you to smoke it but songs about getting it legalized, and from the very first Rebel Salute 21 years ago, artists have put forward that message so our country can benefit from legalization," says Tony Rebel, Rastafarian sing-jay/producer whose Organic Heart group of companies promotes the cannabis-friendly festival. Since its inaugural staging in January 1994 as Rebel's birthday concert celebration (and the following year to honor his close friend, beloved singer Garnet Silk, who died in an explosion at home in December 1994 at age 27) Rebel Salute has consistently adhered to Rastafarian principles that shun alcohol and meat consumption (both are prohibited from sale at the festival) but enthusiastically promote the use of ganja. Herb is freely smoked by Rebel Salute's patrons and openly sold by (independent) vendors hawking their stalks of sinsemilla (a potent, seedless strain of marijuana referenced in countless reggae songs) alongside sellers of soft drinks and peanuts.
Rebel, who attained widespread popularity in the early '90s promoting edifying themes on such hits as "Teach The Children" and "The Herb", a commendation of ganja's healing properties and income-generating advantages for the poor, says the Jamaican police understand the relationship between Rasta, reggae and marijuana celebrated at Rebel Salute and therefore, refrain from arresting herb sellers or smokers.
"From the beginning we have negotiated with the police, and discretionary measures are applied," explains Rebel, a staunch cannabis advocate who doesn't smoke but consumes the plant in juices, teas and edible products. "Jamaica is known to have given the best marijuana to the world that stalwarts in the music industry before us have promoted; when it is legalized weed will be beneficial to Jamaica's medicinal, commercial, industrial and music sectors; educational programs about it can become a part of Rebel Salute, especially for our children because we don't want to create chaos by having them smoke it."
The understanding that exists at Rebel Salute between police and Rastafarians (among others) smoking herb has been several decades in the making. Many Rastas, including some of reggae's biggest names, have endured persecution and served jail sentences for ganja possession including the three founding members of |
i suoi. Non se ne fece nulla. Illazioni, chissà. Ciò che resta ora sono le parole di Grom: «Riteniamo che Unilever, con la quale condividiamo la cura della qualità e della filiera agricola, sia il partner giusto per fare un ulteriore passo in avanti e portare i nostri prodotti in nuovi Paesi». Economie di scala. Che dovranno trovare la giusta dimensione anche rispetto a un modello di relazioni sindacali tutto sommato unico inaugurato da Grom un anno fa quando l’azienda convinse i confederali a gestire i turni del personale in base alle condizioni del tempo. «Niente lavoro se piove», chiesero i due fondatori ai loro dipendenti che dovettero iscriversi anche a un corso di meteorologia. La precondizione fu quella di non toccare i salari. La scelta è stata azzeccata: quest’anno Grom ha assunto altri 40 giovani in Italia e all’estero. Qualcuno, forse, dovrà anche andare a Londra.Venezuela’s history in video games is a short, unremarkable one. We’ve mostly featured as some throwaway country game developers grab for when they get tired of using the Middle East as a setting. Oddly enough, we ended up in not one but two of the worst videogames ever made.
So I was surprised to discover the delights of Tropico 4, a management simulation game developed by Haemimont Games set and in an over-the-top, tongue-in-the-cheek, cliché-ridden Banana Republic that has nothing to do with Venezuela. (And yes, I know, Tropico 5 is already out — I’m one release behind. Tiempos de crisis, mi pana.)
Playing Tropico 4, a profound question kept bubbling up in my mind: is life so absurd in Venezuela now that it’s impossible to tell from outright parody?
First a little disclaimer. Zelda obsession notwithstanding, I’m not much of a gamer. All my friends were into Counter-Strike or the dozens of indistinguishable gray-and-brown shooter games that seemed to clog the videogame industry throughout my adolescence. Those never spoke to me.
I’m more into games where you have to collect resources, manage a budget, and micromanage every little aspect of my household/city/ever-expanding empire. That’s hours and hours of guaranteed fun! (And no, I don’t have a girlfriend, why do you ask?)
I went through Age of Empires, SimCity, and The Sims…but I’m also obsessed with media, culture, and all things Latin America. So am I into Tropico 4? You betcha!
First, you get to customize your in-game avatar. Let’s have a look!
Too vintage. I want to look presidential, but not like as if I’m waiting to greet Perón in Maiquetía.
Too pavoso. I mean, boina roja, seriously? So 2004.
I don’t know about you, but this has too much of a Diosdado-meets-Pedro-Navaja vibe goin’ on for my taste.
Sadly, giant-red-jacket-with-bullet-proof-vest-underneath wasn’t on the menu, so I had to settle for this retrato de prefectura en la cuarta outfit with a snazzy red cap to show I’m still down with the common man.
Your avatar doesn’t do much, though. You just go around in a limo, looking presidential and making appearances, the highlight being the speeches you get to make from el balcón del pueblo.
Which, truth be told, is slightly more than Maduro does on any given day.
Meanwhile, in the tutorial, your character’s mentor, the bearded, cigar-smoking dictator of a neighboring Caribbean island, shows you the ropes. I wonder if he’s based on anyone in particular?…hmmm.
Next, you have to learn to grow crops suitable to each region on your island. You create an infrastructure to carry resources, production centers and markets, and tend to the basic needs of your citizens in order to keep the cycle going. By the end of it, you’re probably more savvy than the last four chavista Finance Ministers, put together.
One of the first mistakes I made was putting all my chips on developing the iron industry, thinking I’d eventually need steel to build some infrastructure. Fickle beast that she is, the global market for steel collapsed and my ore reserves soon ran out. So I couldn’t afford to build farms or other kind of mines, or to invest in tourism. Basically, I planned the whole thing wrong…see? I’m a natural.
Then the little money I did have went up in smoke trying to keep going the useless bits of infrastructure I did manage to get built: including imports for raw materials needed for my money-losing factories and unfinished construction projects.
As if that wasn’t bad enough, my population had long outgrown the meager produce of the farms I’d started out without me noticing it, so now the markets couldn’t import food and some people were starving to death.
I plainly had no clue wtf I was doing. I kept expecting the real phone to ring to offer me a real ministerial post.
Up against the wall, I came up with a #winning idea: I needed to sembrar el hierro.
My plan was to jump straight up from a primary, natural-resource-based economy to manufacturing without proper training, market research, or any of the boring bits. If you, for example, grow sugar you can easily run a rum distillery. If you don’t, you just import sugar. Turns out —and someone really ought to have explained this better in the tutorial— that if you import everything and produce nothing, you go broke.
Long story short, I now have a whole industrial park entirely idle because it wasn’t getting enough raw materials and the few members of the workforce with enough education were making a bee-line for the airport and snapping selfies of their feet over some mosaic for lack of career opportunities.
No biggie: a few clicks of the mouse and I’d put in place a “no emigration” policy to stanch the brain drain.
It doesn’t help that there’s virtually no private property in Tropico. Sure, you can build a stock exchange, granting concessions for hotels and mines to foreigners, but it’s something entirely peripheral. This isn’t like SimCity where you designate some areas as residential, commercial or industrial.
Part of the fun is that El Presidente has to deal with absolutely everything personally, from an international controversy between the European Union and the Middle East to firing some random worker in a cannery.
Once you have something ressembling an economy going, the game begins in earnest. Around this time you usually start hiring a handful of loyal ministers and yes-men and building up your army to protect your government as you tamp down on quarrelsome factions.
Loyalists, you soon realize, can be the hardest to please.
Every citizen in Tropico is sympathetic to at least one of eight factions: communists, capitalists, religious, intellectuals, environmentalists, militarists, nationalists, and loyalists. Every now and then you have to cave in to their demands, which can range from reasonable (build more schools or cut taxes) to, well, a bit out there (destroy all banks, ban immigration).
Loyalists, you soon realize, can be the hardest to please. They’re essentially your fan club and demand ridiculous things, like building your own mausoleum or suspending elections. After all, everyone should love you, why you should that be put into question?
It’s a great fun ego trip giving in to their jalabola demands, but also a quick road to political perdition. (Did I already mention playing this game as a Venezuelan fucks with your psyche on all sorts of levels?)
Not getting re-elected is one of the few ways you can be ousted and therefore, lose the game. Of course, you can make empty promises or tweak results a bit or suspend the vote altogether, but that can take a toll on your approval rating. (This is one way Tropico 4 departs decisively from Venezuela 2017: approval ratings still matter.)
Also, if you download the Modern Times mode, the UN can force you to do elections. Ugh, international organizations, amiright?
You can still have a media blackout on the other candidate, though. (Note to Tropico 6 developers: you need a MIN-Unidad option!)
Personally, my favorite strategy was approving a fat tax cut right in the middle of the campaign, which easily swings a third of the population behind me. #Giordaning.
Other ways to lose the game? Push enough disaffected citizens to join the rebels that they eventually overpower your army and attack the presidential palace, disaffected military launching a coup —that’s why you have to keep them happy and with a big, fat paycheck— and a flat-out uprising, in which disaffected citizens go to the palace and loyalists and the army defend you and… things get violent.
There are ways to influence the populace, though, and the most effective one is media. You can make newspapers, and radio and TV networks that, at first glance, earn you a couple of freedom points but you always choose the content they share. You can even have your own TV show named —I kid you not— Hola, Presidente. Why bother allowing international media to criticize you when they can watch you droning on and on and on?
Another way to rule is through edicts. You don’t have some pesky legislature getting in the way, so as long you have a trusty minister in the designated area you can pretty much approve whatever you want!
Sure, you could pass edicts for receiving humanitarian aid or setting pollution standards, but where’s the fun in that? Military modernization? ¡Aprobado! Bribing faction leaders? ¡Aprobado! Printing money like there’s no tomorrow? ¡Aprobado! Same-sex marriage? ¡Ap-! Oops, that was close.
With the Modern Times mode, which allows you to progress beyond a vaguely Cold Warish setting, the main game is set adds a whole slew of new edicts for the 21st Century. Among these are handing off diplomas to loyalists, policing the internet and asking for financial bailouts from China.
You sell them whatever products they ask from you, take an international stance or two, and beyond that they couldn’t care less how you run your little #TropicoMierda basket case.
And then you have the international factions. First, you have the two big boys in the neighborhood: the United States, represented by an ambassador (emphasis on the “ass”) that constantly belittles your country while asking for resources, and a seductive Soviet agent that constantly asks you for money to keep the proletarian revolution afloat.
There’s also a Chinese businessman, a very European aristocrat, and a Middle-Eastern sheik but despite their constant demands to trade different goods and borderline-offensive characterizations you deal with all of them the same way:you sell them whatever products they ask from you, take an international stance or two, and beyond that they couldn’t care less how you run your little #TropicoMierda basket case.
Sooner or later you get the hang of Tropico and in my case, it was depressing. Keep a couple of social programs around for good publicity and maintain your populace more or less alive and fed, indoctrinate them from a young age to know nothing other than worshipping you, pay lip service to whatever demand shows up from abroad, keep the money flowing and keeping power isn’t all that hard.
What is a Banana Republic, anyway? It’s a paradox, both vague and distinctive. There’s no list by Umberto Eco explaining what makes one, but we all pretty much recognize it when we see it.
Tiny, hungry nations bordering the Caribbean Sea; colorful jungles and beaches and endless plantations interrupted by grisly, overcrowded cities where poverty is rampant and life is cheap. Sure, there are stereotypes about the Middle East, Africa, and Southeast Asia, but our everyday dysfunction has a name.
And of course, no Banana Republic would be complete without the jefe, the generalissimo, the bombastic, uniform-wearing strongman making shady deals around, locked in eternal struggle with the rebels, who no doubt once they come to power they will sell out just as he did.
I remember back when I was in Elementary school, during El Paro, our teacher told us that there was poverty in Venezuela but we couldn’t compare ourselves to countries like El Salvador or Nicaragua. We were impoverished, sure, but they were poor. We couldn’t be like them because we had oil, right?
A Banana Republic is basically a developing nation where government, social strata, economics and overall stability are primarily bound by a single export good, leading to demagoguery, corruption, and inequality while a Petrostate is… well, pretty much the same but with a more profitable export good, I guess.
Hats off to Haemimont Games for managing to capture the day to day absurdity that everyday life serves up to us. Researching this piece, I found out they’re a Bulgarian game company, and no strangers to decades-long oppressive regimes where a single person has all the power, only without the nice, year-round hot weather.
I can’t really dump on Tropico 4, though I grant that if you’re looking to forget your day to day miseries, a Venezuelan can do better. If I’d been going for escapism, I probably should have gone with Undertale. Then I would be crying for a whole different reason.
Caracas Chronicles is 100% reader-supported. Support independent Venezuelan journalism by making a donation.Image copyright Reuters Image caption Thousands of Palestinians are employed at settlements in the West Bank
Israel has criticised the UN Human Rights Council for voting to establish a database of firms doing business in settlements in the occupied West Bank.
The Israeli ambassador to the UN called the database a "blacklist" and said the body was acting obsessively against it.
But the Palestinian envoy said the move was a "message of hope" for his people.
Settlements built on territories occupied by Israel in 1967 are considered illegal under international law, but Israel disputes this position.
About 500,000 Jews live alongside 2.5 million Palestinians in the West Bank and East Jerusalem.
'Anti-Israel circus'
Thirty-two of the 47 members of the Geneva-based Human Rights Council voted on Thursday to adopt the motion calling for the establishment of the database.
None voted against the motion, while 15, mostly European nations, abstained.
The BBC's Yolande Knell in Jerusalem says the database will provide a resource for any organisation wanting to divest from companies involved in Israel's occupation of Palestinian lands.
It will potentially include a number of Israeli and international firms working in industries from banking to construction and security services, our correspondent adds.
The Palestinians have been campaigning for tougher sanctions against settlements.
The Palestinian envoy to the UN said that the passage of this resolution and others by the Human Rights Council were a "message of hope" to his people.
"Israel continues to systematically violate the inalienable rights of the Palestinians while enjoying impunity from the international community," Ibrahim Khreisheh added.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu called the body "an anti-Israel circus which attacks the only democracy in the Middle East and ignores the blatant violations of Iran, Syria and North Korea".
He added that it was absurd to condemn Israel rather than deal with attacks by Palestinians on Israelis and by so-called Islamic State in Europe.BRITISH boxer Amir Khan has sacked his dad, uncle and best mate from his management team after a bitter family feud.
His manager dad Shah, consultant uncle Taz and lifelong pal Saj Mohammed who worked as his assistant will no longer help manage his career.
Getty Images 3 Amir Khan's dad Shah has been ever present in his amateur and professional fights - but the boxer says he now wants a 'family not business relationship'
Pixel8000 3 ITV This Morning exclusive interview with Amir Khan and wife Faryal Makhdoom Khan over their recent family rows and his sex tape leak
Reuters 3 Amir Khan was knocked out last time in his first ever fight at middleweight against Canelo Alvarez
The Olympic silver medallist and former world light-welterweight champion has made the decision after a bust-up involving his wife Faryal Makhdoom, who faced criticism from his family members.
Shah has been in his son's corner throughout his amateur and professional career, famously donning a Union Jack waistcoat at Athens 2004.
The Bolton boxer told Mirror Online: "My dad is not going to be negotiating fights.
"I love my family to bits, but my business is boxing and I'll have a different team to do that.
"My dad, my mum, I respect them. I want a family relationship with them rather than a business relationship. They'll be at my next fight, hopefully. I will invite them.
"When you mix the two it can get a bit difficult. That's why I want to keep them separate."
RELATED STORIES 'SHE'S PARANOID' Amir Khan's wife Faryal 'keeping tabs' on boxer at all times as she 'lives in fear of fresh sex tape leak' 'CAN'T WAIT TO DECORATE!' Amir Khan's wife reveals plans for 'new UK home' as she goes furniture shopping amid family feud FIGHTING FIT The lowdown on Amir Khan's wife Faryal Makhdoom... 'HE DIDN'T EVEN SAY CONGRATS' Amir Khan's younger brother reveals 'bitter disappointment' after boxing champion snubbed his wedding following vicious family feud Exclusive BRING IT ON Danny Garcia admits he is open to Amir Khan rematch... but claims Brit needs to'rebuild his confidence' first Exclusive 'THEY COULD'VE AT LEAST TRIED' Amir Khan's wife claims she wasn't even INVITED to boxer's brother's wedding
Khan was knocked out in his last fight after moving up divisions to face Mexican middleweight champion Canelo Alvarez.
Since then his New York-born wife Faryal has had a very public social media spat with his relatives, and an embarrassing old sex tape leaked in public.
Now Khan wants a comeback fight in the UK in May before a possible long-awaited clash with IBF champ and bitter domestic rival Kell Brook.
We pay for your stories! Do you have a story for The Sun Online news team? Email us at tips@the-sun.co.uk or call 0207 782 4368South Sydney have opened negotiations with Cody Walker in a bid to take the rising playmaker off the open market before the beginning of the NRL season.
Walker is tipped to be one of the stars of the Auckland Nines, where his speed and support play will be showcased in front of rival clubs in the abbreviated form of the game. The tournament is the perfect platform for the 25-year-old, who is off contract at the end of the year, to launch his first-grade career.
A one-match suspension to five-eighth Luke Keary will likely give Walker his NRL debut in round one against the Roosters and a strong start to the season could result in him remaining in the top side. The long-term future of Keary, whose one-year deal expires at the end of the season, is unclear after he was involved in an argument with Russell Crowe that resulted in him leaving a training camp held at the Rabbitohs co-owner's Nana Glen property. While halfback Adam Reynolds is contracted until 2017, there is growing speculation he may be squeezed out of Redfern if he doesn't fire early.
The Rabbitohs are keen to do a deal with Walker before rival clubs get the chance to see him play.A line of text is like a silhouette on the horizon. Closer inspection reveals the detail, the trees, bushes, rocks; details that, though only vaguely perceivable from afar, create both rhythm and variation. The beauty of this landscape is born of both regularity and variety.
I chose Tundra as the name for my new serif typeface not during the design process, but from the outset. I had in mind this idea of a wide and flat landscape. This was the initial idea: Tundra should lead the eye effortlessly along the line, thus emphasizing the horizontal. This would have been rather easy, since a typeface with comparatively wide proportions would achieve this quite naturally. But I also wanted to create a useable, legible typeface: somewhat compact or condensed so that it might also serve well for narrow columns and space-starved headlines.
In the first sketches Tundra had asymmetrical serifs to accent the reading direction. Somehow it looked cropped (mutilated), especially for the capitals.
A typeface has two principle directions: The horizontal, the line, which the eye moves along; and the vertical of the individual characters, defined predominantly by the stems. The stems are responsible for the rhythm of a typeface, while the curves (bowls, in-strokes, out-strokes, etc) determine its character. In general, the narrower a typeface becomes, the less distinctive it is. A narrow typeface creates a picket fence or staccato effect, a line dominated by closely spaced stems. This is tiring and dull, and does not make for easy reading. The same occurs when the distances between the stems is too generous. So my main question was: How could I create a rather narrow typeface that best emphasizes the round parts and the horizontal line? How could I optimally adjust these two directions?
Warm and open
The most important parts of a typeface are the zone at the base line and even more at the x-height. Here reside the more complex forms (in contrast to the middle parts, which are usually only the vertical stems).
As a counter movement to the stems, which are more dominant the more narrow the typeface becomes, I tried to emphasize these two lines: the base line and the x-height. I made the general contrast rather moderate. The serifs are strong and flat. I also drew the shoulders (n, b) flat and strong.
Some characteristics of Tundra: moderate contrast between thick and thin parts, flat and strong serifs, diagonal stress, open and heavy terminals, flat and strong shoulders.
The diagonal stress moves the thick parts more to the horizontal. The terminals (a, c, e) are heavy and the apertures open. The letters c and e — owing to their contrast — could almost be part of a sans serif typeface. Open forms also permit more interaction between the letters. All these elements help to create even lines that make reading easy and comfortable.
Above: Comparison of narrow type: closed and open letterforms.
The italics have no curved head and terminals, but serifs, to emphasize the baseline and x-height.
Of course reading is much more complex than these very simple considerations. Why a typeface is legible, why it appears fresh or lively is much more complicated and difficult to specify. Rhythm can’t be reduced to a fence pattern. And to create harmonious letterforms it’s much better to follow your own feeling for forms rather than follow rules. Very often I’m unable to point out why I like a typeface and why it creates an enjoyable image of text; or, conversely, why it fails. Therefore, I try to track my own eye, and how it describes a path through the text, across the line, and through the words. Is it a pleasing and fluid movement, or does it stutter and stall? But still I can’t precisely describe why a typeface works. Usually I try make forms clear and distinct. I was never much interested in playful details (which you can’t see at small sizes anyway). I think a good typeface must be more than a selection of interesting (and more or less pushy) details. It needs a design vocabulary of its own. A good text typeface should be concerned with producing interesting and lively texts, rather than interesting and lively characters.
When I designed my typeface Marat, I also drew a super black version, and – unusual for a classic serif typeface – it works very well. For Tundra the opposite is true. It appears that this particular construction prefers lighter weights.
The lighter a typeface the more linear its stroke. The Extra Light weight has much less contrast between thick and thin than the Bold. The thin parts of the Extra Light and Regular are almost equal.
The reason might lie in the moderate contrast of the letterforms. So I drew Light and Extra Light weights and reduced the contrast yet further. In my opinion, many thin contemporary Old Face types contain too much contrast. Maybe its caused by extrapolation, I don’t know.
I’m not a friend of fonts with thousands of (interpolated) weights flooding the font menu. I try to graduate the weights very carefully and appropriately for the particular design.
Tundra comes in six weights from Extra Light to Bold, accompanied by italics and small caps. The Pro character set contains letters for all major languages using the latin alphabet.
Different numerals and various other OpenType features provide advanced typographic performance. There is one thing I want to point out, a composition problem often occurs for certain character combinations, mainly f and y.
For problematic combinations Tundra contains alternate characters or ligatures (blue).
For this reason Tundra contains ligatures and alternate letters. A common problem is f followed by an accented character. In this specific case a narrower f applies automatically via OpenType’s contextual alternates feature. For g y there also exists a ligature. For more details check out FF Tundra on the FontFont web site.
Tundra has been selected by the Type Directors Club of New York to receive the 2011 Certificate of Excellence in Type Design.
FF Tundra full character set.The P.E.I. government should focus on fixing up the roads we have, rather than trying to build new ones, says Green Party Leader Peter Bevan-Baker.
Bevan-Baker tied his concern to an accident earlier this week. A fisherman on the way to the wharf hit a deep depression in the road and was taken to hospital.
Money spent on the bypass would be better spent on road repairs, said Green Party Leader Peter Bevan-Baker. (Brian Higgins/CBC)
He questioned the wisdom of spending $32 million in provincial money to build a bypass around Cornwall.
"Travel the roads of P.E.I. and you can see what a dilapidated state they're in," said Bevan-Baker.
"This is not the only old, failing culvert on Prince Edward Island. My question was how many more of these are waiting to happen?"
Investment 'for safety and for the economy'
Transportation Minister Paula Biggar argued the Cornwall bypass is an important economic investment.
She said 500 trucks a day exit Charlottetown through Cornwall.
The Cornwall bypass will help keep traffic, including 500 trucks a day, moving, says Transportation Minister Paula Biggar. (Rick Gibbs/CBC)
"Those are high traffic export areas for fishing and farming," said Biggar.
"We are investing those dollars in infrastructure for safety and for the economy to keep traffic moving."
Biggar also noted half the money for the project is coming from the federal government.Seems the NAFTAgate leak started with — surprise, surprise — the Chief of Staff to Canada’s conservative PM Stephen Harper. Only the first hint wasn’t about stuff the Canadians had heard from the Obama camp. It was about reassurances the Canadians got from the Clinton campaign. According to a reporter who heard the original conversation, Brodie said “someone from (Hillary) Clinton’s campaign is telling the embassy to take it with a grain of salt... That someone called us and told us not to worry.”
Only somehow this evolved into a story about the Obama campaign giving such reassurances.
The Globe and Mail has the latest details.
So was Hillary bashing Obama for what her own campaign had done? Did they both do it? Was it all a set up? I think the overarching story here is that friendly governments should not interfere in our elections.Porus ( IPA: [porus]) or Poros (from Ancient Greek: Πῶρος, Pôros), was an ancient Indian king whose territory spanned the region between the Hydaspes (River of Jhelum) and Acesines (Chenab River), in the Punjab region of the Indian subcontinent. He is credited to have been a legendary warrior with exceptional skills. Porus fought against Alexander the Great in the Battle of the Hydaspes (326 BC),[2] thought to be fought at the site of modern-day Mong, Punjab, which is now part of the modern country of Pakistan. Though not recorded in any available ancient Indian source,[3] Ancient Greek historians describe the battle and the aftermath of Alexander's victory. After the defeat and arrest of Porus in the war, Alexander asked Porus how he would like to be treated. Porus, although defeated, being a valiant, proud king, stated that he be treated like how Alexander himself would expect to be treated. Alexander was reportedly so impressed by his adversary that he not only reinstated him as a satrap of his own kingdom but also granted him dominion over lands to the south-east extending until the Hyphasis (Beas).[4][5] Porus reportedly died sometime between 321 and 315 BC.[3]
Background [ edit ]
The only information available on Porus and his kingdom is from Greek sources. The Indian sources do not mention him, although modern scholars have conjectured that he may have been a ruler of the Purus, a tribe known to have inhabited north-western India since the Vedic period.[6]
The Achaemenid Empire occupied the western Indus basin since the conquests of Darius the Great.[7] Neither the occupying Achaemenid nor local native sources confirmed the existence of Porus' Kingdom at the time. Following the fall of the Achaemenid Empire, Porus and other regional powers contested for the land left behind.
According to historian Ishwari Prasad, Porus might have been a Yaduvanshi Shurasena. He argued that Porus' vanguard soldiers carried a banner of Herakles whom Megasthenes—who travelled to India after Porus had been supplanted by Chandragupta—explicitly identified with the Shurasenas of Mathura. This Herakles of Megasthenes and Arrian has been identified by some scholars as Krishna and by others as his elder brother Baladeva, who were both the ancestors and patron deities of Shoorsainis.[8][9][10][11] Iswhari Prashad and others, following his lead, found further support of this conclusion in the fact that a section of Shurasenas were supposed to have migrated westwards to Punjab and modern Afghanistan from Mathura and Dvārakā, after Krishna walked to heaven and had established new kingdoms there.[12][13]
Battle of the Hydaspes [ edit ]
Meeting of Porus and Taxiles, a 20th century artist's imagination., a 20th century artist's imagination.
The Battle of the Hydaspes was fought in 326 BC by Alexander the Great against King Porus, on the banks of the river Hydaspes. The battle resulted in a Macedonian victory.[2][14] Alexander was greatly impressed by his adversary and not only reinstated him as a satrap of his own kingdom but also granted him dominion over lands to the south-east extending until the Hyphasis (Beas).[4][5]
Death [ edit ]
After Alexander's death in 323 BCE, Perdiccas became the regent of his empire, and after Perdiccas's murder in 321 BCE, Antipater became the new regent. According to Diodorus, Antipater recognized Porus's authority over the territories along the Indus River. However, Eudemus, who had served as Alexander's satrap in the Punjab region, treacherously killed Porus.[15]
In popular culture [ edit ]
See also [ edit ]
References [ edit ]
Further reading [ edit ]A substantially updated version of the hypertextbook is available here. Please migrate to that version. This one will eventually disappear.
Construction of a Winogradsky Column
Subject Area(s) microbiology Intended Audience
high school biology, independent study/science fair, introductory undergraduate microbiology, advanced college level microbiology. Type Laboratory Exercise Revision Date April 11, 2008
CONTENT
Sergei Winogradsky (1856-1953) was among the first microbiologists to investigate the organisms found in complex biofilm communities, and provided some of the first descriptions of sulfur, iron and nitrogen metabolizing bacteria as well as those bacteria involved in cellulose decomposition.
Working in the late decades of the last century, Winogradsky was a pioneer in selective enrichment techniques. One of the strategies that he employed to isolate organisms from nature was a miniature model pond cross section which has since been called a Winogradsky column.
Figure 1. Photo taken from a flat plate Winogradsky column, courtesy of Michael Cox, Anaerobe Systems, San Jose, CA. See Anaerobe Systems: http://www.anaerobesystems.com
PREREQUISITES
INSTRUCTIONAL OBJECTIVE
MATERIALS AND EQUIPMENT
Quantity Description As Necessary a source of soil or mud
As Necessary a source of water (same source as the mud or other, tap water although it contains a residue of chlorine has been used successfully).
As Necessary rubber or vinyl gloves
As Necessary metal or plastic pans for mixing mud with other ingredients
As Necessary spatulas
As Necessary sources of carbon (i.e. some, such as calcium carbonate and chalk are rapidly metabolized while others such as shredded paper and saw dust are metabolized more slowly)
As Necessary sources of sulfur (e.g. elemental sulfur, sodium sulfate, raw or hard boiled eggs, sodium sulfide)
As Necessary a bottle (2 liter soda bottle) or other tall, clear container (wide mouth containers are preferable).
INSTRUCTIONAL PROCEDURES
Figure 2. Students collecting mud from a lake in Prince Gallitzen State Park, Cambria Co. PA.
Figure 3. Here the students are building a column in a 20 L carboy.
The student should be able to define the term biofilm and distinguish between planktonic and biofilm associated cells. They should be able to distinguish between chemoautotrophic and photoautotrophic bacteria and have a basic understanding of photosynthesis.On completion of this exercise, the student should be able to describe the construction of a Winogradsky column and explain how this simulates a model pond ecosystem. They should also be able to explain the environmental factors extant within each portion of the column and describe the sorts of bacteria capable of growing in each zone.The column is constructed in a tall clear glass or plastic container. Tall wide mouth bottles are probably best, but 2 L soda bottles are easy to obtain in large numbers and will serve the purpose. Virtually any roughly cylindrical container will serve, even vessels as diverse as olive jars, wine bottles and twenty-liter carboys. The column is constructed in a tall clear glass or plastic container. Tall wide mouth bottles are probably best, but 2 L soda bottles are easy to obtain in large numbers and will serve the purpose. Virtually any roughly cylindrical container will serve, even vessels as diverse as olive jars, wine bottles and twenty-liter carboys. The column is constructed in a tall clear glass or plastic container. Tall wide mouth bottles are probably best, but 2 L soda bottles are easy to obtain in large numbers and will serve the purpose. Virtually any roughly cylindrical container will serve, even vessels as diverse as olive jars, wine bottles and twenty-liter carboys.The column is packed with soil or mud from virtually any source and water from the same or a different source. If at all possible, the students should collect their own mud and water from a local lake or pond, so that they have a sense of the natural habitat from which these materials were obtained.Mud or soil can be collected at any time of year. Pond mud collected through the ice in the middle of winter has produced beautiful columns. Stones and sticks should be removed by screening or by hand. Water may be collected from the same source but distilled water or tap water will also serve.
To these natural components, the student will add supplemental carbon and sulfur. These may be either slowly or rapidly utilized materials and student are encouraged to use their own imagination in selecting carbon and sulfur sources.
Above the soil is a layer of water representing the pond itself, and the column is usually covered (but not sealed), to retard evaporation. Any commercial plastic wrap works well. Secure the plastic wrap with a rubber band. A slit or two should be placed in the wrap to permit gas exchange. The entire column is then illuminated to encourage the growth of phototrophs. The columns should be placed in a well ventilated area because they can smell until they stabilize. The resulting growth of microorganisms can be quite spectacular and colorful. The light source can be a matter for student discussion. Natural or tungsten light sources will work, although the different spectra of each will affect the nature of the bacteria selected.
The most obvious inhabitants of the column are aerobic and anaerobic phototrophs, but a vast array of heterotrophs are also found. The routine presence of methanogens makes this a useful exercise in expanding the microbial diversity of the introductory microbiology laboratory.
There are also flat plate Winogradsky columns which provide large surface areas for biofilms to develop and are excellent for photographic record keeping See: http://www.anaerobesystems.com.
The detailed procedure for the construction of the Winogradsky column may be found in the student instructions available at Detailed instructions for students under Attachments.
Mix the mud/soil with the desired carbon and sulfur sources. SAFETY NOTE: There is no easy way to determine if the mud students collect is contaminated with sewage, farm waste, heavy metals or other toxic materials. Have your students wear latex or vinyl gloves when mixing materials and packing the column.
Add some water to the container and add the soil mix a little at a time using a glass rod or stick to pack the material in the bottom of the column. Air bubbles should be excluded as much as possible, although any oxygen remaining trapped in the mud is probably consumed by facultative organisms very rapidly. Possible carbon sources: Vegetable materials such as shredded hay or newspaper, grass clippings, sawdust, corn starch, or oatmeal, will work fine. Use your imagination. These materials release carbon relatively slowly. Fast release carbon sources include sodium carbonate, sodium bicarbonate and calcium carbonate. Possible sulfur sources: Once again use your imagination. Elemental sulfur, calcium sulfate, magnesium sulfate, raw or hard-boiled eggs, and cheese have all been used with success.
Continue to add water and soil, making a slurry until the column is about three fourths full.
Use a wash bottle to rinse excess mud from the container above the soil level and then add additional water to produce a water column (the pond). Leave some air |
, is a former grassroots lobbyist at the firm Century Strategies. Phillips, who still owns his own firm called New Dominion Strategies, specializes in manipulating the conservative grassroots into supporting his corporate clients’ interests. At Century Strategies, Phillips’ firm mobilized “pro-family groups” to push energy deregulation on behalf of Enron, and for a local tycoon organized Christian activists to oppose anti-sweatshop legislation for the Marianas Islands by claiming it would prevent workers from learning the “teachings of Jesus Christ.” He now leads opposition to clean energy programs and Democratic Party candidates on behalf of the Koch brothers.
Tracy Henke, Americans for Prosperity’s COO and executive vice president, comes to the group from a career of Republican campaigns and lobbying gigs. She’s represented firms like Oracle Corporation and CEELOX, a biometrics security company.
Alan Cobb, Americans for Prosperity’s vice president for state affairs, is a former lobbyist for Koch Industries, the conglomerate owned in part by AFP’s billionaire benefactor, David Koch.
Restore Our Future (Spent at least $87 million on ads):
After leading a Republican outside money group in 2010, Carl Forti founded the pro-Romney Super PAC, Restore Our Future and continues to direct its spending efforts. Forti’s consulting firm, the Alexandria-based Black Rock Group, says it helps private sector firms accomplish policy goals through “more than lobbying” that influences “the grassroots to grasstops and up the legislative chain.”
Charles Spies, the treasurer for Restore Our Future, is an attorney with Clark Hill, a law/lobbying firm. Clark Hill currently represents Wynn Resorts, Compuware Corp., and other corporate clients.
Republican Jewish Coalition (Spent at least $3.7 million on ads):
The Republican Jewish Coalition’s board has many lobbyists: RJC board member Bradley Wine* previously lobbied for Dickstein Shapiro and now works in the government relations practice of law/lobbying firm Morrison & Foerster; RJC board member Wayne Berman, consistently ranked as one of K Street’s top “hired guns,” is now an in-house lobbyist for the Blackstone Group, a large private equity firm; RJC board member Norm Coleman is a former US senator from Minnesota and current lobbyist with Hogan Lovells; and Mark Isakowitz, president of the top-grossing lobbying firm Fierce, Isakowitz, & Balock, who once threatened lawmakers with $4 million in negative advertising if they didn’t vote his way.
FreedomWorks (Spent more than $9.7 million on ads and field):
Dick Armey, a former Republican congressman who left Congress to work as a corporate lobbyist at the firm DLA Piper, leads FreedomWorks. After being exposed for his pushing the Tea Party to support many of the same goals as his clients, Armey left DLA Piper in 2009.
FreedomWorks board member C. Boyden Gray is a longtime DC lobbyist whose firm Grey and Shmitz represents the US Chamber of Commerce in fighting financial regulations.
Americans for Job Security (Spent at least $8.8 million on ads):
Michael DeMaura runs Americans for Job Security, a pay-to-play front for corporate money in elections for many years. Public Citizen and other watchdog groups have detailed the ways DeMaura and his cohorts have used his group to launder corporate dollars into elections. As The New York Times reported, an Alaskan mine interest gave $2 million to Americans for Job Security in exchange for developing a campaign in support of a ballot initiative that would help approve the mine.
Update: This post originally claimed that Bradley Wine works for Dickstein Shapiro. He left that firm earlier this year to join a different lobbying firm, Morrison & Foerster.Nipsey Hussle came to hip-hop fans' attention because of his music, but it's his business acumen that has really taken things to the next level. Hussle made headlines back in 2013 for selling 1,000 copies of his Crenshaw project for $100 each. He dubbed the effort #Proud2Pay, and it was so successful that Jay Z himself bought 100 copies. Nipsey followed that up by releasing Mailbox Money in a $1,000 limited edition.
Now, the L.A. rapper is readying the release of his true debut album, Victory Lap. He has just announced a partnership with Atlantic Records to help him put out the project. The title continues his streak of racing-related monikers, beginning with Marathon and Marathon Continues. He originally had the title back in 2010, when he was still signed to Epic Records.
"I seen a lot of artists be hot for a minute and then that's it and somebody else come in," he explains. "To be relevant seven years later, probably more relevant than I was then—to go back into a space with a major label partner to finish what we promised them back then, which was an album; that was important to me. So I just feel like, it's really a victory of doing it our way."
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Nipsey Hussle recently stopped by the Complex office to discuss his partnership with Atlantic, his thoughts on Donald Trump a year and change after "FDT," and what he has in store for the future outside of music.
(This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity.)
Tell me about the Atlantic partnership.
Basically, it’s a strategic partnership to take the next steps with the Nipsey Hussle story. It’s between the company All Money In, which I’m a part owner in, and Atlantic Records for services of Nipsey Hussle. It’s not a traditional artist to a label signing, you know what I mean? It’s more of us partnering with Atlantic and utilizing their specialties and their strengths to move what we’ve been doing to the next platform in terms of recognition, fan base, access to radio, access to retail, and utilize their staff, and tapping into a specialist.
All Money In is a label best known for scarcity—for this business approach where you have limited numbers of things. And obviously, Atlantic Records is not in the business of scarcity; they’re in the business of selling stuff to whoever wants to have it. How does that meet?
Well, I wouldn't say that All Money In is in the business of scarcity. I would say that the Nipsey Hussle Crenshaw release was an example of All Money In creating an artificial scarcity campaign for the physical side of Crenshaw. The digital version of it was everywhere; on iTunes, on the pay sites—the same way that Atlantic will have all of our digital stuff on all the pay sites. So the distinguishing part of that campaign was the physical copy was limited, and it wasn't distributed through traditional retail. That was more of a #Proud2Pay approach, more than an All Money In approach. It was a direct-to-consumer strategy for the hard copy, because all the digital versions of the album were released traditionally.
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Are you gonna continue that approach with yourself and other artists on All Money In?
Yeah. I think that every artist—or anybody that's in business—could benefit from a direct-to-consumer strategy, so I think that that applies to us as artists and content creators, too. So the thing that I've created and we've created was the #Proud2Pay brand. So every time we do a release, we'll have a #Proud2Pay version, which will be a scarce version that has novelty value and something that people wanna collect and hold on to, and majority of the time it'll be some type of experience or event attached to it.
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It's been reported that you own about a quarter of All Money In, and your brother and a couple of friends own the rest. Has that changed with the Atlantic deal?
Nah, everybody's still involved. This [motions] is one of the partners, Adam Andhban. This [motions] is the other partner, my brother Sam. Our other partner recently passed away on Sept. 29; his name is Fatts [Steven Donelson]. He's still a quarter owner. He would be here but obviously, you know...
I read a great article in Billboard about Marathon Clothing, and it seemed like you had some pretty big, ambitious plans for it. That was the middle of this year; what's going on with it?
Basically, we just opened a flagship store, which is our first step toward creating an experiential retail element of what we doin'. Originally the concept was for us to have a retail network that we could deliver our products to, whether it was albums or what artists would call "merch." We wanna elevate it to streetwear, and not just do merch, and then a full line eventually. And then even other stuff outside of the music and merch space, just dope things. [For example,] you might buy Supreme fire extinguisher or an ash tray...
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I didn't wanna ever go into a situation where the decision makers believed in me and then they left.
I think they put out a shovel recently.
You know what I mean? Just dope items that, I think, will add value to the lifestyle of people that connect to the music. So we wanna do a branded money counter. To start with, streetwear, and then build off of that.
So by saying "retail network," you initially envisioned having more than one physical location?
Still do. The goal is to have 10 retail spaces in my top 10 markets, where we have the most traction. And then to be able to do what we did with Crenshaw, but in 10 different locations. Instead of doing pop-ups at clothing stores and shoe markets, we got a Marathon retail network across the country or across the world. When I drop my next project with Atlantic involved, we'll do traditional retail—Best Buy, Target, whatever's left. And then we'll do a direct-to-consumer #Proud2Pay campaign, and we'll use our retail spaces as the pop-up shops. So L.A., we'll do the L.A. store. New York, we'll do the New York store. Georgetown, in D.C., we'll do one. Frisco, we'll do one. The original concept was to be able to create a business outside of the traditional ecosystem, because we saw what happened with Crenshaw. We made a lot more money outside of iTunes and Target.
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Right; you don't have to give iTunes the 30 percent or whatever.
And we was able to set our margin at $100 instead of at $10, so we was making 10x on what we would do traditionally. It was inspiring to people to come deal direct. So it was multiple benefits of us doing that and we ain't wanna go into the next phase of what we do as an artist and raise the profile as an individual artist and not utilize what we learned as a company doing direct-to-consumer. So to answer it, 10 stores in our top 10 markets—imagine if we dropped 1,000 units at $100 to each store. You know what I mean?
[Laughs.] That's a lot of money.
In one night. So it's possible. It's still an idea that's developing, but the first step was to open an L.A. store.
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You compared it to Sanrio...
Urban Sanrio, yeah.
Can you explain that?
Yeah. I mean, Sanrio do $5 billion a year off novelty items. So if you really think about it, they the biggest branded merch company in the world, for real. And it's not called "merch"—it's just Sanrio products.
It's just what they do.
Yeah. It's just Hello Kitty, and it exists in the ecosystem of content, which is like visuals, cartoons; actual experience, which is the theme parks and the stores; and products. So I think, if you look at content creators, we have the same potential. If we could create an infrastructure and operate with the same goal, we could create the same effect of being able to sell a 50-cent item for $12, like a pencil that Hello Kitty charge $10 for. Or even Starbucks, by them giving you free Wi-Fi and creating an experience, they sell you an overpriced Frappucino, 'cause you get to sit here and catch a vibe. Not to say that the goal is selling overpriced things, but I think that with hip-hop, we’re sold pressure by doing mass business, that it influences the integrity of the products, you know what I mean? I think to remove that from the intention, we don't have to worry about doing a million units if we gettin' $100 each, and we can more tailor-make the music to who's listening.
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You have this idea of ultra-servicing a small part of your fan base. Can you expand on that?
I just think that's how life works; I don't think you get anything to a million people at a time. I think that's unrealistic. I don't think a human being observed that. I think that business introduced that ideology. I think human things happen intimate.
So the goal would be, as a content creator, to create a piece of content that affects one person so much that they gotta go share it, and they become your marketing. They become the legs for what you're doing. Because if you focus and zero in, you can inspire a person to a degree that they work for the movement. That’s not a night and day window. It's not when they check run out, they stop campaignin'. They are inspired, and you planted somethin' in 'em. They walk into a room, and if there's nine people that don't know about you, they feel like they got a dope opportunity to gain currency with nine people by puttin' 'em on somethin' dope.
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That's obviously not something you can pay for.
Right. When people say shit goes viral, that's what they mean, that people become so interested in it that they start promoting it themselves.
You were at ComplexCon talking about cryptocurrency. What made you decide to get in that field?
A couple things. I just peeped what's goin’ on with bitcoin. I'm interested in other things outside of cryptocurrency that point to the opportunities in cryptocurrency, like even just understanding what happened in '08 with the banks and what happened with fiat currencies in world history. Any time a country transitioned to a fiat currency, they collapsed. That's just world history; you don't have to know about cryptocurrency to know that. So the United States operates off of fiat currency, and we been operating since the '70s—that's something that just happened.
So when you look at it from that point of view, it's not even a hard decision. The U.S. dollar is gonna lose value and either another central bank and fiat currency is gonna become the leading currency—that's why they worried about China and all these other potentials—or what happened with cryptocurrency was gon' happen, and people create a way to create an un-centralized currency that can exist peer to peer. The natural order of life created that, I think.
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Do you see your cryptocurrency as expanding outside of people who wanna buy Nipsey Hussle-related things?
I don't even think it's a Nipsey Hussle currency. I haven't branded it like that; I'm a minority owner. The company owns 10 percent of Follow Coin. But Follow Coin is a tech company that operates as a tech company in its own space. And tech and hip-hop, whether we admit it or not, are very, very connected.
It's not branded like that and it's not represented like that, but you go into these companies and they're listening to hip-hop. These people are young, they're 20-year-olds. The culture they grew up in, the music that's most popular in that area is hip-hop. So there's tons of opportunities to get with these tech companies and build; but it wasn't a Nipsey Hussle coin.
I ain't understand that when Snoop and Dre was rappin' in they first single, they was dissin' Eazy. I ain't even know that; I just liked the music.
I wanted to talk about some of your other business ventures. You have something called 2 Big 2 Fail. What is that?
We are finishing the foundation with that, and we gonna start announcing the initiative end of this year, top of next year. But it's basically a science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) compound that we built in the hood. It's a 5,000 square foot compound—[it] used to be the Wonder Bread factory. And us, as All Money In, and our real estate development partner, Dave Gross, partnered up.
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It's gonna be two-fold. The bottom level will be a science, technology, engineering, and math resource center. What Silicon Valley is saying to justify that lack of diversity is that there's no pipeline from the inner city to Silicon Valley. The reason that there's no pipeline is that we lack science, technology, engineering, and math skills, and you can't teach a 13-year-old that; it's too late. They gotta be trained in that.
And so that's the bottom level of the compound agenda, is just to have something locally in South Central where these young kids can go get trained in the direction of where the opportunities are. And then the top floor is gonna be our take on WeWork. WeWork is like a rental office space. So [it's] for entrepreneurs in the area that don't have credit, or don't have access to a trademark lawyer, or don't have access to a copyright lawyer or a tax lawyer. There'll be office space for rent that you can rent with no credit. You can pay cash for it, or you can offer hours, where you be like, "I'mma give 10 hours of labor..."
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To the programs downstairs?
Yeah, exactly. Or to the upstairs; it's whatever type of specialty you have, and we got a format to really figure out where we put each type of person, in terms of delivering labor for office spaces. But I think it's a new concept. It'll speak to the point that Silicon Valley is making, of like, "Nobody is creating the pipeline to get here. We would love to employ an ethnically diverse workforce, but the proficient group of people are coming from here." So that's what the intention behind 2 Big 2 Fail is.
So many of your businesses—the hair store you opened and all this stuff—are in your neighborhood. Why is it important for you to keep everything local?
That's something my brother spearheaded. I support it, but he's an entrepreneur, and I think that was one of his visions and his dreams, to be saturated in the small business space and then scale it to franchise. We discussed going other places, but it just felt like it made the most sense doing it locally, and being able to employ people that we grew up with, that there's no trust issues with, that there's no ulterior motives, and also be able to improve the area and offer jobs and offer a business in the area that has been traditionally liquor store, church, fried chicken—that's really it.
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You're now about a year and a half, two years into the hair store, how's that going?
That's a business that we are new to, so we goin' through the learning curve right now, but all things considered, it's doing well. It's paying for itself; we makin' profit, it's paying for the employees. We learning.
So what is going on, music-wise?
The album done. The first single drop Dec. 1.
What's the title of the record?
It's called "Rap Niggas." And the video we just shot out here in L.A. a couple weeks ago. The album is called Victory Lap. It's gonna be the first release through the partnership with Atlantic.
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Back on "Keys 2 the City," you mentioned that Atlantic passed on you early in your career. How does it feel to come back and partner with them now that you're in this position?
I always respected Atlantic, for a lot of reasons. Craig [Kallman, Atlantic's Chairman/CEO] been there for 15 years, and I think one thing that turned me off about the Epic deal—back then; Epic's a different company now—was that I got signed by Charlie Walk, and then he left in the middle of the rollout. That's how the game go, I understand it, but I didn't like how that felt. So I didn't wanna ever go into a situation where the decision makers believed in me and then they left, and then a new team of decision makers came in that wouldn't get credit for my success, 'cause they didn't sign me. You could fall into politics like that.
So by Atlantic having one chairman for 15 years, and then the legacy of Atlantic from Ahmet [Ertegun, Atlantic's founder] and what they did, which is that era. And even seeing what they did with Grand Hustle and T.I., and what they did with Wiz [Khalifa] and Bruno Mars. Even the convos I had with Craig and the convos I had with Julie [Greenwald, Chairman/COO] and [Atlantic's President of Black Music, Michael] Kyser; I just felt like they wasn't industry plastic. I thought they was a different texture than the traditional industry operation. They was invested in seeing what happened with Def Jam happen again, as far as Julie's involvement over there and building legacies with Jay Z and with Ruff Ryders and with Ludacris and DTP and all of those successful cases that happened in the past. So I always felt like they was who I wanted to go into business with. I just thought I had more work to do so I could negotiate a little more aggressive.
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A few weeks ago, I talked to Ice-T on the occasion of this big event and concert celebrating Uncle Jamm's Army. It got me thinking about how just in the past couple years, the history of Los Angles rap is being celebrated on a mass platform in a way it never has, going back to the '80s. You have this celebration of Uncle Jamm's Army, you have the N.W.A. movie, the 2Pac biopic, all this kind of stuff. How do you feel about seeing the history of your hometown be taken seriously?
It's dope to me. I think that that's good that N.W.A.'s story got updated for this generation. 'Cause even me, I was after N.W.A., but I remember everybody loving Eazy-E in L.A. Eazy-E was an icon, but I ain't know why. I ain't understand that when Snoop and Dre was rappin' in they first single, they was dissin' Eazy. I ain't even know that; I just liked the music.
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So to get educated, I think that was dope. It was a legendary moment, if you really think about the '90s in L.A., the '80s in L.A.. That was like Motown in the '60s, where you had a homegrown executive tappin' into homegrown talent from homegrown communities and goin' viral and goin' global. That's somethin' incredible. It was all L.A. niggas, it was all California street niggas that made up Death Row. The producer was from Compton, the artist was from Long Beach, the executive from Compton—that's not regular. That's [just like] Stax Records, Motown.
And then for them to be the biggest thing in music, and then the biggest thing in the streets... I got a homie named Keta Roc from my hood that used to pull up in the Death Row G-wagon, with Death Row stitched in the headrest. And I was a young nigga hustlin' on the block, and I remember feelin' Death Row's presence in that direction also. That's not a music stunt; that's like, you got a reputable general from this area wavin' the flag. That wasn't regular. So to see it celebrated, I thought it should be.
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You were featured on [YG's] "FDT." A year and a half later, what are your thoughts on Trump?
You mean, as in right now, how do I feel about Trump?
Yeah.
Um, I mean... I don't agree with him. I don't agree with a lot of the shit he says and does. I'm tryna understand it, you know? I don't know if there's a method to the madness. I have no clue; I just don't agree with his way of doin' shit.
My suspicion is that he's just a businessman with more power, and he's operating from his interests. I don't think he even sees himself as president. I think this is part of the business trajectory of Donald Trump, and, "Where else could I go? I could fuck around and be President of the United States and do some big favors to where when I'm done, we got a whole different retirement plan." I don't think he's looking at himself as the President of the country. And people's lives being impacted by his decisions. I can't think he cares or I don't think he see himself like that.
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What else do you want people to know about what you've got going on, business-wise or musically?
The most important thing right this moment is that we be clear on the partnership—that Nipsey Hussle is signed for life to All Money In, and that Atlantic Records did a partnership with All Money In for the services of Nipsey. That was somethin' that I was really excited about, and I couldn't talk about it for a long time. I had to just be quiet and make music since we made the deal. I'm excited I could go and talk about who we in business with now and actually utilize the partnership in public, because we didn't make the announcement yet.
When was the deal made?
A while ago. [Laughs.] I mean, between the last two releases. I haven't released any music since then. I didn't wanna make a big deal announcement until the music was ready. I don't like when artists do that. I don't really care about the business; I wanna hear the music, as a fan.Our family are pretty much classic Whovians, surviving the long months between the sprinkling of episodes the BBC tease us with each season by re-watching the ones we own on DVD. So it was really nice when we found good friends who were not only as obsessed as we were but had the whole series of Sarah Jane Adventures on DVD and were willing to loan them out. Yay new Who stuff!
So when Lani was invited to their little Wholing’s birthday party and I found out she had just had her ears pierced I knew what to make her. Thanks to my friend over at Kyani Lazuli for the ear ring backs and the loan of her super-strong glue and invaluable advice, you should check out her site she makes some really cool stuff I’m after the personalised pendant necklace, maybe for Christmas…..hint, hint….you listening Glenn?Nico Hischier 10 Questions Do you have a middle name? No!
Any pregame superstitions? I always tape my stick and then tie my right skate first.
The best advice I've received? Just have fun. That's the best.
Favorite cheat day meal? I would say a nice burger, with bacon, lettuce tomato, onions. But a real nice cut of meat.
Do you have a favorite social media app? I would say Snapchat.
Favorite superhero? Batman
The first rink you ever skated on? Back home where I was playing in Visp.
The athlete you'd most like to meet? Roger Federer
Tweet from @NJDevils: #TMW when hockey���s current #������1������ @nicohischier watches a personal congrats from tennis��� former #������1������ @rogerfederer.#N1CO #SwissConnection pic.twitter.com/YO5WCLFiBS
And you got to meet soccer star Diego Maradona? Yeah, he was really cool. I got to take a picture with him.
Tweet from @nicohischier: Had the chance to meet this legend today! �� #wow#diegomaradona pic.twitter.com/qb7fYu1sRI
Stay tuned for coverage of Wednesday's 3-on-3 #NJDevCamp scrimmage, which will be held at RWJBarnabas Hockey House.Air pollution pumped out by factories and power plants in Europe and North America has led to drier spells in the tropics, thousands of miles to the south. Scientists had long suspected this was the case and even had modelled the change in computer simulations, but now for the first time we have direct evidence – straight from a cave in Belize.
Most of us, when asked to think about climate change, think of global warming and the unequivocal rise in greenhouse gases. But greenhouse gases aren’t the only pollutants we produce which have the potential to disrupt the climate.
Atmospheric sulfate and nitrate aerosols, produced from burning fossil fuels, alter the climate both directly by reflecting solar radiation and indirectly by altering clouds. The impact of these aerosols is to offset the warming caused by greenhouse gases – where GHGs cause the Earth to retain heat, aerosols keep heat out in the first place.
However, as aerosols don’t stick around in the atmosphere for long, their effects are much stronger close to their source. It’s one reason why we see big regional differences in climate change. Indeed, observational and modelling studies provide considerable evidence that aerosols have lowered surface air temperatures in the northern hemisphere, offsetting greenhouse warming.
Understanding past climate
Characterising our influence on the climate is challenging for many reasons. Climate is a complex web of intricately bound variables, difficult to understand and even more difficult to predict. But there is one issue with climate science that complicates things more than any other: the lack of instrumental data.
NASA/GSFC SeaWiFS and ORBIMAGE, via NASA Visible Earth
Beyond the past 130 years, instrumental and observational data is sparse and uneven. It’s not very useful when looking to give context to our current climate debate. The study of climate history therefore relies on proxies to reconstruct the conditions at a given point.
These proxies are natural archives such as sediment cores, ice cores, tree rings and rocks – these record certain aspects of the climate in their physical characteristics. The width of tree rings, for instance, or the amount of carbon found inside air bubbles trapped in Antarctic ice for thousands of years. By analysing these archives we can create climate records that extend far beyond the short era of thermometers and rain gauges.
In our research, published in Nature Geoscience, we present one such climate reconstruction produced from a stalagmite collected from a cave in Belize in Central America. Stalagmites (the ones that grow upwards from the ground) grow incrementally as saturated water, filtered through the rock above, drips into the cave and leaves behind what becomes new rock.
Every drop of water has a unique chemical signature that is largely controlled by prevailing climate conditions above the cave, meaning that stalagmites record climate changes as they grow. By analysing the geochemistry of these incremental growth layers in a 450 year-old stalagmite, we were able to construct a historical rainfall record for the region.
Izabela Walczak
The impact of aerosols on tropical rainfall
Recently it has become increasingly clear that climate changes in one region can have an impact in a totally different latitude. The IPCC’s 2013 summary for policymakers IPCC 2013 concludes with confidence that man-made changes in the North Atlantic climate are linked to rainfall at lower-latitudes.
Precipitation in the tropics, including Belize, is governed by the Intertropical Convergence Zone (ITCZ) – a belt of monsoon rainfall encircling the Earth near the equator that migrates seasonally between the hemispheres. The relative temperature difference between the hemispheres plays a crucial role in controlling the position of the ITCZ and hence, rainfall distribution in the tropics.
What we found was a distinct drying trend in Belize since 1850 that coincides with a steady rise in industrial aerosol emissions in North America and Europe. This presents strong evidence that industrial sulfate emissions have shifted the position of the ITCZ through reflecting the Sun’s incoming radiation and therefore moderating warming in the northern hemisphere.
In other words, aerosol pollutants have changed the relative thermal contrast between the two hemispheres and subsequently led to the ITCZ moving southward. This means less rainfall for the northern tropics. The role of sulphate aerosols in repositioning the ITCZ was previously identified through computer modelling techniques, but until now no suitable climate record existed to support those ideas.
Our claims are backed up by the volcano record. Emissions from volcanoes are similar to those produced by burning fossils fuels – basically lots of sulphur – and we identified short-lived drier spells in the northern tropics following very large volcanic eruptions in the northern hemisphere, such as the Icelandic Laki eruption in 1783.
This provided evidence that any injection of sulphate aerosols into the upper atmosphere, both natural and man-made, can disrupt temperatures and rainfall. These volcanically forced dry periods essentially rule out the possibility that the climate shifts were caused by a previously unknown natural climate cycle or increasing atmospheric carbon dioxide concentrations.
Although warming due to man-made carbon dioxide emissions has long been at the centre of discussions regarding climate change, the shifting of rain belts has significant regional-scale effects. The tropics are heavily populated and extremely reliant on regular rainfall. Linking human-induced changes and natural changes from the past to understand where the climate currently stands, and where it might go in the future, will be as socially important as it is scientifically challenging.I am going through a number of personal events at the moment. I have recently ended a relationship that lasted over half a decade and am beginning a new one. At the same time I am taking a free online lecture course from Yale in psychology. Where do these things intersect? At love. Or, more specifically, what love can be defined as psychologically.
The Love Triangle
Developed by noted psychologist Robert Sternberg, one widely used psychological conception of love used is The Triangular Theory of Love.
According to Sternburg, any permutation of love contains at its root three components. They are:
Intimacy: Feelings of attachment, closeness, typified by sharing secrets, etc. Passion: Feelings of sexual and romantic attraction. Commitment: A willingness in the short-term to create and maintain a relationship and long-term plans to sustain the relationship.
Of course, a “perfect” relationship in Sternberg’s view contains all three components, but the various combinations of these psychological aspects of love create eight separate permutations that cover almost all relationships.
Intimacy Passion Commitment Non-love Liking/friendship x Infatuated love x Empty love x Romantic love x x Companionate love x x Fatuous love x x Consummate love x x x
In the sake of completeness, each permutation has an accompanying description.
Nonlove “refers simply to the absence of all three components of love. Nonlove characterizes the large majority of our personal relationships, which are simply casual interactions.”
Liking/friendship is “used here in a nontrivial sense. Rather, it refers to the set of feelings one experiences in relationships that can truly be characterized as friendship. One feels closeness, bondedness, and warmth toward the other, without feelings of intense passion or long-term commitment.”
Infatuated love: “Infatuation results from the experiencing of passionate arousal in the absence of intimacy and decision/commitment…like Tennov’s limerance.” Romantic relationships often start out as infatuated love and become romantic love as intimacy develops over time. Without developing intimacy or commitment, infatuated love may disappear suddenly.
Empty love is characterized by commitment without intimacy or passion. A stronger love may deteriorate into empty love. In an arranged marriage, the spouses’ relationship may begin as empty love and develop into another form, indicating “how empty love need not be the terminal state of a long-term relationship…[but] the beginning rather than the end.”
Romantic love “derives from a combination of the intimate and passionate components of love…romantic lovers are not only drawn physically to each other but are also bonded emotionally”- bonded both intimately and passionately, but without sustaining commitment.
Companionate love is an intimate, non-passionate type of love that is stronger than friendship because of the element of long-term commitment. “This type of love is observed in long-term marriages where passion is no longer present” but where a deep affection and commitment remain. The love ideally shared between family members is a form of companionate love, as is the love between close friends who have a platonic but strong friendship.
Fatuous love can be exemplified by a whirlwind courtship and marriage – “fatuous in the sense that a commitment is made on the basis of passion without the stabilizing influence of intimate involvement.”
Consummate love is the complete form of love, representing an ideal relationship toward which people strive. Of the seven varieties of love, consummate love is theorized to be that love associated with the “perfect couple.” According to Sternberg, these couples will continue to have great sex fifteen years or more into the relationship, they cannot imagine themselves happier over the long-term with anyone else, they overcome their few difficulties gracefully, and each delight in the relationship with one other. However, Sternberg cautions that maintaining a consummate love may be even harder than achieving it. He stresses the importance of translating the components of love into action. “Without expression,” he warns, “even the greatest of loves can die.” Thus, consummate love may not be permanent. If passion is lost over time, it may change into companionate love.
The diligent thing to do, as you are all budding psychologists I’m sure, is to create a list of all the people you know and categorize them on the basis of the type of love you have with them.
Do these conceptions of love fit your relationship? Do you agree with Sternberg? Maybe you will realize your love is more full (or sadly less full) than you expected.
Predicting Love
While we are on the subject, we might as well outline a bit more about the psychological study of love.
Contrary to many of our fantasies about how love begins (stranger’s eyes meet across a crowded room and it’s love at first sight), the main predictors of love are much more mundane than many of us think.
The largest predictors of who will be in a relationship are familiarity, similarity, |
. I think a lot of people are just spending money now, and that’s not sustainable. That’s not a way to run a business. It is for a short-term, but I think we’re seeing the casualties of that now.”
Gerhard also believes the bigger entertainment landscape, led by mobile, is impacting player expectations when it comes to costs. With many games being free-to-play and many games, music and movies available starting at 99 cents, but yeah, players expect more for every dollar they spend.
“We’re in a recession, so players want more value and more time for every dollar and even the free players are far more discerning,” said Gerhard. “More than 50 percent of our members have been with us more than five years and growing, and so we develop those relationships. It’s a social network. At any point in time between 10 and 15 percent of our players are just chatting in the lobby with each other. So we work with them in developing new content and trying new things, which we’ve done since Day One.”
Another strategy Jagex has employed with its games from the early days is utilizing the cloud – before the cloud became a mainstream way for games to be distributed. The company has been doing virtualization in the cloud for over a decade.
“The the game logic state is set aside and we’ve only used the cloud for rendering, controller input and audio,” said Gerhard. “We have a very thin client that’s streamed on demand, so porting that to other devices is actually a relatively low effort compared to other games. We‘ve talked about that with Runescape and that’s our same design for taking on Transformers Universe and some other games too. So you can expect a lot of what Jagex produces to launch across multiple platforms.”
Gerhard said the decision to utilize HTML5 was to make the game “future proof” and demonstrate that a complex game like RuneScape can be brought to an infinite technology standard. This fall, RuneScape will expand to tablets with an optimized version of the game that is designed for that experience. The plan is for the game to expand to mobile shortly after that with apps that augment the game and provide productivity and interfacing with the game.
Jagex faces a lot of competition in the free-to-play online games space with companies like Sony Online Entertainment’s EverQuest II, Riot Games’ League of Legends and the upcoming Red 5 Studios’ Firefall enticing gamers.This is a delicious and fragrant variation on sugar cookies. I am so happy that they got done in time to use the remaining 10 minutes sunshine to take the pictures.
1 1/4 cup unbleached flour
1/2 cup sugar
1/2 cup margarine ( i like earth balance)
pinch of saffron
1 teaspoon ground cardamom
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
Crumple the saffron in a small bowl or large spoon, add warm water and soak a few minutes
Mix margarine and sugar until fluffy – either in the food processor, of just warm up the margarine until its nearly liquid
Add saffron with the water, cardamom, baking powder and flour
Mix well
Scoop the mix on a baking paper and make rolls to put in the fridge to rest and harden for at least 1/2 hour.
If you are as lazy as me, just cut the dough rolls in thin slices, press them flat a bit with your palms. If you want to make shapes, roll the dough and put it back into the fridge between two baking paper sheets before cutting the shapes.
375 degrees for ~ 10 mins
Let them cool well before taking them off the baking paper
AdvertisementsAT first, the constant attention seemed sweet and very special.
Janet N. Cook, a church secretary in the Tidewater, Va., area, had been a widow for a decade when she joined an Internet dating site and was quickly overcome by a rush of emails, phone calls and plans for a face-to-face visit.
“I’m not stupid, but I was totally naïve,” said Ms. Cook, now 76, who was swept off her feet starting in July 2011 by attention from a man who called himself Kelvin Wells and described himself as a middle-aged German businessman looking for someone “confident” and “outspoken” to travel with him to places like Italy, his “dream destination.”
But very soon he began describing various troubles, including being hospitalized in Ghana, where he had gone on business, and asking Ms. Cook to bail him out — again and again. In all, she sent him nearly $300,000, as he apparently followed a well-honed script that online criminals use to bilk members of dating sites out of tens of millions of dollars a year.
Many of those targeted are women, especially women in their 50s and 60s, often retired and living alone, who say that the email and phone wooing forms a bond that may not be physical but that is intense and enveloping. How many people are snared by Internet romance fraud is unclear, but between July 1 and Dec. 31, 2014, nearly 6,000 people registered complaints of such confidence fraud with losses of $82.3 million, according to the federal Internet Crime Complaint Center.On Saturday, March 25, 1911, a fire broke out on the top floors of the Triangle Shirtwaist Co. factory in New York. The workers, mostly women and young girls, were trapped inside because the factory owners had locked the exit doors to prevent them from leaving to go to the bathroom during their 12-hour shifts (there was no bathroom in the building).
When firefighters arrived, their ladders weren’t tall enough to reach the upper floors of the 10-story building, and many of the women began to jump to their deaths. Of the 500 people in the building, including managers, 146 workers perished.
Oddly, the fact that so many workers died in one day wasn’t unusual at that time. On average in 1911, 100 workers died each day.
The shirtwaist makers, some as young as age 15, worked seven days a week, from 7 a.m. to 8 p.m. with a half-hour lunch break. During the busy season, the work was nearly non-stop. They were paid about $6 per week.
In some cases, they were required to use their own needles, thread, irons and occasionally their own sewing machines. The factories also were unsanitary. At the Triangle factory, women had to leave the building to use the bathroom, so management began locking the steel exit doors to prevent the “interruption of work” and only the foreman had the key.
The Day After the Fire
The morning after the fire, 15,000 garment workers walked off the job, demanding a 20 percent pay hike, a 52-hour workweek and overtime pay. By the time picketing began the following day, 20,000 workers were striking. While many factory owners agreed to the terms, others did not, and hired thugs to intimidate the strikers and used political pressure to have the strikers arrested.
Most of the striking workers were women, and their struggle attracted the attention of wealthy and socially connected suffragettes like Anne Morgan, who was the daughter of J.P. Morgan, and Alva Belmont, who was married to William Vanderbilt. These women held rallies and fundraising events and even paid the fines of the workers who were arrested for picketing.
Anne Morgan and Alva Belmont hosted a meeting at the Metropolitan Opera House to demand action on fire safety, and more than 350,000 people participated in a funeral march for the Triangle dead.
Three months later, after pressure from activists, New York’s governor signed a law creating the Factory Investigating Commission, which had unprecedented powers. The commission investigated nearly 2,000 factories in dozens of industries and, with the help of such workers’ rights advocates as Frances Perkins, enacted eight laws covering fire safety, factory inspections and sanitation and employment rules for women and children. The following year, they pushed for 25 more laws – entirely rewriting New York State’s labor laws and creating a State Department of Labor to enforce the laws.
During the Roosevelt administration, Secretary of Labor Frances Perkins and Robert Wagner (who chaired the commission) helped create the nation’s most sweeping worker protections through the New Deal, including the National Labor Relations Act. The course of Perkins’ life had changed when she witnessed the Triangle Shirtwasit factory fire, leaving her office at the New York Consumers League to become the executive secretary for the Committee on Safety of the City of New York. She would serve as secretary from 1933 to 1945, and was the first woman appointed to the U.S. Cabinet.
Listen to archived audio files from WNYC of Francis Perkins, Eleanor Roosevelt and others discussing the fire on the 50th anniversary in 1961.
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Top 10 Most Frequently Cited OSHA Standards
Weirdest Workplace Safety StoriesJoanne Harris has announced she is pulling out of a literature festival “for the first time in my life” because of its demanding contract terms...
Joanne Harris has announced she is pulling out of a literature festival “for the first time in my life” because of its demanding contract terms and has called for an industry-wide standard to be introduced.
Chocolat author Harris tweeted earlier today (23rd February) that: “For the first time in my life, and with the utmost regret, I'm pulling out of a festival because of the terms of their contract.”
The festival in question had demanded a six-week exclusivity clause around the author holding any other events in the area, requested unrestricted filming of her attendance there and five free copies of the book. “All this for the princely sum of fifty quid,” Harris said, adding: “No thanks.”
Speaking to The Bookseller, Harris said she was reluctant to disclose the name of the July literature festival because the issues concerned many festivals and she didn’t want there to be a “hate fest” against the event.
However, Harris said to prevent the “unreasonable” demands of festivals getting out of control for authors, an industry standard contract should be drawn up by the Society of Authors.
“The contract terms are unreasonable,” Harris said. “I spoke to my PR at my publisher’s about it and she said there were lots of these contracts around. The exclusivity element is becoming a massive issue because it makes doing a book tour practically impossible and festivals are also asking authors to give permission to be filmed and recorded– with some the festivals charging for downloads of the film and podcasts. The festivals often also send the contract through really late after you have already agreed to appear and it has announced you are appearing, making it hard for authors not to agree to the terms.
“I think it is time for the Society of Authors to have an industry standard contracts rather than allow festivals to decide their own terms,” Harris added.
Authors "love" doing festivals, the Transworld author said, but the list of demands they have to agree to was "eroding the good will” of writers.
“These festivals are expecting everyone to be paid apart from the author, which the festival is built around,” Harris said. “It is time we really had a look at this. It was OK 50 years ago but it is not OK now. Especially young or unknown authors who can’t afford to go and have to pay their own travel. I am speaking out because someone needs to take a stance where others might feel they can’t. Somewhere along the line it has become accepted that authors don’t get paid for this type of thing. We need to send the message out that art isn’t free, that art has a worth and needs to be paid for.”
Harris said she was now “reluctant” to attend festivals which do not offer a fee, although she will return the fee for a small festival, she said.
Last month, author and Society of Authors president Philip Pullman announced he was standing down from his position as patron of Oxford Literary Festival because it did not pay authors to speak, despite him trying to “long persuade” them to.
At the time, he said: "Festivals pay everyone else who’s professionally involved.They pay for the electricity they use, they pay rent for the lecture halls they hire, they pay the people who supply the marquees and the toilets, they pay the publicists and the professional administrators, they pay for the drinks receptions, they pay the people who cook and serve the ‘black tie dinners’, they pay the people who design and print the brochures and the programmes, they pay the people who do the cleaning. Only the authors are expected to work for nothing. Many of us have had enough of that.”
Shortly afterwards, prominent writers including Harris and Linda Grant, Denise Mina, and Francesca Simon called for publishers and fellow authors to boycott events which didn’t pay authors in a letter to The Bookseller.
The Society of Authors (SoA) has drawn up a document of "Minimum Practice Guidelines" for literary festivals, covering the areas of transparency, payment and expenses, rights, arrangements and book sales.
Nicola Solomon, c.e.o of the SoA, said: "We do not advocate a standard contract but we do urge all festivals to follow our guidelines. Like Joanne, we have seen a number of festivals which try to impose an exclusivity period on authors. This strikes us as most unfair and singularly inappropriate, particularly when authors are paid so little for festivals. We will be adding this to our guidelines when we revise them later in the year."
She added: "Contracts should be given at the time the author is first contacted so they know what terms are being requested. Authors should not be recorded without permission and use of any such recordings, even for publicity purposes should attract an extra fee."
Oxford Literary Festival has since said it would “meet with all interested parties to discuss how to achieve payment of fees for all speakers" from 2017.
Harris has previously issued a 12-point “Writer’s Manifesto” at Manchester Literature Festival, arguing that “a writer and their readers should be based on mutual respect.”Only now has Oakland begun to erase the memories of mistakes that have taken years to overcome.
In 2005, Oakland used its first-round draft pick on cornerback Fabian Washington one pick before Green Bay drafted quarterback Aaron Rodgers.
In 2007, the Raiders drafted quarterback JaMarcus Russell No. 1 overall, just before Calvin Johnson went to Detroit at No. 2, offensive tackle Joe Thomas went to Cleveland at No. 3 and running back Adrian Peterson went to Minnesota at No. 7.
Pairing Rodgers with Johnson would have given the Raiders the type of team the Lions have built. Yet with a 2-1 start heading into Sunday's showdown versus New England, Oakland still has become one of the NFL's early-season surprises.
Since some memorable misses, the Raiders have continually connected. They have been on a run of quiet confidence that has replenished the roster, transformed their team, and created a certifiable challenger to the San Diego Chargers in the AFC West.
In 2008, the Raiders used the fourth overall pick on running back Darren McFadden, who now leads the league in rushing.
In 2009, the Raiders traded a 2011 first-round pick to New England for defensive lineman Richard Seymour, a franchise player who will be battling his former Patriots teammates Sunday.
And then, in the past two years, the Raiders have fortified their trenches, drafting linebacker Rolando McClain, defensive end Lamarr Houston, offensive tackle Jared Veldheer and center/guard Stefen Wisniewski, to go along with their customary speed merchants in wide receivers Jacoby Ford and Denarius Moore.
Oakland is trying, in the words of coach Hue Jackson, "to build a bully." So far it looks like it's working.
Based on conversations with NFL scouts, here's what makes Oakland formidable: its defensive line is tough and talented, and its running game is explosive and excellent. Now New England will give Oakland an accurate gauge of exactly how much progress it has made.
Through three weeks, the NFL has seen surprise teams emerge in the AFC East and NFC North. Some suspect there could be another in the AFC West.
On to this week's 10 Spot:
No matter how great Cam Newton becomes, his paycheck will be the same for the foreseeable future. Bob Donnan/US Presswire
1. Newton a bargain for Carolina: Over the next three seasons, nobody will contain Carolina quarterback Cam Newton any better than the NFL's new collective bargaining agreement. It has slowed him down in a way the Chicago Bears are hoping to Sunday. Under terms of the NFL's 10-year CBA, no rookie, including Newton, is allowed to renegotiate, alter or amend his contract in any way until after the final regular-season game of his third season. This means the Panthers have Newton this season at the rookie minimum $375,000 base salary and a salary-cap number of just over $4 million, nearly a million less than the salary-cap number that Alex Smith has in San Francisco.
Carolina handed Newton a handsome $14.5 million bonus this summer, but Newton better save it. He won't be seeing another bonus anytime soon. No matter how well Newton continues to perform -- and he has been the best rookie in the NFL this season -- Newton is assured of making a total of $18.6 million the next three seasons, which is more than $7 million less than what the Colts are paying quarterback Peyton Manning this season alone. And Newton already was paid $56 million less than the 2010 No. 1 overall pick, Sam Bradford.
To compare Bradford's $78 million deal that included $50 million guaranteed to Newton's $22 million deal illustrates just how hard rookies have been hit. But they're locked in, too. What Newton's start has illustrated is that, although teams have added protection against exorbitant salaries for high draft picks that flame out, premium players who now shine early in their careers will be victimized and exposed.
Carolina has watched Newton turn into the NFL's most exciting rookie and one of its best bargains as well. He has given the Panthers not only the injection of hope they needed, but salary-cap flexibility for years to come, though not of his own choosing. By now, details of the NFL's new CBA are, thankfully, an afterthought. But Newton, and the salaries he will make, are not.
2. Roar is restored: There have been plenty of good times to be a fan of Michigan's sports teams. But not many have been more enjoyable than now. For the first time since 1987, the Detroit Tigers are division champs. And for the first time since 1980, the Detroit Lions are 3-0 heading into Sunday's game versus Dallas.
For those who think the Lions' start is a fluke, think again. Dating to last season, the Lions now have won seven straight games, the NFL's longest winning streak. And Detroit's winning already has had one unintended result. It is making Thanksgiving Day with the Lions and Packers even more appetizing.
With his Dolphins 0-3, Tony Sparano is on the hot seat. AP Photo/Stephan Savoia
3. Heat is on Sparano: This is the NFL version of Miami heat. Tony Sparano watched the Miami Dolphins court Jim Harbaugh during the offseason, and now is 0-3 this season with a road game at San Diego before a bye, then a Monday night game in New Jersey against the Jets.
Bye weeks typically have been the in-season time when teams inclined to make coaching changes strongly consider them. If the Dolphins fail to win Sunday at San Diego, the spotlight on Sparano -- who got a two-year contract extension during the offseason for Miami's botched courtship of Harbaugh -- will intensify. Miami could opt to turn to its defensive coordinator, Mike Nolan, or quarterbacks coach Karl Dorrell as an interim head-coaching replacement.
But the Dolphins look doomed, not unlike a trade the team nearly completed this summer. Just when the Dolphins were about to trade a fourth-round pick to the Broncos for quarterback Kyle Orton in August, Dolphins owner Stephen Ross declined to pay the three-year, $27 million extension that the quarterback and Miami already had agreed to, league sources said. When Ross declined to pay Orton, the deal blew up. Now Miami's season almost has.
The Dolphins have lost six straight, 11 of their past 12 at home, and fans are staying away from their games. Ross could opt for a coaching change, but he should be warned. The Raiders and Rams each changed coaches four games into the 2008 season. Oakland finished 4-8; St. Louis 2-10.
Tennessee's Chris Johnson is averaging only 2.1 yards per carry this season. Andy Lyons/Getty Images
4. CJ on the spot: With injured wide receiver Kenny Britt lost for the season, the Titans need running back Chris Johnson to produce more than ever. Problem is, he hasn't lately.
Dating to last season, Johnson now has gone five straight games without a 100-yard rushing performance. In those five games combined, Johnson has 195 yards -- fewer than he has rushed for in two games alone during his career.
This season Johnson doesn't even have 100 rushing yards -- he has 46 carries for 98 yards. One NFL executive said this summer, before the Titans paid Johnson $30 million guaranteed, that he didn't see Tennessee's running back running as hard during the 2010 season. This season he has looked hesitant and indecisive. But that Johnson has been ineffective and the Titans still are 2-1 is the proof of how well Tennessee quarterback Matt Hasselbeck has played.
5. The Ravens' newest threat: In April, when St. Louis had the 47th overall selection in the draft, Baltimore was worried that the Rams would take the wide receiver the Ravens wanted, Torrey Smith. St. Louis opted for Wisconsin tight end Lance Kendricks, leaving Smith for the Ravens.
The moves were accentuated in Week 3, when Smith caught three touchdown passes in one quarter against the Rams. Now the Ravens need Smith to play that way the rest of the season. Yet even if he doesn't, the threat still is there. Defenses now will have to respect the speed that Smith and Lee Evans have and guard against it. Looking out for Baltimore's new speedy wideouts should create more lanes for running back Ray Rice and make the Ravens a more dangerous team.
6. Wallace setting sights high: No receiver seems to have the speed of Pittsburgh's Mike Wallace, who has developed into one of the league's most dynamic players. For all the talk about Pittsburgh's running game, Wallace has had six straight games of more than 100 yards receiving, and he has done it in nine of his past 12 games as well.Here you'll find a list of hotfixes that address various issues related to World of Warcraft: Legion. Some of the hotfixes below take effect the moment they were implemented, while others may require scheduled realm restarts to go into effect. Please keep in mind that some issues cannot be addressed without a client-side patch update. This list will be updated as additional hotfixes are applied.
Additional information about the expansion can be found below.
June 15
Hotfixes
Chromie Scenario
The Timelord title is now account-wide.
Nezar'Azret should now only summon adds when in combat.
Dungeons
Corrected an issue where Mythic Keystone completion failed to award an additional piece of loot for beating the timer in some circumstances.
Items
Tome of the Legionfall Magi should no longer notify group members when it is looted.
Mythic Keystones should now display properly when linked in chat.
NPCs
Ilyssia of the Waters should no longer appear in Azsuna. She wasn't quite ready for her debut yet.
Player versus Player
The Gaze of Aman'thul debuff can no longer be removed by player spells.
Druid Cyclone should now work correctly on all tamed Hunter pets. Restoration Template Intellect increased by 5%.
Monk Windwalker The stun provided by Heavy-Handed Strikes now correctly matches the increased range of Fists of Fury.
Paladin Holy Template Intellect increased by 2%.
Priest Discipline Inner Renewal will no longer trigger twice for Shadow Covenant.
Holy Template Intellect increased by 2%.
Shaman Restoration Template Intellect increased by 2%.
Warlock Affliction Nightfall will correctly be consumed when casting Seed of Corruption Unstable Affliction's dispel backlash can no longer be reflected or grounded.
Quests
Auctioneer Xifa should no longer evade attempted assassination for “Hiding in Plain Sight”.
Spellbook
Brawn (Tauren racial trait) and Might of the Mountain (Dwarf racial trait) now appear correctly in the spellbook.
June 14
Hotfixes
Chromie Scenario
Andorhal: Brother Grigory and Talessah Towhide should cast their full heal spell less often.
In Dragonblight, Chromie is now a very important NPC, well-marked on maps, and player-versus-player activities are forbidden in the area around her.
Class Halls
Artifact Research Notes work order shipments now have a duration of 3 hours and 36 minutes.
(Hotfix in testing) Blood of Sargeras can now be obtained from Class Hall vendors at a price of 5 Blood of Sargeras for 5,000 Order Resources.
Items
(Hotfix in testing) Fixed a bug preventing Mythic Keystone information from displaying properly when linked in chat.
Unseen Predator's Cloak will now correctly increase the Critical Strike chance of Cobra Spit (Spitting Cobra talent) and the Critical Strike chance of the periodic damage from On The Trail (Artifact Trait).
Player versus Player
Corrected an error that was being encountered in the formation of groups for Packed House PvP Brawl.
Rogue Subtlety PvP template Agility reduced by 5%.
Shaman Enhancement Ascendance reduces the cooldown and Maelstrom cost of Stormstrike by 50% (was 80%) in PvP situations. Earthen Spike increases the physical and nature damage taken by the target by 20% (was 30%) in PvP situations.
Warlock Destruction Shadowburn now causes Cremation damage, as intended.
Warrior Arms Mortal Strike damage reduced by 30% in PvP situations. Rend damage reduced by 15% in PvP situations.
Professions
Obliterum Ash rewards from Patch 7.2.5 crafted items are now similar to rewards from Patch 7.2.0 and earlier.
June 13
Hotfixes
Classes
Casting Heroic Leap, Infernal Strike, Metamorphosis, or Grappling Hook while rooted will no longer consume the cooldown.
Monk Windwalker Blackout Kick damage increased by 8%. Rising Sun Kick damage increased by 8%. Tiger Palm damage increased by 8%.
Priest Shadow Mind Blast damage increased by 13%. Mind Flay damage increased by 18%. Void Bolt damage increased by 10%.
Shaman Enhancement Stormbringer can now proc from Stormstrike offhand and Windstrike offhand attacks.
Warrior Arms Cleave damage reverted to 7.2.0 values. Extra Executes from Sweeping Strikes now correctly benefit from the Precise Strikes Artifact Trait. Mortal Strike damage increased by 12%. Opportunity Strikes should not be triggered by Pummel or Heroic Leap. Shattered Defenses (Artifact Trait) reduced to 50% bonus damage (was 60% bonus damage). Trauma reduced to 20% additional damage (was 25%).
Dungeons and Raids
The Nighthold Krosus Searing Brand damage reduced by 15%. Star Augur Etraeus Fel Burst, Starburst, and Iceburst damage reduced by 15%. Gul’dan Fel Scythe damage reduced by 15%. Gul’dan’s health decreased by 3% on Heroic and Mythic difficulties.
Items
Draught of Souls damage is reduced by 15% for Fury Warriors (was 40%).
Draught of Souls damage is reduced by 20% for Arms Warriors (was 40%).
The Elemental Shaman Embrace of the Living Mountain 2-piece set bonus now has a 10% chance to refund Maelstrom spent on Earth Shock (was a 45% chance).
The Fury Warrior Battlegear of Iron Wrath 4-piece set bonus now provides a 2 second reduction to Battle Cry (was 10 seconds).
Player versus Player
Death Knight Crypt Fever will no longer consume Festering Wounds when it procs.
Demon Hunter Havoc Template Agility increased from 80% to 85%. Template Haste reduced from 130% to 110%. Template Versatility increased from 100% to 120%. Chaos Blades increases damage dealt by 20% (was 30%) in PvP situations. Fel Barrage damage reduced by 30% in PvP situations. Nemesis durations increased to 30 seconds in PvP situation (was 15 seconds). Nemesis now increases damage by 15% (was 25%).
Hunter Beast Mastery Template Agility decreased from 80% to 70%. Template Armor decreased from 120% to 100%. Template Critical Strike increased from 70% to 100%. Template Mastery decreased from 75% to 45%. Dire Beast: Basilisk is now immune to snares and roots. Dire Beast: Basilisk's damage has been increased by 50%.
Marksmanship Template Agility decreased from 105% to 100%.
Template Critical Strike increased from 50% to 80%.
Template Haste decreased from 150% to 120%.
Sniper Shot no longer increases its own range.
Sniper Shot's duration increased to 15 seconds (was 10 seconds).
Sniper Shot's range is increased to 55 yards (was 40 yards).
Monk Mistweaver Way of the Crane causes Spinning Crane Kick to heal for 100% of damage dealt (was 200%). Way of the Crane now heals based on absorbed damage. Way of the Crane now costs 8% of base mana.
Windwalker Template Versatility increased from 100% to 120%.
Template Haste increased from 175% to 200%.
Tigereye Brew should now correctly grant stacks for all Chi-consuming abilities.
Paladin Holy Template Intellect increased from 135% to 145%. Avenging Crusader's mana cost has increased by 30%. Avenging Crusader's cooldown recovery rate on Judgment and Crusader Strike decreased to 30% (was 50%). Avenging Crusader's bonus damage decreased to 30% (was 50%).
Protection Hand of the Protector's healing is reduced by 60% in PvP (was 45%).
Light of the Protector's healing is reduced by 60% in PvP (was 45%).
Luminesence now heals for 20% of healing taken (was 30%).
Mana regeneration reduced by 25%.
Retribution Template Strength reduced from 85% to 80%.
Blessing of Sanctuary's cooldown is now 45 seconds (was 30 seconds).
Lawbringer's duration increased to 45 seconds (was 30 seconds).
Divine Punisher now grants 3 Holy Power (was 2).
Luminesence now heals for 20% of healing taken (was 30%).
Templar's Verdict now deals full damage in PvP situations (was a 30% reduction).
Priest Discipline Overloaded with Light increases Light's Wrath damage by 200% in PvP situations (was 500%). Power Word: Fortitude can now be active on 3 targets. Power Word: Fortitude's mana cost has been reduced by 80%. Power Word: Shield's absorption amount is increased by 10% in PvP situations (was 25%). Purified Resolve now provides a 5% maximum health shield (was 8%). Strength of Soul decreases physical damage taken by 20% (was 30%). Strength of Soul's heal has been increased by 75%.
Holy Template Damage dealt decreased from 75% to 65%.
Template Haste increased from 100% to 125%.
Template Intellect increased from 135% to 145%.
Template Mastery reduced from 100% to 75%.
Divine Attendant now reduces cooldown by 2.5 minutes (was 2 minutes). Tooltip will be inaccurate till a followup hotfix.
Greater Fade's duration has been reduced to 4 seconds (was 6 seconds).
Ray of Hope's bonus healing has been reduced to 50% (was 100%).
Renew's periodic healing has been increased by 100% in PvP situations.
Spirit of the Redeemer now has a 3 minute cooldown (was 5 minutes).
Spirit of the Redeemer now has a 7 second duration (was 10 seconds).
Shadow Mind Blast damage increased by 30% in PvP situations.
Mind Flay damage increased by 40% in PvP situations.
Shadow Word: Pain damage reduced by 20% in PvP situations.
Shadow Word: Void damage increased by 20% in PvP situations.
Shadowform reduces physical damage taken by 20% in PvP situations (was 10%).
Vampiric Touch damage reduced by 15% in PvP situations
Void Torrent no longer deals decreased damage in PvP situations, (was 20% less.
Shaman Purifying Waters healing reduced by 40%.
The Healing Surge cast by Swelling Waves now heals for half its regular amount.
Enhancement Gathering Storms no longer counts pets and guardians in PvP situations when increasing the damage of your next Stormstrike.
Restoration Template Critical Strike increased from 50% to 120%. Template Versatility increased from 130 to 140%. Earth Shield will now heal when an attacker takes 4% of their max health in damage (was 8%). Earth Shield now has 4 charges (was 3). Healing Stream Totem now heals for an additional 40% in PvP situations (was 10%). Riptide heals for an additional 30% in PvP situations. Healing Wave heals for an additional 50% in PvP situations (was an additional 100%).
Warlock Soul Shards should now be set to 3 during Arena Preparation
Warrior Fury Template Stamina decreased from 100% to 95%. Bloodthirst's heal is reduced by 25% in PvP situations.
Professions
The item level of most Legion crafted gear is now 850, and can now be increased up to 900 with Obliterum. Existing gear below item level 850 will not have its item level changed, and will display "Obliterum: 0/10", but it will be brought up to item level 855 with one application of Obliterum.
Attempting to apply Obliterum to Skullblasters will no longer consume the Obliterum and Blood of Sargeras.
Crates of Bobbers should no longer drop if you already know the toy that they teach.
Patch 7.2.5 is now live! For more details, click here.They also show that even the nation’s “godfathers” have to move ahead with the times. The term, which refers to political patrons, is widely used in Nigeria. Chris Uba, a wealthy businessman who was close to President Obasanjo and had been happy to sponsor Mr. Ngige’s political ambitions, is a good example of the genre. He and his fellow godfathers were displeased by the governor’s failure to award them inflated contracts they did not intend to fulfill. Their outrage was amplified by a statement Mr. Ngige made after his abduction, in which he referred to a pledge of loyalty they had made him take before an Igbo religious shrine. “I followed them and watched them say their nonsense, and got out,” he said, adding that he thought he could “afford to call their bluff” once he assumed office.
Mr. Ngige’s godfathers, disappointed by the police, were forced to seek payback elsewhere. And so they turned to the judicial process. With help from the federal government, they were able to get an election tribunal to declare Mr. Ngige’s election invalid and rule that his opponent Peter Obi was the true victor. Mr. Ngige accepted the decision with good grace. A popular politician widely seen as being victimized by corrupt forces, he was subsequently elected senator. Now, with Mr. Obi’s two terms as governor ending, Mr. Ngige has once more sought the post.
The election last week was a three-way fight between the All Progressives Grand Alliance, represented by Mr. Obi’s would-be successor, Willie Obiano; the Peoples Democratic Party, which is headed by President Goodluck Jonathan, and was represented in Anambra by Tony Nwoye; and the All Progressives Congress, represented by Mr. Ngige.
The Grand Alliance is relatively insignificant on the national scene, with only two of the country’s 36 governors, and only eight of the 469 seats in the National Assembly. The P.D.P., by contrast, has dominated Nigerian politics for nearly 15 years. It was also once the party of Mr. Ngige, who was hoping to bounce back with the A.P.C., itself a coalition of parties forged earlier this year in hopes of breaking the P.D.P.’s grip in the general elections set for April 2015. The coalition, which controls 11 states and 102 National Assembly seats, represents a huge threat to the governing party. So it was imperative that the P.D.P. keep Mr. Ngige out.
Fortunately for them, the chairman of the Independent National Electoral Commission is appointed by the president. Despite widespread protests, the commission chairman, Prof. Attahiru Jega, has declared the Grand Alliance candidate, Willie Obiano, the provisional winner. Though Professor Jega admitted that there was “sabotage” by some of election officials, who accredited only 451,826 of the 1,763,751 registered voters, and promised reruns in the affected areas, the commission has rejected calls to annul the vote.NEWS④ Convenient new pages have been added!
“Turning the page to a new year”
The 2017 version of the planner features the addition of a number of new pages found mostly in the extra pages section at the end of the planner.
▲Turning the page to a new year (this picture is from the Original book)
This here is a new year warm-up page included in the Original, Cousin, and Planner book versions.
It’s a space where you jot down and look back on the previous year’s events, write resolutions for the new year, or jot down items from your previous year’s planner for inclusion in the new year.
These pages are yours to freely use any way you want.
The lower corner of the page conveniently features the December 2016 and January 2017 calendars.Skylar Tibbits heads MIT’s Self-Assembly Lab.
Photo by MIT Technology Review en español/Flickr via Creative Commons
In the next industrial revolution, will we manufacture goods, or will they construct themselves? architect and computer scientist Skylar Tibbits talks about 4-D printing, programmable matter, and the future of things.
Michael Reilly: You run the Self-Assembly Lab at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. What does “self |
’s next leader, prompting threats from pro-democracy activists to shut down the Central financial district. It wants to limit 2017 elections for Hong Kong’s leader to a handful of candidates loyal to Beijing.
The student-led march that organizers said drew more than four thousand people is a continuation of four full days of activities including citywide boycotts by thousands of university students, public assemblies, marches and speeches.
The protesters are demanding full democracy in a series of escalating acts that will culminate in an “Occupy Central” blockade of roads in the main financial district on Oct. 1.
MINOR CLASHES
The march came after Leung ignored a 48-hour ultimatum to meet the students. He said in a statement that he respected the “students’ aspirations and perseverance on democracy and their expectations on and willingness to take responsibility for the future of Hong Kong”.
“CY Step down,” the crowds chanted outside Leung’s colonial era mansion in the hills above the financial district. They also shouted for China’s president Xi Jinping to “shut up” on matters related to Hong Kong political development.
Scores of police corralled the crowds with metal barricades and blocked roads. A police spokesman urged the students to “maintain social order” and to express their views “peacefully and rationally”.
A smaller group of younger secondary school students are expected to join the boycott on Friday. The student protests are part of a string of civil disobedience acts, including an unofficial referendum and an overnight sit-in in the city’s business district on July 2 that led to more than 500 arrests.
There have been minor clashes with police this week but the protests have remained largely peaceful and authorities have been tolerant in allowing public assemblies at Tamar Park, located between the government headquarters and the legislature.
While the mood has been defiant but peaceful so far in the gatherings on a large grass slope overlooking Victoria harbor, there have been signs of underlying social tensions between the city’s liberal factions and conservative pro-Beijing supporters.
A teenager had his front tooth cracked when a middle-aged man elbowed him in the face as he spoke into a loudhailer on a street corner to drum up support for the school boycott.
“I find it shocking how they accuse us of using violence and of acting like Red Guards to get our way,” said Chow Kar-ho, the 16-year-old victim, after the attack. “But now they use the same violence against us.”
The organizers of Occupy Central have all but confirmed a “grand banquet” will take place on Oct. 1 drawing an expected 10,000 people, but have been vague about specifics for fear of being arrested ahead of their action.
“If there are... 10,000 people sitting on the roads, and if four policemen are needed to haul off each person, then this will take some time,” said Chan Kin-man, one of the organizers.Then there are the marshmallows and cotton balls for hands-on projects. And then there are the extra books so they have something to read on the weekend and during holiday breaks, and peanut butter and jelly so kids who don't have enough to eat have at least some food at Christmas. Every year she also has had to replace headphones or other classroom technology because something always malfunctions, and there's rarely enough money in the budget to fix it. She prides herself as a master discount shopper, but so many little purchases add up.
All in, Richardson estimates she spent $500 of her own money on her students last year. She says it's worth it — her voice lights up talking about “her kids” and all their “aha moments,” many of which come when she deviates from the textbook.
But what has also been helpful is that she's able to deduct $250 off her taxable income for the extras she buys for her classroom, a small help that Congress created in 2002 for teachers who “go above and beyond.”
Now, the educator expense deduction has become a sticking point in the GOP tax debate, with the House and Senate taking it in two wildly different directions.
The House GOP tax bill would scrap that educator deduction entirely.
The Senate GOP tax plan would double it to $500.
“The tax deduction means a lot to teachers,” says Richardson, who is 36 and lives in Atlanta. “Everything we bring to the classroom, we are doing it for our students. We are doing it because education isn't always properly funded on the state or local level.”
The education expense deduction is one of many differences between the House and Senate bills that still have to be ironed out before a tax plan can be sent to President Trump's desk. The House has already passed its version of the bill. The Senate is aiming to vote on its legislation next week.
What politicians decide could greatly affect America's 3.6 million teachers — and their students.
One of the biggest champions of the teacher deduction is Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine), who is considered a key swing vote on the tax bill. Collins helped create the deduction in 2002 and lead the charge to make it permanent in 2015, calling it a "small token of appreciation" for teachers who make financial sacrifices for their students.
Elementary school teacher Brooke Richardson of Atlanta hosts a holiday party for her students. (Photo: Courtesy of Brooke Richardson/)
"I will continue to advocate for the Senate provision doubling the deduction," said Collins in a statement to The Washington Post. “During my Senate service, I have visited more than 200 schools throughout Maine. At virtually every school, I have met teachers who are spending money out of their own pockets to benefit their students."
The median salary for an elementary school teacher like Richardson is $55,490, according to the Labor Department, an amount most say falls into the middle class. But teachers often start their careers at far lower salaries, and that's when they typically need to spend the most to build up their base of materials.
Watch more!
House Speaker Paul D. Ryan (R-Wis.) changed his talking point on taxes after an inquiry from the Fact Checker. His original point was still misleading. (Meg Kelly/The Washington Post)
“The first few years that I taught I often spent over $500,” says Darcie Schoeps, a 39-year-old who teaches social studies at a high school in the Bronx, one of America's poorest neighborhoods. “The textbooks I was given my first year were so outdated they still had the Soviet Union listed as a country.”
Schoeps, who has taught for more than a decade, used her own money to buy new maps and workbooks with Russia (and other nations) listed appropriately. Now she teaches general education, special education and English as a second language students, requiring her to buy workbooks and games that can suit a wide range of abilities. In her 9th grade classes, some students read at a 4th grade level.
Any full-time instructor at a public or private K-12 school is currently eligible for the $250 deduction. It's an “above-the-line” deduction, meaning teachers don't have to itemize to claim it. It's listed on the part of the tax form alongside deductions for moving expenses, student loan interest and health savings accounts. The House GOP bill does away with those popular deductions, as well.
Line 22 of America's 1040 tax form (the most commonly used form by most Americans is for educator expenses./)
The educator deduction gives a teacher earning about $55,000 a year an extra $40 to $50 in their pocket. Republicans in the House, including Speaker Paul D. Ryan (Wis.) and Rep. Kevin Brady (R-Tex.), argue that the time has come to simplify the tax code, even if it means getting rid of popular deductions.
“Keeping records of these expenses is often very burdensome for taxpayers, and this current-law deduction also poses administrative and enforcement challenges for the Internal Revenue Service (IRS)," House Republicans wrote in a document explaining why they eliminated deductions for teacher expenses, medical expenses and others.
House Republicans say their bill gets rid of the teacher deduction but that many educators would still be better off because they are also increasing the standard deduction and lowering overall tax rates. For example, the 15 percent tax bracket falls to 12 percent in their plan.
But Richardson, who is single, may be worse off.
Although the House bill does increase her standard deduction from $6,350 to $12,000, it also takes away other savings she uses. In addition to losing the $250 teacher deduction, the House bill eliminates the the $2,500 student loan interest deduction, a benefit that helps many teachers like Richardson who get their master's degree in education. She would also lose either the personal exemption (currently worth $4,050) or the ability to deduct some of her state and local taxes if she itemizes.
The Senate bill keeps the student loan interest deduction, while the House bill eliminates it, another conflict.
Richardson worries about other ways the legislation may affect education. The Senate bill scraps all state and local tax deductions. Most schools in the United States get their funding from property taxes. Atlanta's public schools already had to make budget cuts this year after a property tax freeze. School funding could become even more contentious, especially in high-tax cities, if the GOP tax bills are enacted.
Any tax bill requires trade-offs. Both the House and Senate bills reduce the tax rate for large corporations from 35 percent to 20 percent. It's a change that would be permanent. To pay for that, Republican lawmakers had to raise revenue elsewhere. The House bill did that by eliminating many tax breaks for individuals like the educator expense.
The educator expense deduction costs the federal government $210 million a year — or about $2.1 billion over the 10-year time span of the tax bill, according to estimates from the Joint Committee on Taxation and the U.S. Treasury. The educator expense deduction costs less than 0.15 percent of the tax cut going to mega corporations to lower their rates.
Read more:
Will your taxes go up or down? The five biggest questions on the GOP plan
By age 3, inequality is clear: Rich kids attend school. Poor kids stay with a grandparent
The House just passed its big tax bill. Here's what is in it
Heather Long is an economics correspondent. Before joining The Washington Post, she was a senior economics reporter at CNN and a columnist and deputy editor at the Patriot-News in Harrisburg, Pa. She also worked at an investment firm in London.
Post RecommendsGet ready. Coachella is coming. For two weekends, April 10-12 and April 17-19, artists will rock the stage at the Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival in Indio, California. The official line-up was announced on Tuesday, featuring many familiar faces from the Atlantic roster.
Get excited for awesome performances from Action Bronson, Alt-J, David Guetta, Marina & The Diamonds, Fitz & The Tantrums, Martin Solveig, Vance Joy, Sturgill Simpson, Saint Motel, Lykke Li, The Orwells, and Night Terrors of 1927!
Though it's a few months away, we're already very excited. If you're just as impatient as we are, you can get in the spirit of Coachella with our Coachella 2015 Playlist on Spotify!
Tickets for the Coachella festival are on sale now. See you there!
For more on your favorite artists, including those mentioned above, sign up for our newsletter!On Thursday afternoon, the Indians announced that Scott Atchison has been hired to be manager Terry Francona's new bullpen coach, replacing Jason Bere. Atchison will partner with new pitching coach Carl Willis to lead the Tribe's talented pitching staff, following former Indians pitching coach Mickey Callaway's recent move to be the Mets' new manager.
CLEVELAND -- Just two years ago, Scott Atchison was a member of the Indians' bullpen. Now, the former pitcher will be leading Cleveland's relief corps.
CLEVELAND -- Just two years ago, Scott Atchison was a member of the Indians' bullpen. Now, the former pitcher will be leading Cleveland's relief corps.
On Thursday afternoon, the Indians announced that Scott Atchison has been hired to be manager Terry Francona's new bullpen coach, replacing Jason Bere. Atchison will partner with new pitching coach Carl Willis to lead the Tribe's talented pitching staff, following former Indians pitching coach Mickey Callaway's recent move to be the Mets' new manager.
"Losing Mickey's a big deal," Francona said in a conference call on Thursday. "And I didn't want to just put a Band-Aid on something. The idea is for us to get better, and I really feel with Carl Willis and Scott Atchison, together as a team on the pitching side, we're going to be just fine. We're in good hands."
For the past two seasons, Atchison served as a Major League advance coach and staff assistant, working alongside Callaway and Bere in a variety of capacities. Atchison also collaborated with the team's front-office and analytics departments to help distribute information and present scouting reports to Cleveland's pitchers.
Francona noted that the Indians interviewed one external candidate for the job, along with Steve Karsay (Triple-A Columbus pitching coach) and Ruben Niebla (Minor League pitching coordinator). In the end, Atchison's work over the past two years, his familiarity with the Major League staff and pitchers and his experience as a pitcher won out.
"Atch was so integral in our advance reports," Francona said, "and doing a lot of the dirty work, some of the grunt work that nobody wants to do. And he did it willingly. So, his content is good because of his experience. And he knows the league and he knows our pitchers and then his ability to want to do the work is also important. He was being sought after by a number of teams. We did not want to lose him."
Video: CWS@CLE: Atchison fans Cabrera to strikeout the side
Bere was under contract for 2018, but the sides opted to part ways following the restructuring of the coaching staff. That paved the way for Atchison to be promoted to Francona's field staff.
"You can't have two positions." Francona said. "Jason was extremely professional. But again, it was completely what Atchison does, not what J.B. doesn't do."
The Indians anticipate the rest of their coaching staff will remain intact for 2018, but the club is still in the process of interviewing candidates for the vacant assistant hitting coach job. Francona said the team will also explore whether to hire a staff assistant to fill Atchison's former role.
Atchison, 41, inherits a bullpen that led the Majors in ERA (2.89), Fielding Independent Pitching (3.20), WHIP (1.14) and strikeout-minus-walk percentage (20.0). Cleveland's relievers logged the fewest innings (489 1/3) in the American League last season -- thanks to the team's strong rotation -- and ended the year ranked second in MLB in WAR (8.6) and fourth in strikeout percentage (27.5).
Prior to joining the Indians' staff, Atchison enjoyed a nine-year career in the Majors between stints with the Mariners, Giants, Red Sox, Mets and Tribe. In 298 big league games, the right-hander posted a 3.63 ERA. He also spent two seasons pitching in Japan in 2008-09. Atchison pitched for Francona in Boston ('10-11) and Cleveland ('14-15) before going into coaching.
"He's had pretty much every role you could ever imagine," Francona said. "So, I just think his experiences and his personality lends itself to being a really, really good coach."
Jordan Bastian has covered the Indians for MLB.com since 2011, and previously covered the Blue Jays from 2006-10. Read his blog, Major League Bastian, follow him on Twitter @MLBastian and Facebook.In 1893, author Sir Arthur Conan Doyle shoved detective Sherlock Holmes off a cliff. The cliff was fictionally located in Switzerland, over the Reichenbach Falls. But Conan Doyle did the dirty work from his home in London where he wrote. “It is with a heavy heart that I take up my pen to write these the last words in which I shall ever record the singular gifts by which my friend Mr Sherlock Holmes was distinguished,” narrator Dr John Watson says in Conan Doyle’s story The Final Problem, which appeared in The Strand magazine in December 1893.
Conan Doyle himself seemed a little less emotional in private. “Killed Holmes,” he wrote in his diary. One can imagine Conan Doyle, slicked-back hair shimmering in the candlelight, twirling his ample mustache with glee. He later said of his famous character: “I have had such an overdose of him that I feel towards him as I do towards paté de foie gras, of which I once ate too much, so that the name of it gives me a sickly feeling to this day.”
The public reaction to Holmes’ death was unlike anything previously seen for fictional events.
Conan Doyle may have thought, at the time of finishing Holmes off in print, that that was that. If he did think this, he did not understand fans – particularly fans of Holmes – very well. The public reaction to the death was unlike anything previously seen for fictional events. More than 20,000 Strand readers cancelled their subscriptions, outraged by Holmes’ premature demise. The magazine barely survived. Its staff referred to Holmes’ death as “the dreadful event”.
Legend has it that young men throughout London wore black mourning crêpes on their hats or around their arms for the month of Holmes’ death, though that has recently been questioned. (Some Holmes aficionados have suggested the story could have been an exaggeration perpetuated by Conan Doyle’s son in interviews.) Outraged readers wrote to the magazine in protest: “You brute!” one letter addressed to Conan Doyle began. Americans started “Let’s Keep Holmes Alive” clubs. Conan Doyle stuck to his guns in the face of the protests, calling the death “justifiable homicide” – referring, presumably, to his own justifications, not Moriarty’s.
This sounds, of course, like just another day on the internet in 2015. But at the time, Conan Doyle had every reason to be shocked by the torrent of vitriol. Fans simply did not do this before then. (In fact, they weren’t even called “fans” yet. The term, short for “fanatic”, had only recently begun use in reference to American baseball enthusiasts.) Readers typically accepted what went on in their favourite books, then moved on. Now they were beginning to take their popular culture personally, and to expect their favourite works to conform to certain expectations. They seemed to actually expect a reciprocal relationship with the works they loved.
Fan frenzy
Sherlock Holmes’ avid readers helped to create the very modern practice of fandom. Interestingly enough, Holmes’ intense following continues to this day, spawning endless reimaginings, such as the US crime-solving series Elementary and the BBC’s Sherlock, which returned with a highly-anticipated special on New Year’s Day, its modern-day Sherlock and Watson returning to Victorian times.
Because of Holmes, Conan Doyle was, one historian wrote, ‘as well-known as Queen Victoria’.
Holmes first appeared in 1887, in the novelette A Study in Scarlet. He was popular from the start – so popular that soon Conan Doyle began to regret having created him, since Holmes stories so completely overshadowed what Conan Doyle considered his serious work, such as his historical novel Micah Clarke. Readers lined up at newsstands for The Strand on publication day whenever a new Holmes story was to appear inside. Because of Holmes, Conan Doyle was, one historian wrote, “as well-known as Queen Victoria”.
Holmes fans were truly the emerging middle-class, the exact sort of group whose tastes would be denigrated by snooty critics as populist for more than a century to come. They were the ones priced out of concerts, the ones who had to wait for the cheaper versions of popular novels. Historian David Payne describes them as “largely the lower-middle and middle-middle classes of the cities, the non-intellectual, non-public school, hardworking, rising… people – the first true mass moderns.” The Strand targeted them with what we’d now recognise as exciting, high-concept genre stories – mysteries and science fiction – from writers such as HG Wells and Jules Verne.
The demand for Holmes stories seemed endless. The Strand would pay Conan Doyle nicely for whatever he could give them. But he hadn’t meant to spend the rest of his life inventing and solving fictional crimes. He’d meant to make some money to support his real art, novels full of what he felt were important ideas and political statements.
In 1903 he went one step further, resurrecting Holmes with the explanation that only Moriarty had died in the fall.
By 1893, when Conan Doyle was 34, he’d had enough. He wanted to be Sir Walter Scott. So he had the evil Professor Moriarty push Holmes down the falls. It took eight years, but by 1901, however, public pressure grew so great that Conan Doyle wrote a new story, The Hound of the Baskervilles, featuring Holmes before his fall. In 1903, in The Adventure of the Empty House, he went one step further, resurrecting Holmes with the explanation that only Moriarty had died in the fall, while Holmes had faked his own death. Fans rejoiced.
Life after death
Holmes fans have only grown more obsessive since then. The only difference is that now we’re used to super-fandom. Even so, the BBC series Sherlock, in particular, has stoked the most passionate strand of Holmes fandom in some time. Fans of the show, which stars Benedict Cumberbatch as a modern-day Holmes, frequent the London sandwich shop favoured by Sherlock and his Watson (Martin Freeman), Speedy’s Café. They crowd the streets when the crew films on location, to such a point that it has caused production problems. (Nearly a thousand once showed up at the Baker Street location, which is Gower Street in real life.)
In China, fans have popularised elaborate fan fiction positing this particular Sherlock (whom they call “Curly Fu”) and Watson as a gay couple. Japanese fans pore over Sherlock manga. Korean pop group SHINee recorded a tribute song. Cumberbatch fans have their own squad name: ‘Cumberbitches’, known for their Beatles-level reactions to the dreamy star.
As a TV show, Sherlock has maintained a complicated relationship with its fans. Sometimes the producers throw in a scene to wink at fans – or in the first episode of series three, an entire episode built out of fan theories about how Sherlock faked his own death, also a callout to The Adventure of the Empty House. But the show’s co-creator, Steven Moffat, has often been dismissive of fans, while Cumberbatch uncomfortably wrote off Sherlock fan fiction as absurd. Never mind that the show itself could be considered ‘fan fiction’ based on Conan Doyle’s Victorian-age work.
I think Doyle began the idea that super-intelligence comes at the price of some kind of social dysfunction – Steven Moffat
Of course, Sherlock’s ability to cause such intense emotion among its fans is only an indication of how much they love it. What’s remarkable is that Sherlock Holmes fans have been engaging in such histrionics over the fictional detective for more than 120 years, through many, many adaptations.
Sherlock co-creator Mark Gatiss, who also plays the detective’s brother Mycroft, has credited Conan Doyle for creating characters that transcend time: “I think more than anything, what people have responded to is the fun of the show, which is so much what Doyle’s stories were actually like,” he told Al Jazeera America. “Over years and years of accumulating various versions and Victoriana, people had slightly lost sight of the fact that they’re enormous fun! They’re quick reads, they’re jolly thrilling, blood-curdling thrilling adventures and really, that’s what we wanted to do.”
Gatiss has also pointed out that Holmes is one of the original fictional detectives – most other crime-solvers created thereafter were copies of him or a direct reaction to him: “Everything onwards is people drawing a line from Sherlock and Doctor Watson. Agatha Christie does it explicitly and makes Poirot short and round as opposed to tall and lean. He needs a Watson, so she creates Captain Hastings. Everywhere you go, this is the model. That’s why it’s imperishable I think.”
Just look at the landscape of current TV heroes, many of which play on Holmes’s brilliant-but-damaged formula. “Even outside the world of detection, I think Doyle began the idea that super-intelligence comes at the price of some kind of social dysfunction, something that we’ve grasped as a narrative possibility ever since,” Moffat has said. “He’s a genius, therefore he’s a bit strange. I don’t know how often that happens in real life, but it happens a lot in fiction.”
In other words, pushing Sherlock Holmes off a cliff has no chance of killing him. He’ll always come back, in this lifetime and the next. The fans will see to it.
If you would like to comment on this story or anything else you have seen on BBC Culture, head over to our Facebook page or message us on Twitter.The retailer is severing its relationship with the first daughter's namesake brand.
The Seattle-based Nordstrom department-store chain has confirmed that effective fall 2017 it is cooling its relationship with the brand the first daughter founded in 2007.
A Nordstrom spokesperson tells THR: "We've said all along we make buying decisions based on performance. We’ve got thousands of brands — more than 2,000 offered on the site alone. Reviewing their merit and making edits is part of the regular rhythm of our business. Each year we cut about 10 percent and refresh our assortment with about the same amount. In this case, based on the brand’s performance we’ve decided not to buy it for this season."
A unnamed source from Ivanka's brand said Nordstrom has bought spring 2017 apparel, which is "in the process of being allocated to physical stores," but would not comment on the prospects for fall 2017 apparel. Retailers are currently at market buying for the fall 2017 season.
The source stated, "As background, the strong relationship between Nordstrom and the Ivanka Trump brand was instrumental in the evolution of the brand when it was one category and the brand has since expanded to multiple categories."
It's unclear whether the #GrabYourWallet movement, which encouraged shoppers to boycott the Ivanka Trump brand and continued to encourage shoppers to boycott any Trump-affiliated products, had anything to do with the development.
In other Ivanka news, Pro Publica reported Thursday that the first daughter is still "listed in New York state business filings as the chief executive officer of her eponymous jewelry companies in Florida and New York." Although she previously included links to ivankatrump.com on her personal Instagram and Facebook pages, they have since been removed, according to the independent non-profit newsroom.
In response, Alan Garten, the Trump Organization’s chief legal officer, told ProPublica late in the day that Ivanka Trump has signed all necessary paperwork to resign from her companies and that the filings are in the process of being updated with various states or are being sent. “Effective tomorrow, everything will be done,” he said.
The brand developments come on the heels of Ivanka, the person, getting criticized online for posting a date-night photo while dozens of refugees from Syria, Iraq and other banned countries were being detained at U.S. airports.
On Thursday and Friday, Nordstrom replied to users questioning the decision, reiterating that it was not political and that they decided not to buy the brand this season based on its sales performance.
Very disappointed @nordstrom is dropping the Ivanka Trumo brand. Politics shouldn't interfere with good products. — Candace Cameron Bure (@candacecbure) February 3, 2017
See some of the replies here.
@jrs1956 It’s not a political decision for us. We decided not to buy the brand for this season based on it's sales performance. — Nordstrom (@Nordstrom) February 3, 2017
@tiiffmichelle We make all of our buying decisions season by season. — Nordstrom (@Nordstrom) February 3, 2017
@Evrynameisgone Based on sales performance we have decided not to buy it for this season. — Nordstrom (@Nordstrom) February 3, 2017Transitioning border for a hover state. Simple, right? You might be unpleasantly surprised.
The Challenge
The challenge is simple: building a button with an expanding border on hover.
This article will focus on genuine CSS tricks that would be easy to drop into any project without having to touch the DOM or use JavaScript. The methods covered here will follow these rules
Single element (no helper divs, but psuedo-elements are allowed)
CSS only (no JavaScript)
Works for any size (not restricted to a specific width, height, or aspect ratio)
Supports transparent backgrounds
Smooth and performant transition
I proposed this challenge in the Animation at Work Slack and again on Twitter. Though there was no consensus on the best approach, I did receive some really clever ideas by some phenomenal developers.
Method 1: Animating border
The most straightforward way to animate a border is… well, by animating border.
.border-button { border: solid 5px #FC5185; transition: border-width 0.6s linear; }.border-button:hover { border-width: 10px; }
See the Pen by Shaw (@shshaw) on CodePen.
Nice and simple, but there are some big performance issues.
Since border takes up space in the document’s layout, changing the border-width will trigger layout. Nearby elements will shift around because of the new border size, making browser reposition those elements every frame of the animation unless you set an explicit size on the button.
As if triggering layout wasn’t bad enough, the transition itself feels “stepped”. I’ll show why in the next example.
Method 2: Better border with outline
How can we change the border without triggering layout? By using outline instead! You’re probably most familiar with outline from removing it on :focus styles (though you shouldn’t), but outline is an outer line that doesn’t change an element’s size or position in the layout.
.border-button { outline: solid 5px #FC5185; transition: outline 0.6s linear; margin: 0.5em; /* Increased margin since the outline expands outside the element */ }.border-button:hover { outline-width: 10px; }
See the Pen by Shaw (@shshaw) on CodePen.
A quick check in Dev Tools’ Performance tab shows the outline transition does not trigger layout. Regardless, the movement still seems stepped because browsers are rounding the border-width and outline-width values so you don’t get sub-pixel rendering between 5 and 6 or smooth transitions from 5.4 to 5.5.
See the Pen by Shaw (@shshaw) on CodePen.
Strangely, Safari often doesn't render the outline transition and occasionally leaves crazy artifacts.
Method 3: Cut it with clip-path
First implemented by Steve Gardner, this method uses clip-path with calc to trim the border down so on hover we can transition to reveal the full border.
.border-button { /* Full width border and a clip-path visually cutting it down to the starting size */ border: solid 10px #FC5185; clip-path: polygon( calc(0% + 5px) calc(0% + 5px), /* top left */ calc(100% - 5px) calc(0% + 5px), /* top right */ calc(100% - 5px) calc(100% - 5px), /* bottom right */ calc(0% + 5px) calc(100% - 5px) /* bottom left */ ); transition: clip-path 0.6s linear; }.border-button:hover { /* Clip-path spanning the entire box so it's no longer hiding the full-width border. */ clip-path: polygon(0 0, 100% 0, 100% 100%, 0 100%); }
See the Pen by Shaw (@shshaw) on CodePen.
clip-path technique is the smoothest and most performant method so far, but does come with a few caveats. Rounding errors may cause a little unevenness, depending on the exact size. The border also has to be full size from the start, which may make exact positioning tricky.
Unfortunately there’s no IE/Edge support yet, though it seems to be in development. You can and should encourage Microsoft’s team to implement those features by voting for masks/clip-path to be added.
Method 4: linear-gradient background
We can simulate a border using a clever combination of multiple linear-gradient backgrounds properly sized. In total we have four separate gradients, one for each side. The background-position and background-size properties get each gradient in the right spot and the right size, which can then be transitioned to make the border expand.
.border-button { background-repeat: no-repeat; /* background-size values will repeat so we only need to declare them once */ background-size: calc(100% - 10px) 5px, /* top & bottom */ 5px calc(100% - 10px); /* right & left */ background-position: 5px 5px, /* top */ calc(100% - 5px) 5px, /* right */ 5px calc(100% - 5px), /* bottom */ 5px 5px; /* left */ /* Since we're sizing and positioning with the above properties, we only need to set up a simple solid-color gradients for each side */ background-image: linear-gradient(0deg, #FC5185, #FC5185), linear-gradient(0deg, #FC5185, #FC5185), linear-gradient(0deg, #FC5185, #FC5185), linear-gradient(0deg, #FC5185, #FC5185); transition: all 0.6s linear; transition-property: background-size, background-position; }.border-button:hover { background-position: 0 0, 100% 0, 0 100%, 0 0; background-size: 100% 10px, 10px 100%, 100% 10px, 10px 100%; }
See the Pen by Shaw (@shshaw) on CodePen.
This method is quite difficult to set up and has quite a few cross-browser differences. Firefox and Safari animate the faux-border smoothly, exactly the effect we’re looking for. Chrome’s animation is jerky and even more stepped than the outline and border transitions. IE and Edge refuse to animate the background at all, but they do give the proper border expansion effect.
Method 5: Fake it with box-shadow
Hidden within box-shadow's spec is a fourth value for spread-radius. Set all the other length values to 0px and use the spread-radius to build your border alternative that, like outline, won’t affect layout.
.border-button { box-shadow: 0px 0px 0px 5px #FC5185; transition: box-shadow 0.6s linear; margin: 0.5em; /* Increased margin since the box-shado expands outside the element, like outline */ }.border-button:hover { box-shadow: 0px 0px 0px 10px #FC5185; }
See the Pen by Shaw (@shshaw) on CodePen.
The transition with box-shadow is adequately performant and feels much smoother, except in Safari where it’s snapping to whole-values during the transition like border and outline.
Pseudo-Elements
Several of these techniques can be modified to use a pseudo-element instead, but pseudo-elements ended up causing some additional performance issues in my tests.
For the box-shadow method, the transition occasionally triggered paint in a much larger area than necessary. Reinier Kaper pointed out that a pseudo-element can help isolate the paint to a more specific area. As I ran further tests, box-shadow was no longer causing paint in large areas of the document and the complication of the pseudo-element ended up being less performant. The change in paint and performance may have been due to a Chrome update, so feel free to test for yourself.
I also could not find a way to utilize pseudo-elements in a way that would allow for transform based animation.
Why not transform: scale?
You may be firing up Twitter to helpfully suggest using transform: scale for this. Since transform and opacity are the best style properties to animate for performance, why not use a pseudo-element and have the border scale up & down?
.border-button { position: relative; margin: 0.5em; border: solid 5px transparent; background: #3E4377; }.border-button:after { content: ''; display: block; position: absolute; top: 0; right: 0; bottom: 0; left: 0; border: solid 10px #FC5185; margin: -15px; z-index: -1; transition: transform 0.6s linear; transform: scale(0.97, 0.93); }.border-button:hover::after { transform: scale(1,1); }
See the Pen by Shaw (@shshaw) on CodePen.
There are a few issues:
The border will show through a transparent button. I forced a background on the button to show how the border is hiding behind the button. If your design calls for buttons with a full background, then this could work. You can’t scale the border to specific sizes. Since the button’s dimensions vary with the text, there’s no way to animate the border from exactly 5px to 10px using only CSS. In this example I’ve done some magic-numbers on the scale to get it to appear right, but that won’t be universal. The border animates unevenly because the button’s aspect ratio isn’t 1:1. This usually means the left/right will appear larger than the top/bottom until the animation completes. This may not be an issue depending on how fast your transition is, the button’s aspect ratio, and how big your border is.
If your button has set dimensions, Cher pointed out a clever way to calculate the exact scales needed, though it may be subject to some rounding errors.
Beyond CSS
If we loosen our rules a bit, there are many interesting ways you can animate borders. Codrops consistently does outstanding work in this area, usually utilizing SVGs and JavaScript. The end results are very satisfying, though they can be a bit complex to implement. Here are a few worth checking out:
Conclusion
There’s more to borders than simply border, but if you want to animate a border you may have some trouble. The methods covered here will help, though none of them are a perfect solution. Which you choose will depend on your project’s requirements, so I’ve laid out a comparison table to help |
3. Thirdly, bizarrely Eircodes are a secret and so you will not know your neighbours or a strangers Eircode without being specifically told it. If you happen to be a tourist on a drive in a rural area and you come across a house on fire you may have no means to direct the emergency services to the fire location. No possibility exists with Eircode to generate a code on the spot unlike algorithm based codes which all offer this feature. In all 3 cases above Eircodes could cost lives either directly because of errors or indirectly because a better system would improve response times leading to more lives being saved. How can any minister stand over a system that will cost lives? Eircode – No use for utility companies or local authority infrastructure. Because Eircodes are only for dwellings that will receive mail from An Post. They will be of no use for utility companies or local authorities looking to manage dispersed infrastructure. Currently a multitude of different utilities, semi states and councils use their own systems for marking public lighting, telegraph poles and bridges etc. with Interpretation not available to the Public. Having one simple off the shelf system would save resources within each organisation, creating efficiency’s and saving money. Furthermore Neil Mc Donald of the FTAI summed it up when he listed locations that will never have an Eircode….workshops, farm buildings, windmills, piers, jetties, fields, large fixed assets, lay‐‐bys, points of interest, lanes, archaeological sites, roads, natural features, intersections, accident black‐‐spots, pylons, parks, motorways, junctions, antennae, wells, graveyards, pumping stations, viewing points, manholes/utility access points, car‐‐parks, beaches, level‐crossings, transformers, bridges, forests, bogs, lakes, playing pitches, cycle‐‐ tracks, picnic areas, public toilets, walkways such as the Wild Atlantic Way.
Eircode – No use for transport company infrastructure Companies like Irish Rail have a very large infrastructure to manage and do this using proprietary databases for bridges & level crossings etc. But the situation could exist whereby a truck could knock down a bridge and demolish or otherwise hide the sign showing the proprietary database name for that particular bridge. A one system fits all would allow persons on site to generate a code for that site and possibly prevent a derailment. Again because only dwellings with post boxes will get an Eircode they will be no use for bus stops or minor train stations. We should be making ease of access to public transport a priority and Eircode will not help with this. Eircode – Limited use for Tourism
Obviously for tourists with a compatible smartphone app or satnav Eircode will be of help trying to find a hotel or restaurant. However when it comes to heritage sites Eircodes will again be no use. No use for tourists visiting dolmens, stone circles, ruined castles etc. An increasing number of tourists are starting to visit Ireland for walking and cycling routes and again Eircode are an utter fail when it comes to highlighting points of interest along these routes. If we want to grow our tourism numbers why are we not acting in a coherent manner and doing everything possible to direct and help tourists once they are here? Will waypoints on the Wild Atlantic Way be on Eircode? NO! A Duty of Care responsibility also arises if the State encourages tourists to visit remote locations such as the Wild Atlantic Way. The state must provide reasonable means for public safety, signage, and fixed rescue points etc. unfortunately Eircode provide no mechanism to assist in these scenarios. Eircode – No use for temporary events Eircode has no provision for temporary postcodes for temporary dwellings. What has Loc8 Code got to offer over Eircode? Loc8 Code – Designed to be simple to use and communicate Loc8 Codes were designed by Mr. Gary Delaney a formal naval service ships officer with a Master’s Degree in Navigation from the University of Nottingham. Mr. Delaney’s career involved day to day navigation of Ireland’s 7 million square km of nautical territory. Since leaving the Defence Forces Mr. Delaney has further honed his navigational skills carrying out precise GPS surveys for industry. He also works as a Navigation Consultant and expert witness for the State. In short Mr. Delaney understands a lot about navigation & mapping and used his extensive knowledge & experience to design and introduce a consumer friendly navigation and waypoint code known as Loc8 Code. Loc8 Codes are based upon logical nested co‐ordinates ultimately allowing you to define a large area, a small area or an exact point with +/‐ 6 metre accuracy. It is important to point out that Loc8 Codes are not a sequential code, they are a logically assigned nested code. This is important as it allows codes to be assigned to new buildings that are built between two existing buildings. For full accuracy Loc8 Codes use 8 digits with 2 dashes separating the groups of digits. So for example my business in Rathcoole uses NT4‐82‐V23 to identify its location. That format of XXX‐XX‐XXX is important as it allows users and software to positively identify a Loc8 Code. Other codes do not use a structure like this and are likely to be confused with words or even phone numbers.
From the full 8 digit code reduced accuracy version of the code can be used by omitting some of the constituent parts. So NT4‐V23 will identify a locality 100m x 100m while NT4 will identify a zone 3.5km x 3.5km approx. These options would be useful for example for obtaining a delivery quote without having to reveal your full postcode to the shipping company privacy advantage that Eircode cannot match. It could also be useful for taxi dispatchers or emergency service operations to assign resources quickly to a given zone. One big advantage that Loc8 Codes have over Eircodes is that that the zone and locality codes are logically rather than randomly assigned. This means delivery drivers or emergency service personnel will be able to learn the zone or locality structures that apply to their area of responsibility. Another big plus over Eircodes is that the full and locality versions of the Loc8 Code include a checker digit that help detect common human errors. Please note the checker digit is NOT a checksum and therefore does not function like a checksum whereby the checksum would have to change when the code is shortened. A checker digit is designed with a consumer code in mind, it spots common errors without being unnecessarily complicated. Having a code that is logical and includes built in safeguards makes it easier to communicate and verify. Other steps have also been taken to avoid confusion with Northern Ireland postcodes e.g. BT and other common and predictable causes of confusion e.g. w and vv etc. Loc8 Code – Lightweight algorithm driven Unlike Eircodes Loc8 Codes do not rely on a database, they rely on a simple yet sophisticated engineered computer algorithm. The code is simple in that it consists of approximately 50 lines of computer code making it very small and lightweight when it comes to integrating Loc8 Codes into software or hardware. The code is sophisticated in that those 50 lines of code contain all the smart rules and exceptions for consistent generation or mapping of a Loc8 Code. Any device (computer, mobile phone, GPS system) which contains the Loc8 Code algorithm can calculate the exact location of a Loc8 without an Internet connection and/or database search. This means 100% coverage, 100% of the time without exception. It doesn’t matter if the user is looking up a Loc8 Code on the Blasket islands or in central Dublin, it will just work. Enter GPS co‐ordinates and get a Loc8 Code out, reverse the process and put in a Loc8 Code and get the exact same GPS coordinates back out. Loc8 Code – Faster and more secure Because a Loc8 Code can be translated into GPS coordinates without connecting over the Internet it is much quicker in use than Eircode. Consider the case of the emergency services, even if they do have an Internet connection, that connection can take time to connect and may be slow. Vital minutes could be lost. Because Loc8 Codes do not rely on a central database server they are much more secure and there is no single point of failure and generation or mapping is practically instant. The fact that Loc8 Codes can be generated on‐device and without broadband coverage (database access) makes them infinitely more available than Eircodes as planned. No security issues arise from reverse running the code because there are half a billion possible Loc8 Codes and no way of knowing which of these are actually dwellings. Reverse engineering of Eircode makes sense to a hacker while doing the same to Loc8 is simply unfeasible. Loc8 Codes are not a hack, DoS or data poisoning risk unlike like Eircodes. Also an algorithm needs no maintenance and thus suffers no downtime so no need to worry about an SLA. Loc8 Code – Self Service saves money Because of the publicly available nature of apps and websites that generate Loc8 Codes these can be used to “self‐service” the delivery of Loc8 Codes to early adopters. If it is the intention of the Department of Communication Energy and Natural Resources to notify 2.2 million addresses of their individual postcode then this is likely to cost €2.2 million to deliver when postage and printing are taken into account. If a sizeable number of these locations were able to self‐service the creation of their own postcode this would mean that the savings in postage alone could pay for the acquisition of the portion of Loc8 Code that is not already owned by the state via Enterprise Ireland.
The government could announce an initial self‐service phase of the postcode roll‐out followed up by a postal rollout at a later date to all those that have not already self‐generated a code. Self‐service creation of Loc8 Codes is already tried and trusted and has been integrated using ordinance survey house mapping and to date over 100,000 codes have been generated. Self‐service also has the advantage in that it can be applied to non‐dwellings such as building sites etc. and reduces bureaucracy and hence running costs for the overall postcode project. I suspect that self‐service will show transparency of code generation and may enhance “buy‐in” and adoption by citizens on the ground by offering them enhanced ownership. Exact details of how Loc8 would propose a roll‐out available from Loc8 themselves who have plans based on 4 years in market place. Loc8 Code – For every location on island of Ireland On a small island such as Ireland it makes sense to roll out a code that can be used in both jurisdictions. This makes it easier for people, businesses and tourists to travel around the island and it also can play a part enhancing emergency services co‐operation as there are many occasions, especially in border areas, where fire and ambulance appliances from the south head north and vice versa. Loc8 Code was designed from the beginning to be an all‐Ireland address code. Using a lightweight algorithm based code would impose very low adoption costs for all users north and south. Because it is algorithm based, northern ireland users simply need to opt‐in by creating a self‐service code, and there is no expensive database required. Loc8 Code – Install once NEVER requires updating Because the algorithm is so small it means that any update for a device such as a GPS or smartphone can actually be quite tiny and measured in kilobytes not megabytes or gigabytes. So the firmware update file needed to make a GPS compatible with Loc8 Code could potentially be 2 million times smaller than the update for Eircode which is important if your broadband is very slow. Importantly this firmware update for your GPS or satnav only needs to be carried out ONCE. Once the GPS is Loc8 aware it stays this way and never needs an update again. Garmin have featured Loc8 code since 2010 with expanding devices supported since then. Compare to Eircode this means consumers, businesses and tourists update ONCE only not every 3 months. Loc8 Code is much easier & cheaper for them to adopt and maintain which is even more important for organisations such as emergency services. For smartphone users the Point8 App is available now from the iTunes or Android Play store. Loc8 Code – Ideal for emergency services A dwelling based postcode is only useful for emergencies that occur in and close to dwellings but there are many accidents that happen away from dwellings such as RTAs, cliff, mountaineering & potholing accidents, farm accidents, forestry accidents, missing persons, light aircraft crashes etc. Loc8 Code can help in all these situations as ANY location on the Island of Ireland can be given a Loc8 Code. Getting ambulances or other emergency services to a casualty quickly saves lives but it also saves money and allows organisations to maximise the current resources they have at their disposal. I think it is well recognised that our emergency services are in crisis due to lack of resources amongst other reasons. The implementation by the DECNR of a genuinely useful postcode is a low cost way of helping these organisations (NAS, Fire brigade etc.) maximise their efficiency and effectiveness.
In one simple example Irish Water Safety and Local Authorities are already using Loc8 codes to mark ring buoys. If a member of the public notices a damaged or missing ring buoy they can call this in exactly without confusion. The Gardaí have also approved Loc8 code for use in their squad cars after a rigorous testing process in Templemore. The HSE also use Loc8 Code for Major Emergency Planning. Loc8 Code – Ideal for utility company / local authority infrastructure Eircodes are only useful when reporting issues relating to dwellings so for a lot of day to day problems experienced by utility companies or local authorities Eircodes are useless. Using Loc8 Codes on the other hand it is possible to accurately report a dangerous pothole with 6m accuracy to your local authority, or livestock on a road, or a faulty streetlamp or a gas leak etc. The benefits of Loc8 Code for utility companies and local authorities would be immeasurable, enhancing efficiencies and enhancing safety. It provides one simple streamlined system with no need to re‐invent a system every time they need to catalogue outdoor assets. For major emergencies such as winter’s storms Loc8 Codes are very useful making it easy to accurately report infrastructure damage and thus leading to quicker location of faults and thus quicker repairs saving time and money. Loc8 Code – Ideal for transport companies For the general public Loc8 Codes are ideal for identifying bus stops. For taxi services they would be invaluable for guiding taxies to a customer not located at a dwelling. And with regard to emergency access to transport infrastructure Loc8 codes are already being used for emergency access to the railway lines –. Loc8 Code – Ideal for tourism Because any location can have a Loc8 Code it is especially useful for tourism. Way marked trails can use the Loc8 Code to indicate points along trail or cycleway. Indeed tours could be devised that follow Loc8 Codes that would not be possible using Eircodes. For example a tour of the Wicklow mountains could start with a viewing point overlooking Dublin, then move on to the source of the River LIffey, and then move on go Glenmacnas waterfall before a visit to the round tour and lakes at Glendalough none of these attractions will ever have an Eircode. Loc8 Code – Ideal for temporary events There is no provision with Eircode to provide temporary postcodes to large events such as Bloom or the National Ploughing Championship. Events like this are very large shows with many hundreds of exhibitors and tens of thousands of visitors. While they may have their own system for mapping stands, using Loc8 Codes could simplify thing for them, again why invent your own system if Loc8 Codes will do the job. Using Loc8 Codes at these events could also enhance safety as emergency services such as first aid posts or defibrillators could be highlighted with a Loc8 Code.
`Loc8 Code – Idea for wildlife surveying The National Parks & Wildlife Services as well as multiple NGOs regularly run surveys to count wildlife or to plot invasive species etc. Using the simple consumer friendly Loc8 Code system would allow these organisations and their members conduct their surveys with greater ease. A simple code like Loc8 would also allow easier participation by the general public Red Herrings Some issues that may cause confusion. Random versus Sequential versus Nested Eircode features a routing key tied to the primary postal operator in Ireland followed by 4 random digits this allows for new postcode to be issued for a new building built in between two existing buildings. A sequential postcode would not allow for a new postcode to be issued for a new building in‐between two existing buildings but Loc8 Code is NOT a sequential postcode. Loc8 Code is a logically assigned nested code, this means it follows simple rules to generate a code from a GPS position. So Loc8 Code will allow a new unique postcode to be issued for a new building built in between two existing buildings. Not accurate enough The accuracy of Loc8 Code is +/‐ 6 metres and this matches the accuracy of consumer satnav devices. There is no practical reason to have a more accurate postcode because it cannot be resolved without the use of very expensive additional equipment. Giving a postcode to an apartment There is no logical reason to give a postcode to every individual apartment in an apartment complex. The front door of the apartment block is the first place a delivery person will look for and once there the apartment number will suffice. Adding thousands of apartments to the databases increases the size and cost of the database for no appreciable benefit as it will not lead you further than the front door of the block. It could also lead to the bizarre situation where an actual apartment block itself would not have a postcode which would hinder location by maintenance personnel. Giving a postcode to an individual apartment adds to public unease and could lead them to believe that Eircodes are only for collecting tax. Having multiple Eircodes for the same front door GPS position is just creating confusion and in no way adds to accuracy as the GPS location of the apartment will not be the physical location of the apartment. Checksum doesn’t work The checker digit in Loc8 code is not a checksum and does not work like a checksum it is designed to help identify common errors and also works when a shortened 6 digit version of the code is used.
What if you can’t self-service? Self‐service generation of a Loc8 Code is something that has been in use for almost 5 years and over 100,000 times. Self‐service of a postcode would allow the government to save millions of euro in printing, postage and man hours. It would also allow end users to obtain their postcode in a timely manner without having to rely on someone to do it for them. Persons unable to self‐service their own Loc8 code could receive their code in the manner similar to the way Eircodes plan to roll out to all addresses via a postcard or letter detailing your postcode. Self‐service allows the opportunity to save money and speedup a rollout but does not preclude or prevent any other method of dissemination post codes. Essentially the DCENR should welcome and encourage as much self‐service as possible so as to reduce ongoing administration costs and speed up delivery.
Full Loc8 Code – +/- 6m Accuracy – NT4-82-V23
Loc8 Locality – 100m x 100m area – NT4-V23
Loc8 Zone – 3.5km x 3.5km area – NT4Note: This article was first published on January 9, 2016.
The idea that medieval Muslim rulers wreaked havoc on Indian culture and society – deliberately and due to religious bigotry – is a ubiquitous notion in 21st century India. Few people seem to realise that the historical basis for such claims is shaky to non-existent. Fewer openly recognise the threat that such a misreading of the past poses for modern India.
Aurangzeb, the sixth Mughal Emperor (r. 1658-1707), is perhaps the most despised of India’s medieval Muslim rulers. People cite various alleged “facts” about Aurangzeb’s reign to support their contemporary condemnation, few of which are true. For instance, contrary to widespread belief, Aurangzeb did not destroy thousands of Hindu temples. He did not perpetrate anything approximating a genocide of Hindus. He did not instigate a large-scale conversion program that offered millions of Hindu the choice of Islam or the sword.
In short, Aurangzeb was not the Hindu-hating, Islamist tyrant that many today imagine him to have been. And yet the myth of malevolent Aurangzeb is seemingly irresistible and has captured politicians, everyday people, and even scholars in its net. The damage that this idea has done is significant. It is time to break this mythologized caricature of the past wide open and lay bare the modern biases, politics, and interests that have fuelled such a misguided interpretation of India’s Islamic history.
A recent article on this website cites a series of inflammatory claims about Indo-Muslim kings destroying premodern India’s Hindu culture and population. The article admits that “these figures are drawn from the air” and historians give them no credence. After acknowledging that the relevant “facts” are false, however, the article nonetheless posits that precolonial India was populated by “religious chauvinists,” like Aurangzeb, who perpetrated religiously-motivated violence and thus instigated “historical injustices” to which Hindus can rightly object today. This illogical leap from a confessed lack of reliable information to maligning specific rulers is the antithesis of proper history, which is based on facts and analysis rather than unfounded assumptions about the endemic, unchanging nature of a society.
A core aspect of the historian’s craft is precisely that we cannot assume things about the past. Historians aim to recover the past and to understand historical figures and events on their own terms, as products of their time and place. That does not mean that historians sanitise prior events. Rather we refrain from judging the past by the standards of the present, at least long enough to allow ourselves to glimpse the logic and dynamics of a historical period that may be radically different from our own.
Going back more than a millennium earlier, Hindu rulers were the first to come up with the idea of sacking one another’s temples, before Muslims even entered the Indian subcontinent. But one hears little about these “historical wrongs”
In the case of Indian Muslim history, a core notion that is hard for modern people to wrap our heads around is as follows: It was not all about religion.
Aurangzeb, for instance, acted in ways that are rarely adequately explained by religious bigotry. For example, he ordered the destruction of select Hindu temples (perhaps a few dozen, at most, over his 49-year reign) but not because he despised Hindus. Rather, Aurangzeb generally ordered temples demolished in the aftermath of political rebellions or to forestall future uprisings. Highlighting this causality does not serve to vindicate Aurangzeb or justify his actions but rather to explain why he targeted select temples while leaving most untouched. Moreover, Aurangzeb also issued numerous orders protecting Hindu temples and communities from harassment, and he incorporated more Hindus into his imperial administration than any Mughal ruler before him by a fair margin. These actions collectively make sense if we understand Aurangzeb’s actions within the context of state interests, rather than by ascribing suspiciously modern-sounding religious biases to him.
Regardless of the historical motivations for events such as premodern temple destructions, a certain percentage of modern Indians nonetheless feel wronged by their Islamic past. What is problematic, they ask, about recognising historical injustices enacted by Muslim figures? In this regard, the contemporaneity of debates over Indian history is crucial to understanding why the Indo-Islamic past is singled out.
For many people, condemnations of Aurangzeb and other medieval Indian rulers stem not from a serious assessment of the past but rather from anxieties over India’s present and future, especially vis-à-vis its Muslim minority population. After all, one might ask: If we are recognising injustices in Indian history, why are we not also talking about Hindu rulers? When judged according to modern standards, medieval rulers the world over measure up poorly, and Hindu kings are no exception. Medieval Hindu political leaders destroyed mosques periodically, for instance, including in Aurangzeb’s India. Going back more than a millennium earlier, Hindu rulers were the first to come up with the idea of sacking one another’s temples, before Muslims even entered the Indian subcontinent. But one hears little about these “historical wrongs” for one reason: They were perpetrated by Hindus rather than Muslims.
Religious bigotry may not have been an overarching problem in India’s medieval past, but it is a crucial dynamic in India’s present. Religious-based violence is real in modern India, and Muslims are frequent targets. Non-lethal forms of discrimination and harassment are common. Fear is part of everyday life for many Indian Muslims. Thus, when scholars compare medieval Islamic rulers like Aurangzeb to South Africa’s twentieth-century apartheid leaders, for example, they not only display a surprising lack of commitment to the historical method but also provide fodder for modern communal fires.
It is high time we discarded the pernicious myth of India’s medieval Muslim villains. This poisonous notion imperils the tolerant foundations of modern India by erroneously positing religious-based conflict and Islamic extremism as constant features of life on the subcontinent. Moreover, it is simply bad history. India has a complicated and messy past, and we do it and ourselves no justice by flattening its nuances to reflect the religious tensions of the present.
Audrey Truschke is a historian at Rutgers University-Newark. Her first book, Culture of Encounters: Sanskrit at the Mughal Court was published by Columbia University Press and Penguin India in 2016. Her second book, Aurangzeb: The Man and The Myth, will published in February 2017 by Penguin India.CISOs are highly paid and short-lived in their positions for a reason. It’s a relentlessly difficult job to do well, requiring a unique mix of skills to pull it off successfully. Great CISOs need to have the technical chops to know whether their team is effectively managing infrastructure and to keep abreast of cyberthreats that impact their organization. But they also need the soft skills to navigate the political minefields inherent in changing business culture and processes to minimize risk. Among other things, this means being able to effectively communicate up and down the food chain and being able to translate technical risk into financial impacts.
With such a varied list of job requirements, it’s no surprise that many CISOs love their jobs and careers but still hate certain aspects of their daily work lives. According to experts in the field, the following are some of the least favorite duties that top security executives would rather shift to the bottom of their to-do lists if they had their druthers.
Documenting Security Activity and Risk Exposure
It’s not simply good enough to reduce risk in an organization. You’ve got to actually document how all those moving parts in a security program are working. That includes what’s being done, by whom, when and why. Most importantly, it needs to be tracked for efficacy to show which risks have been remediated and which the organization is still exposed to.
This is a mammoth task and one made all the more difficult because it usually requires a constant goose chase to hunt down the right data to populate reports. According to a recent study by Osterman Research and Bay Dynamics, 81 percent of security executives rely on manually compiled spreadsheets to report data to the board.
“Enterprises tell us that cyber-risk reporting is a challenging, tedious and manual time-suck,” says Ed Bellis, a former CISO at Orbitz and current CTO at Kenna Security, who says it can take hundreds of spreadsheet hours to generate a single report.
Dealing with Compliance Minutiae
Tangential to documentation is all the crossing of t’s and dotting of i’s in complying with an increasingly complex set of regulatory requirements. There’s a governance, risk and compliance trifecta of red tape and procedural exercises that can grow tiring when a CISO would much rather be dedicating time to actually addressing threats.
According to James Carder, CISO of LogRhythm, this includes “writing and enforcing security policies, standards and guidelines, completing security questionnaires like SIG and SIG Lite, and dealing with auditors.”
The last one is particularly onerous, because the latter can feel like 80 percent of a security executive’s job, says Simon Puleo, security researcher for Micro Focus.
“Detecting and preventing breaches should be the No. 1 priority, not holding a consultant’s hand as they ask questions and sift through reports,” he says.
Creating Slide Decks
If there is one thing CISOs could do that would immediately improve their job satisfaction, it would be to uninstall PowerPoint from their lives forever. According to Andrew Howard, CTO for consultancy Kudelski Security, word from his CISO clients is that creating slide decks for the board eats up a lot of their time and energy.
“Virtually every CISO I hear from complains about non-stop creation of materials for the board of directors,” he says. “These materials often require literally 30 or 40 revisions and suck up a huge percentage of security leadership’s time on minute changes. This particular issue is pushing many CISOs at large companies out of the field.”
Justifying Budget
It doesn’t matter how technically competent and knowledgeable a CISO is, if they can’t sway those with control over the purse strings to get the most effective security tools and team in place, they’re going to be facing an uphill struggle.
“CISOs do not always control the security budget and they may not even be the final authority of security solutions if the organization relies on an architecture review committee,” wrote a trio of experts for the Institute for Critical Infrastructure Technology in a report last year. “CISOs’ power derives from their ability to justify cybersecurity solutions to business and technical audiences according to the relevant criteria.”
It’s why no matter how tedious documentation and slide-deck creation is, it needs to be done well. But that’s only the start. CISOs also need to be able to capably present all this material in what one security executive calls “boardroom mode,” which can be a challenge for those security pros used to the informality of IT culture.
“You need to speak slowly, avoid fillers and repeat your message in laymen’s terms. You also have to dress the part. Lots of executives pre-determine who you are based on how you are dressed,” noted Anthony Siravo, CISO of Lifespan, in a recent interview. “Technical people do not always realize that how you dress matters. When I first started presenting, I wore business casual. When I switched to suits, all of a sudden they wanted to hear more from me. This is called mirroring. If you make them comfortable by dressing the part you will have better results.”
Sifting Through Vendor BS
The security vendor community is brimming with every nature of “solution” a CISO can shake a stick at. There are plenty of really innovative products out there; the trouble is finding them amid all of the duds and, more importantly, making sure they actually fill the organization’s current needs.
“In today’s threat environment, the only thing I believe that is 100 percent is eventually that I will have a breach,” wrote Gary Hayslip, CISO of Webroot in a recent manifesto about irritating practices by security vendors. The rest is all B.S. so don’t waste my time saying you do 100 percent coverage, or 100 percent remediation, or 100 percent capturing of malware traffic.
Even when armed with adequate budget, the vendor overload, the cold calls from inexperienced salespeople and the constant stream of half-baked products overpromising and underdelivering is enough to give even the most centered security executive a migraine.You definitely would have heard of Amazon, the largest e-commerce website with annual turn over of more than $88 Billion. Personally I am really satisfied with the service, Amazon is customer focused company which gives first preference to customers
Amazon changed the way we shop today and revolutionized the whole retail industry Started with selling just books to all products you can possible imagine. This is because of long term vision of man named “Jeff Bezos”, CEO of Amazon.com.
Jeff Bezos ranked 5th wealthiest person on Forbes List of Billionaires with estimated wealth of US $59 Billion as of November 2015.
Jeff was passionately curious in inventing and creating new things which has given birth to largest online retail store. But what keeps him at the top of this game is his hard work, determination to provide quality service to customers and positive vision to take company to next level.
I think, these qualities makes him what he is today in business world and anyone can develop these qualities in themselves by practicing discipline in life and achieve the success in their respective field.
Let’s take a look at some of the best business quotes by Jeff Bezos
List of 22 Powerful Business Quotes By Jeff Bezos
1. “If you’re not stubborn, you’ll give up on experiments too soon. And if you’re not flexible, you’ll pound your head against the wall and you won’t see a different solution to a problem you’re trying to solve”
~Jeff Bezos
2. “Work Hard, have fun, make history”
~Jeff Bezos
3. “We see our customers as invited guests to a party, and we are the hosts. It’s our job every day to make every important aspect of the customer experience a little bit better”
~Jeff Bezos
4. “We are stubborn on vision. We are flexible on details”
~Jeff Bezos
5. “If you decide that you’re going to do only the things you know are going to work, you’re going to leave a lot of opportunity on the table”
~Jeff Bezos
6. “If you double the number of experiments you do per year, you’re going to double your inventiveness”
~Jeff Bezos
7. “A company shouldn’t get addicted to being shiny, because shiny doesn’t last”
~Jeff Bezos
8. “I wanted to project myself forward to age 80 and say, ‘OK, I’m looking back on my life. I want to minimize the number of regrets I have.’ And I knew that when I was 80, I was not going to regret having tried this. I was not going to regret trying to participate in this thing called the Internet that I thought was going to be a really big deal. I knew that if I failed, I wouldn’t regret that. But I knew the one thing I might regret is not ever having tried. I knew that that would haunt me every day”
~Jeff Bezos
9. “We’ve had three big ideas at Amazon that we’ve stuck with for 18 years, and they’re the reason we’re successful: Put the customer first, Invent, And Be patient”
~Jeff Bezos
10. “There are two kinds of companies: Those that work to try to charge more and those that work to charge less. We will be the second”
~Jeff Bezos
11. “If we think long term, we can accomplish things that we couldn’t otherwise accomplish”
~Jeff Bezos
12. “We’re not competitor obsessed, we’re customer obsessed. We start with the customer and we work backwards”
~Jeff Bezos
13. “The common question that gets asked in business is, ‘why?’ That’s a good question, but an equally valid question is, ‘why not?'”
~Jeff Bezos
14. “The best customer service is if the customer doesn’t need to call you, doesn’t need to talk to you. It just works”
~Jeff Bezos
15. “It’s not an experiment if you know it’s going to work”
~Jeff Bezos
16. “Life’s too short to hang out with people who aren’t resourceful”
~Jeff Bezos
17. “I strongly believe that missionaries make better products. They care more. For a missionary, it’s not just about the business. There has to be a business, and the business has to make sense, but that’s not why you do it. You do it because you have something meaningful that motivates you”
~Jeff Bezos
18. “If you do build a great experience, customers tell each other about that. Word-of-mouth is very powerful”
~Jeff Bezos
19. “You know if you make a customer unhappy, they won’t tell five friends, they’ll tell 5,000 friends. So we are at a point now where we have all of the things we need to build an important and lasting company, and if we don’t, it will be shame on us”
~Jeff Bezos
20. “There’ll always be serendipity involved in discovery”
~Jeff Bezos
21. “If you don’t understand the details of business you are going to fail”
~Jeff Bezos
22. “You have to be willing to be misunderstood if you’re going to innovate”
~Jeff Bezos
Last thing to my readers, I would like to hear from you…
Let me know in comments, Which of the above quotes you like the most?
If you like the post, don’t forget to share.
Source : WikipediaEdmonton 2, Fury 0
Two defensive blunders and failure to turn territorial advantage into goals saw the Ottawa Fury FC fall 2-0 to North American Soccer League’s Canadian rival FC Edmonton at TD Place stadium on Saturday.
The win was key for Edmonton which is in the playoff hunt, while Ottawa was trying to play the spoiler. On this day two goals in the first 20 minutes were enough to repel the Fury.
Lance Laing was the man who did the damage for Edmonton.
Nine minutes into the game, he raced down the left wing and put in a low cross that Chad Burt got to ahead of Mason Trafford and slipped the ball home.
After 20 minutes Edmonton was awarded a questionable corner which Laing launched. Both Nikki Paterson, stationed on the right-hand post, watched as did goalkeeper Romuald Peiser as the ball drifted into the back of the net. Edmonton then sat on their lead for the win.
Fury coach Marc Dos Santos, who was not happy with the effort in the opening half, had a clear opinion after the game.
“I think that most of the game was one-directional, where (Edmonton) went maybe three or four times to our net and scored on our mistakes,” he said. “At the end of the day, we had a lot of the ball, but they scored twice.”
The Fury play their last home game next Saturday against the Indy Eleven in the final “Expansion Battle” of 2014.Correct me if you have heard this before: The state of Alabama owned spring game attendance.
Alabama and Auburn have combined to win a national championship four of the last five years and have played in the championship game the last five seasons. So, naturally, fandom remains at a fever pitch. Alabama led the SEC – and the country – with 73,506 fans at the spring game. Auburn finished second in the conference and third in the country with 70,465 fans. Sandwiched in between Alabama and Auburn was Penn State with new head coach James Franklin with 72,000 fans. I’ve added the top 10 schools’ spring |
the doctrine of angels and demons" [4] that has included many famous theologians such as Paul Tillich, Gerhard Ebeling, Paul Althaus, Hans-Georg Fritzsche, etc.
Angels and Science
The most helpful part of Pannenberg's angelology is his discussion of the works of angels in light of modern science. The Bible describes the movement of the stars, strikes of lightning, earthquakes, and other natural phenomena as the result of angelic activity, but we now know that these "acts of God" may be explained entirely with modern science. So how then do we understand these angelic acts?
In his Systematic Theology Vol II, in a section titled, "The Spirit of God and the Dynamic of Natural Occurrence", Pannenberg explains (pace. Barth) that the heavens and the earth correspond to the invisible and visible world (as described in the Nicene Creed cf. Col 1:16), such that what we know about the world is the visible earth, and what we cannot explain about the world is the invisible heavens. The purpose of angels, in this respect, is to help us understand the invisible world, in ancient times, but now that we are in the modern era, we are able to use science to understand the invisible motions of the natural world (without appealing to angels to explain natural phenomena).
In this section, Pannenberg responds to D.F. Strauss' criticism, that if angelic activity may be explained as modern science, then angels do not exist at all. Pannenberg summarizes D. F. Strauss as follows:
D. F. Strauss argued that the activity of angels in the world is in contradiction with modern science. Science does not view natural phenomena like thunder and lightning, earthquakes, pestilence, etc. as special acts of God but traces them to natural causes. This objection, however, is against the special activity of God in natural events no less than that of angels. It presupposes that the nexus of nature is a closed system, as in a mechanistic view of the universe. It assumes that theological statements about the activity of God or angels in cosmic events, or at least in specific events in nature, are simply explanations of natural processes that complete with scientific descriptions and the factors that these assert.
So are angels purely antiquated myth that are superseded by modern science? Pannenberg responds no, and says that we may still affirm the existence of angels, due to the contingency of the natural world. We may still understand stars, lightning and earthquake as natural events that may be explained purely by science, yet from another angel, we may understand those same natural events as angels or angelic activities. Nature is not a closed system (according to Pannenberg), so the ultimate cause of those events may still be understood as forces resulting from the angelic field. Angels are not personal spirits, but they are forces at work in the world, even if those forces may also be explained through modern science.
Pannenberg answers D.F. Strauss's objections to the existence of angels, and explains the relationship of angels to the natural sciences as follows:
If we allow, however, that scientific descriptions are not an exhaustive explanation of events and that the causal relation of events does not rule out but presupposes the contingency of individual events, and if we view the nexus of nature itself as a system that is open to contingency and not closed, then there need be no rivalry between scientific and theological statements. Both may well relate to the same events. Fundamentally, the angels of the biblical tradition are natural forces that from another angle might be the object of scientific descriptions. If we define forces like wind or fire or stars as angels of God, then we are relating them to God their Creator and to the human experience of being affected by them as servants of God or as demonic powers that oppose his will. Why should not natural forces in the forms in which we now known them be viewed as God's servants and messengers, i.e., as angels? [2]
Conclusion
In conclusion, Pannenberg provides us an angelology that allows us to affirm the existence of angels, without compromising our understand of modern science, or appealing to angelic myths. Knowing that angels are not "personal spirits" but forces that act from a spiritual field provides us a positive understanding of angels, that is biblical in nature, that still allows us to understand how the Spirit of God is at work in the world today, and provides us an ability to see natural phenomena (e.g. "acts of God") from a revelatory perspective (or secular parables).
Sources:
[^Header Image Angel] By Giotto di Bondone, Public Domain, Link
[^Header Image Background] By Yintan - Own work, CC BY 4.0, Link
[^1] Pannenberg, Wolfhart. “Systematic Theology (Volume 2).” Systematic Theology (Volume 2), translated by Geoffrey W. Bromiley, Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co., 2001, pp. 104–105. [parentheses with page numbers have been removed for readability]
[^2] Ibid. 106-7.
[^3] Ibid. 103.
[^4] Ibid. 105-6.Cannabis does not become any more rewarding when combined with tobacco, according to new research published in the journal Psychopharmacology.
“Cannabis and tobacco are two of the world’s most commonly used drugs, and around the world they are also used together in the same product (“joint”, “spliff”) but when we consider the use of cannabis, we tend to forget that it’s often mixed with tobacco (77.2% of cannabis users in the last year, in the UK, used tobacco in their joints),” the study’s lead author, Chandni Hindocha of University College London, told PsyPost.
“Given that both drugs have reinforcing effects, we wanted to know if cannabis and tobacco, individually and combined, affected your ‘wanting’ and ‘liking’ of both drug and non-drug reward types – in particular, food, given that cannabis has a classical symptom – the munchies. It’s an important topic as we often consider the importance of the rewarding effects of cannabis but do not consider that most smoke it with tobacco.”
The double-blind placebo-controlled study of 24 smokers found no evidence that tobacco influenced the rewarding effects of cannabis.
“Participants came in the lab four times and each time they smoked a different combination of cannabis and tobacco together in a joint (active cannabis + active tobacco, active cannabis + placebo tobacco, placebo cannabis + active tobacco, and placebo cannabis + placebo tobacco),” Hindocha said.
“They completed tasks asking them how much cannabis and tobacco they wanted to smoke, how much they liked cannabis/tobacco drug-related images, and measures of craving.”
The researchers found that people under the influence of cannabis viewed cannabis-related imagery as less pleasant but viewed food-related imagery as more pleasant, compared to placebo.
The participants were also asked how many cigarette or cannabis puffs they would be hypothetically willing to buy in the next 3 hours, at increasing prices. But people under the influence of cannabis became significantly less likely to buy cigarettes or cannabis at higher prices.
“Forty-one percent of the data regarding demand for cannabis was missing because once a participant had smoked the active cannabis in the study they no longer wanted any more cannabis,” Hindocha explained.
“Another way to do this study is a to do a self-administration study of individual and combined cannabis and tobacco in humans, which would have provided a direct demonstration of the abuse potential of the drugs combined relative to their components.”
A second study published in Psychological Medicine, which used data from the same experiment, reported that combining tobacco and cannabis did not improve the experience of being stoned.
Hindocha said the findings had a clear take away message: “there’s no point adding tobacco to cannabis.”
The study, “Individual and combined effects of cannabis and tobacco on drug reward processing in non-dependent users“, was co-authored by Will Lawn, Tom P. Freeman, and H. Valerie Curran.(MintPress) – When George W. Bush won the presidential election over Al Gore in 2000, despite losing the popular vote, a natural discussion about the effectiveness of the Electoral College system sprung. Yet it wasn’t Republicans leading the discussion — it was Democrats.
Now, the tables have turned.
Republican National Committee Chairman Reince Priebus endorsed a plan that would alter the way Electoral College votes are awarded to presidential candidates, switching from a winner-takes-all approach to a system that divvies up electoral votes based on the popular vote of each district, rather than the state.
The Electoral College vote count for each state is based on a formula that includes the number of U.S. representatives for each state as well as senators. Nationwide, there are 538 electoral votes in the equation, with states of greater populations representing a larger piece of the puzzle.
The plan is not to move toward a popular vote system, but to create one that moves even farther away from that model. Is that what Americans want?
A Gallup Poll conducted in 2011 showed that 62 percent of Americans favored amending the U.S. Constitution to replace the Electoral College system with a popular vote system. Just 35 percent said they would like to stick with the Electoral College.
So, why the change?
Priebus is targeting battleground states that went blue in 2012, including Florida, Wisconsin, Virginia and Ohio, among others.
“It’s something that a lot of states that have been consistently blue that are fully controlled red ought to be looking at,” Priebus told Wisconsin’s Milwaukee Journal Sentinel.
In May, a proposal was introduced by a Wisconsin legislator that would have done just that. This was before the presidential election, but Wisconsin was expected to vote blue. The proposal didn’t go far, but if it had, it would have given some votes to Republican challenger Mitt Romney, giving Romney half of the electoral votes that went to Obama.
Now, Wisconsin lawmakers are at it again, along with those in Michigan and Pennsylvania, where similar bills are expected to be introduced. Democratic leaders are already pushing back, accusing the Republican Party of creating rules that will play in their favor.
“This is nothing more than election-rigging,” Michigan Democratic Chairman Mark Brewer told the Associated Press.
But in states where Republicans control the House and Senate — Michigan, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, Virginia, North Carolina, Florida and Ohio — the Democratic sentiment might not matter.
A move toward fairness — or election rigging?
Obama won the popular vote for the 2012 presidential election with 51 percent of the votes, with 5 million votes separating him from Romney. In terms of states, Obama took 26, including Washington, D.C., compared to Romney’s 24. Electoral College wise, Obama took 332, while Romney collected 206.
For all intents and purposes, the electoral system worked in the 2012 election, at least in terms of lining up with the popular vote. This has not always been the case, as seen in 2000, 1876 and 1888, but the system proposed by Priebus wouldn’t correct the only problem the Electoral College has encountered.
It could complicate matters worse. Why, then, if any reform was done to the electoral system, would one that further flaws it be considered? Simply put, it could lead to more Republican victories.
The Associated Press reported that it’s unclear whether a switch to the new electoral system before the past election would have hoisted Romney to power, considering it would depend on the number of states adopting the policy.
And that’s another issue being looked at in this debate. If some states go this direction, would it create an uneven playing field throughout the U.S., with some states divvying up the votes and others not? Maine and Nebraska have already taken similar steps, with the winner of each district awarded the electoral votes — the statewide vote is accounted for through two electoral votes.
The new system proposed by Priebus could, in theory, help the Republicans. However, analysts now claim that what could be better for the Republican Party is to endorse a popular vote system — one that is, seemingly, fair to all.
Following the 2012 election, Nate Silver of the New York Times, known as the accurate predictor of the 2012 election results, indicated that Romney would have had to win the popular vote by 3 percentage points in order to carry the electoral votes needed for victory. Winning by 1 or 2 percent wouldn’t have done the trick.
It wasn’t an issue this time around, but it could be in the future. And if Priebus’ proposals sweep the nation, there’s no guarantee the electoral vote and popular votes would be at odds. It would be more likely, however, that a Republican could lose the popular vote and win the Electoral College — rather than a Democrat.On the other hand, Detroit's Anthony Gose didn't fare nearly as well with the numbers in 2015. Among 25 center fielders who played at least 1,000 innings last year, Gose was 24th in UZR and tied for 22nd in DRS, and predicably, he wasn't very happy about that, making some noise earlier this spring when he called analytics " a scam," going on to say that he considers himself among the better fielders in baseball.
In the never-ending battle between advanced defensive metrics and the eye test, there's at least one point everyone can agree upon: Tampa Bay's Kevin Kiermaier is indisputably an elite defender, whether you go by his record-setting DRS total or the multiple defensive awards he won as a Minor Leaguer. By the old methods or the new, everyone agrees that Kiermaier is a stud on defense.
In the never-ending battle between advanced defensive metrics and the eye test, there's at least one point everyone can agree upon: Tampa Bay's Kevin Kiermaier is indisputably an elite defender, whether you go by his record-setting DRS total or the multiple defensive awards he won as a Minor Leaguer. By the old methods or the new, everyone agrees that Kiermaier is a stud on defense.
On the other hand, Detroit's Anthony Gose didn't fare nearly as well with the numbers in 2015. Among 25 center fielders who played at least 1,000 innings last year, Gose was 24th in UZR and tied for 22nd in DRS, and predicably, he wasn't very happy about that, making some noise earlier this spring when he called analytics "a scam," going on to say that he considers himself among the better fielders in baseball.
Whether or not you agree with Gose -- and surely we're long beyond the point of thinking that analytics aren't heavily used in every front office -- he brought up something extremely interesting about his positioning in his comments:
"I play shallow. I know that," he said. "I don't know if that has anything to do with it, but I feel like I'm one of the better ones."
Comerica Park's center field is 420 feet deep, the second deepest in baseball. If it's true that Gose really did play shallow, then in theory, he'd have a ton of ground to cover behind him, which may leave him more susceptible to allowing damaging extra-base hits to fall in, which in turn would impact his defensive ranking.
For years, "in theory" is all we had to go on other than a player's self-evaluations when it came to positioning. The current advanced metrics, while miles better than anything that came before, don't do a great job of accounting for positioning. We've never really been able to measure outfield positioning in any reliable way, other than tossed-off quotes from players or coaches thinking they play deep or shallow.
Until now, that is. As we dig deeper into the data that Statcast™ provided in its first season, we're now able to to collect the start points of each fielder on every ball in play and combine them to find out where they started. By adding in controls for the varying outfield distances at each park, we can show who really is "shallow" or "deep."
Let's compare Gose's positioning to that of Kiermaier, who plays a notoriously deep center:
Gif: Kiermaier-Gose OF Positioning
That's a stunning difference. Kiermaier's average start position was 327 feet from the plate, but even though the center-field wall is 16 feet further away in Detroit, Gose stood 24 feet closer to home, an average of 303 feet away. That meant that he's got 117 feet of grass behind him, while Kiermaier had just 77 feet behind him. Even if they were equally talented, there's simply less ground for extra-base hits to get over Kiermaier's head.
We chose Kiermaier because of his reputation and Gose because of his statements, but when ranking all center fielders in terms of positioning, they're very nearly the deepest and shallowest, anyway.
Let's explain: We measured 36 center fielders who were on the field for at least 1,000 batted balls, and we compiled their average start positions, shown as distance in feet from home plate. (To keep things simple, we excluded players who called multiple parks home last year; we also didn't account for the various road park sizes in this very initial version, though that should be a relatively equal effect across players.)
Then, to ensure we accounted for fielders who play in very deep or shallow home parks, we compared that average distance to the center-field wall at their home stadiums in order to get a percentage that shows where they tend to stand on the line from home plate to the wall:
Gose played shallower in a home field-adjusted sense than any other center fielder other than Houston's Jake Marisnick. Since Rajai Davis was Gose's Detroit teammate last year, it seems like it was a team mandate, and indeed, manager Brad Ausmus has said this offseason that he would like his outfielders to play deeper, hoping to limit the extra-base hits -- after all, only four teams suffered more non-homer extra-base hits on balls hit more than 320 feet. It's tough to defend that big outfield playing shallow.
Positioning can't be used to explain all of Gose's issues, of course, nor is it the only reason that Kiermaier graded out so well. In Gose's case, the fact that center field is populated by a ton of great defenders like Kiermaier, Lorenzo Cain, Mike Trout and Kevin Pillar makes it more difficult to stand out, and even beyond that, there's evidence that Gose had merely a decent year, not a great one. But if he wasn't put in a good position to do anything about that, he was always starting from behind, perhaps not by his own doing.
Still, we'd long known that positioning was a missing piece from our defensive evaluations, there just wasn't much to be done about it. Now it seems that there is, and it's a good first step towards doing a better job in applying the new data towards real-world performance.Moving Forward: Ideas for the DNC
Ilyse Hogue Blocked Unblock Follow Following Nov 28, 2016
The devastating losses of the recent election have motivated me — like many others — to spend time with close friends, colleagues and family, sharing both a profound sense of pain and vulnerability but also refilling our reservoirs of determination to fight back for the future of our country and for the health and dignity of our most vulnerable brothers and sisters.
In conversations with family, friends, colleagues, fellow activists, and DNC members, a number of people have suggested I run for Chair of the Democratic National Committee. Having devoted my career to a wide range of progressive causes, from economic inequality to environmental justice to campaign finance reform to corporate accountability to my current position advocating for women’s rights, I know that the pathway to our vision of justice and equality is going to have setbacks. And even though this feels less like a setback and more like a freefall down a dark hole, experience has taught us that there’s only one way forward — to organize, organize, and organize the large majority of Americans who share our values.
We know how to do this. This year in Nevada and North Carolina, social movements and Party members came together, and won. In Nevada, where my organization, NARAL Pro-Choice America, collaborated with the presidential, Senate, House, and state legislative campaigns, we won the whole ticket, top to bottom, even taking back both chambers in the state legislature. In North Carolina, a prophetic, multi-year fight by community and Party leaders defeated the Governor infamous for suppressing voting rights, attacking women’s rights, and demeaning trans people.
These two examples are proof that when we are smart about leveraging our collective power on an ongoing basis — not only when it’s election time — we can get our candidates in office and, as importantly, do so with a movement that can help our elected officials advance a progressive agenda after election day. This is one of the greatest promises of the last year — not from the ballot box, but from a generation of progressive activism that has already helped to shape the direction of the Party: from the Fight for $15 to the energy around Bernie’s run to fight income inequality and campaign finance corruption to the struggle for LGBTQ rights to a resurgence of pro-choice activism to the Movement for Black Lives. We have witnessed a building of a new political muscle and a boldness of vision in what we demand from our country, which will be absolutely critical moving forward.
I believe the DNC has an important role to play in regrouping after 2016, one that fully embraces the Wellstone triad approach to change: public policy that reflects peoples’ needs, grassroots organizing that honors peoples’ lived experience, and an electoral strategy that brings both to bear to ensure victory. The DNC should not just be a force every two years at election time, but it should also be a daily presence in peoples’ lives, relevant in policy discussions and responsive to the ideas and concerns of people where they live. And everyone needs to know that Democrats fight for people, not for big corporate interests.
To accomplish this, here are ten first ideas to shape the way we build our Party for the sustained fights ahead:
1. UNITY THROUGH RESISTANCE: Fighting Trump’s agenda has to be top priority for the Party in order to serve the health and wellbeing of the majority of citizens and for us to be the standard-bearer of American values. We must immediately oppose any attempt to circumscribe our Constitutional rights to free speech and assembly, marginalize and attack our fellow Americans, and debase the office of the President for private gain. Fighting against the Iraq War showed that we have to provide many different avenues of engagement for people to resist, so our approaches are multi-faceted and our numbers are undeniable.
2. GO LOCAL: President Obama was correct: Change doesn’t come from Washington, change comes to Washington. The primary role of the DNC should be to create ways for Party members and advocates across the country — from the first-timer to the lifer — to learn from each other and strategize together. We need to bring people off the sidelines. The DNC’s office in Washington can leverage organizing energy from around the country on policy fights of the day. And it should prioritize boosting the role of State Parties so the national reflects what is happening in the states, not the other way around.
3. STAY TRUE TO OUR IDENTITY: We recognize that the world is complicated, and we know it’s worth fighting for dignity and a fair shake for everybody. We know that race, gender, geography, education, and age all affect our economic prospects, and we can engage in authentic conversation that acknowledges that reality and is inclusive of tailored, community-based solutions. Fighting Wall Street greed and protecting women’s fundamental rights aren’t at odds, they’re intertwined. Recognizing these intersections will be critical to build momentum from the outset for the hard policy fights and for electoral accountability come mid-terms. Diversity is our strength and must be our aspiration and our future.
4. FOCUS ON THE RIGGED SYSTEM: Democratic gains are being undermined by a series of structural — and intentional — obstacles that thwart the will of the people. We have to tackle these head-on by creating coordinated campaigns to fight the GOP effort to keep people from participating.
· Fight voter suppression: When more people vote, Democrats win. A full court press that is tailored to state legislatures around the country can challenge cynical laws like Voter ID and restrictions on registration and early voting that hurt Democrats from state house races all the way up to the Presidency.
· Reform the Electoral College: We need to revisit the basic mission of the institution and consider efforts like the National Popular Vote compact which would compel electors to vote with the majority of the people.
· Stop gerrymandering: The current system stacks the deck against Democrats. We’re winning national majorities while losing seats in Congress. Our next shot at redistricting is in 2021, which means 2018 and 2020 will be crucial to make gains in state houses and put fairness back in the system. We need to prioritize state legislative wins and redistricting efforts in state houses that put the voters’ interest front and center and seek to keep politics out of the process.
· Eliminate Super Delegates: There’s no doubt the Party should have a place of honor for our leaders, but the idea of super delegates who might overturn the will of the voters is antithetical to the democratic principles we stand for. Super delegates were a 1984 innovation that didn’t pan out, and contribute to a negative narrative about what our Party stands for. Let’s find new innovations and move on from failed ones.
5. BUILD THE BENCH: Running for office is often a thankless task. The more local we go on the ballot, the fewer resources and compensation for jobs well done. Yet those down-ballot candidates are not only serving critical roles in enacting policy that affect the everyday lives of people, they are often the up-and-comers who go on to seek higher office in the coming cycles. The DNC needs to better support our future candidates and leaders with strategic trainings, capacity building, and connections to voters.
6. JUMPSTART DNC 2.0: Technology can’t solve all problems, but it can help us scale engagement to the local and individual level. The DNC should play a central role in creating tools that effectively bring like-minded individuals together to build a shared vision for their neighborhoods and states. Technology can be used to communicate better, organize better, advocate better, persuade better, volunteer better, and GOTV better — all the way down to the neighborhood and household level.
7. INVEST IN FUNDAMENTALS: I knocked hundreds of doors this cycle, and the targeting and real-time information feedback loop was lacking. Offices in swing states often could not make good use of the dozens of volunteers we brought to them. First-time volunteers were disheartened by voters who told them they had just been visited by other doorknockers hours before. Cutting turf is not glamorous, but it is the lifeblood of effective electoral work, and investing in the basics of field organizing is critical for the future of the Party. It’s easy to blame the Clinton campaign for all of this, and certainly Brooklyn bears some responsibility. But the problems transcend one cycle and represent a lack of centralized investment in the basics over a long period of time. This has to be paramount. Without the foundation, there is no house.
8. PRIMARIES SHOULD REFLECT AMERICA: We can and should find ways for the primaries to reflect the broader diversity of our party. The issues that drive campaigns in those two “first” states are important but unrepresentative of the Democratic base, and of the broader American mainstream. There are several compelling alternative avenues to make sure a broader array of issues frame our primary debate and they should all be considered. A robust debate on those choices would be healthy for the Party.
9. GET FUNDED FROM THE GROUND UP: A genuinely people-powered fundraising base can help not just to fund national efforts, but also to provide state parties a source of local donors. My experience at MoveOn showed me how to build email programs at the national and state levels to instill both personal and financial investment in organizations. People open up and donate to those who inspire and motivate them. Thus, the stronger we fight against Trump, and the more we champion our best champions, the easier it will be for our grassroots to fund us.
10. LEAD WITH VALUES AND EMPATHY: As Democrats, we love to talk policy. Too often though, we end up ceding the language of values to Republicans. People want leaders who listen and reinforce our commonly held values — values of inclusion, economic security, and opportunity for advancement. These are the values of the Democratic Party and they need to suffuse everything we do. When we stand for something, we win. While some say that focus on issues like transgender rights hurt Democrats, remember that we won the governor’s race in North Carolina, in what turned out to be a difficult political environment. This is not a time to shy away from the values that bind our coalition. Rather, it’s time to clarify and celebrate them.
Finally, while I want to see these ideas guide the DNC in performing its critical core functions, it’s important to recognize that this is a highly unusual moment. We just had an election that was heavily influenced by systematic efforts from a hostile foreign power to benefit our Republican opponents. If news reports are correct, in addition to corrupting our national conversation with bogus news and comments, foreign agents hacked not only the DNC and Democratic campaigns, but the NSA itself. This is an ongoing threat that goes beyond cybersecurity to core concerns of national security, democratic integrity and political strategy. While handling something like this is not normally the responsibility of the DNC, if the NSA under a Democratic administration did not prevent this, the Party must push for whatever it takes to counter this ongoing threat in the future.
We have no time to waste. Through their appointments, statements, and associations, the Trump Administration has already proven our worst fears about their racist, corrupt, chaotic, and damaging agenda to be true, even before they arrive at the White House. They will seek to divide people against each other attacking our sisters and brothers across America. We know there will be dire times, when checking out of the political process will feel tempting and reasonable.
But we should not forget one basic fact: Democrats won the popular vote by a wider margin than any campaign in history whose candidate did not become president. Furthermore, Hillary Clinton received more votes for president than anyone who has ever run for the office, other than Barack Obama, and the math says Donald Trump is the biggest loser ever to walk into the White House. We have to remain grounded in the knowledge that we represent the majority of this country, and we cannot abandon the core values this Party holds.
I believe there is no shortcut to the hard work of organizing. But I also know when we organize as Democrats, we will fight the injustices together and build for the future of a Party from the ground up. The current list of committed and visionary people seeking to serve as Chair of the DNC should instill a sense of optimism about our future. I certainly hope that this moment provides an opportunity for a robust debate, and I look forward to being a part of the conversation.
Update: Several people in reading this have noticed that I did not include anything about the caucus system in the fourth section. It was an oversight and I very much agree that caucuses create unnecessary barriers to participation. We want as many democrats as possible to have a say in deciding our nominee. Thanks for the feedback and keep it coming.Hartley finished 13th on Sunday in the US Grand Prix
New Zealander Brendon Hartley is to keep his seat at Toro Rosso for this weekend's Mexican Grand Prix as Pierre Gasly returns to the team.
Hartley, 27, was drafted in for his Formula 1 debut at last weekend's US Grand Prix as Frenchman Gasly was due to race in Japan's Super Formula.
Daniil Kvyat, dropped after Singapore last month, was called back to replace Carlos Sainz, now at Renault.
But Red Bull have decided to go with Hartley ahead of the Russian.
The move was announced in a terse one-sentence statement which gave no details about the two remaining races this year in Brazil and Abu Dhabi.
Kvyat's long-term future with Red Bull now appears to be over as the Russian has been dropped by the company three times in the last 18 months.
He lost his seat at the senior Red Bull team to Max Verstappen after four races of the 2016 season and was demoted back to Toro Rosso.
Kvyat was then dropped from the junior team after the Singapore Grand Prix in September following a difficult season and has now been let go again.
Red Bull are evaluating their driver options for Toro Rosso for 2018.
Gasly, whose race in Japan at the weekend was cancelled because of a typhoon, is expected to get a first full season next year but the junior team have as yet to decide on a second driver.
A senior source at Red Bull told BBC Sport at the US Grand Prix that Toro Rosso existed solely to try out drivers in preparation for a possible drive at the senior team.
Media playback is not supported on this device Nico Hulkenberg: So what does make the Hulk angry?
And given that there was no conceivable scenario in which Kvyat was ever going to be put back into Red Bull, there was little point in him driving for Toro Rosso, the source said.
Hartley made a solid debut for Toro Rosso in Austin. He qualified 0.8secs slower than Kvyat, struggling to get the best out of the difficult Pirelli tyres over one lap, and finished 13th, three places behind his team-mate.
But Hartley spent the vast majority of the race stuck behind slower cars who he was unable to overtake because they had more powerful engines. And on the handful of laps in which he was in clear air, he was very quick.
The Porsche endurance racer therefore retains the possibility of a Toro Rosso drive in 2018 if he can impress over the final races of the season.The World Superbike championship remains in a state of flux, despite the good news emerging today about the 2014 grid (Feelracing taking on the Ducati factory team, MV Agusta expanding into World Superbikes, and Michel Fabrizio joining Grillini). The Superbike Commission met at Valencia to agree further rule changes to the series for 2014, as part of the push to revitalize the series. Some of the rules are cost-cutting measures, others are aimed at making the series a more attractive TV package, while some are aimed at providing a more homogenous set of basic rules between the World Superbike and MotoGP series.
The biggest change - and the change that will be mourned the most - is the loss of the current three-stage Superpole qualifying format. Instead of having three Superpole sessions, with the slowest riders being dropped after each session, World Superbikes is to adopt a system similar to MotoGP, where the fastest riders in free practice go straight through to the second and decisive qualifying session, the rest having a second chance in a first qualifying session. The aim of adopting the MotoGP system is the same reason it was adopted in MotoGP: it gives much better TV exposure to the teams lower down the qualifying order, while still providing an exciting qualifying session. It also has the benefit of ensuring that the qualifying system in both WSBK and MotoGP is the same, making it easier for casual viewers to watch either series and understand what is going on.
The loss of the current Superpole system will be widely mourned. The three-tier system provided a superb mix of strategy and excitement, especially as the riders only had two sets of qualifying tires to use in three session. Faster riders had to gamble on getting through to Superpole 2 using race tires, while slower riders could use qualifiers to pick up the pace and qualify further up the grid. The loss of Superpole opens the door for further cost cuts, as it removes the need for soft qualifying tires.
The other measure aimed at unifying the two series is the introduction of penalty points in WSBK. The system has been a success in Grand Prix racing, and extending it to World Superbikes and World Supersport is a logical step aimed at policing riding better in both series. The announcement that points are to be introduced in WSBK was accompanied by news that the points system is also to change in MotoGP, with each penalty point being awarded having a validity of 12 months. This addresses the problem raised by incidents in the final race of the year, and discussed in our recent interview with MotoGP Race Director Mike Webb.
The schedule for race day is also to change, with the timing of the races to change. This is to fit in an earlier TV window, so that WSBK races do not clash with Formula One, MotoGP, major soccer games, or other big events. By changing the event schedule, Dorna are hoping they can make the series a more attractive package for TV, and generate more income for the cash-strapped series.
The full details of all the changes, as well as more details on the technical regulations, are due to be discussed in the next meeting of the Superbike Commission, due to be held in Madrid on the 10th December. Below is the press release with the changes so far:
FIM Superbike & Supersport World Championship and FIM Superstock 1000cc Cup
Changes to Regulations for 2014
The Superbike Commission, composed of Messrs Javier Alonso (WSBK Executive Director), Ignacio Verneda (FIM Executive Director, Sport) and Takanao Tsubouchi (MSMA Representative), met at the Ricardo Tormo Circuit on 08 November 2013 in the presence of MM Daniel Carrera, Gregorio Lavilla (WSBK-Dorna) and Paul Duparc (FIM).
A draft of the Sporting and Disciplinary Regulations taking into account the conclusions of the SBK Working Group composed of MM. Lavilla, Carrera and Duparc was submitted to the Commission. The goal was to harmonise the regulations of the FIM Grand Prix and Superbike World Championships and to have a set of regulations as similar as possible for both FIM series.
These SBK Sporting and Disciplinary Regulations were basically approved. However, some items remain pending and the SBK Commission will meet on 10 December, in Madrid, to finalise the FIM Superbike & Supersport World Championship and Superstock 1000cc Cup Regulations for 2014.
The main changes will concern the following items:
Practice restrictions will be applied for contracted riders and teams. (However it will be taken into account that the Superbike and Endurance Championships will provide teams and riders in each series thanks to the similarity of the EWC and EVO class technical regulations);
Time and practice Schedules will be reviewed: the SBK format of the free and qualifying practices will be inspired by the MotoGP ones (with a number of participants directly qualified in Q2);
Revision of the Start Procedure with a scenario for a quick restart (in case of a red flag caused by reasons other than weather conditions) with a very short time for opening the pit |
."Seventy years after the bi-national state would be established, the Arab minority would become the majority and rule the state, just like it happened in South Africa," Tamim tweeted.In another tweet that spurred controversy, the Dubai security chief wrote: "We should not treat Jews as our enemies. We should treat them as cousins with whom we have a controversy over land inheritance. "In order to test the feasibility of his idea, Tamim asked his Twitter followers if they think Palestinians and Jews can live together in an Israeli-ruled state. Not surprisingly, 57 percent of the followers answered that "'Jews have no place in our country."
Join Jerusalem Post Premium Plus now for just $5 and upgrade your experience with an ads-free website and exclusive content. Click here>>It’s been a busy month, despite the best efforts of New England snowstorms to undermine progress.
As you know, we’ve shared several rounds of work-in-progress screens, footage, and prototypes, as part of our promise to give a deep look at the game development process. Recently our focus has been improving both our look and core gameplay of the game.
We’ve also been hard at work honing the Improvisation Engine — the bevy of tools that empower you to come up with your own creative solutions to problems — in an effort to make Underworld Ascendant the next step in player-authored gameplay. That’s involved progress with combat, stealth, magic, in-world interactables, and AI.
There is a LOT that goes under the hood to make it all work. We’re close to having something ready to share, but still need to do some further balance and polish.
To tide you over in the meantime? Here’s an early in-game peek.
The scene has been undergoing steady revisions and is currently getting a VFX pass, but you’ll get a sense of the direction we’re heading.
We also have new, behind-the-scenes dives into the development process, focused on series’ mainstays the Lizard Men and with exclusive new shots and audio.
Hope you enjoy!
The Evolution of the Lizard Men – Part 1: The Look
We recently spoke with character artist Jed (BioShock, Rock Band) Wahl about his current modeling work on Underworld Ascendant’s Lizard Men, his early efforts on the BioShock series, and how he got his start.
What originally got you into modeling for games?
I started making digital models at the MIT Media Lab, creating characters for interactive installations designed by graduate students. I got interested in pursuing 3d modeling professionally after participating in some contests held by the late, great Paul Steed at the website Polycount. Paul gave me a lot of encouragement and his book on using 3d Studio Max was a real godsend for me. I really owe that guy a lot.
What was your first game?
My first shipped game was Irrational’s Swat 4, working as an environmental modeler. My favorite part about that project was coming up with the theme and decor of the serial killer’s lair.
Did we hear correctly that you did all the character models for BioShock? Which was your favorite to work on?
I sculpted the high and lowpoly models for most of the characters, including the Splicers, the Bouncer, Little Sister, Andrew Ryan, Atlas, and the player hands.
My fav is definitely the Bouncer, designed by our own art director Nate Wells. As soon as we saw his ortho design, we felt it could become an iconic character.
My first pro character model ever was an early Splicer concept, also by Nate. This was before programs like Zbrush, so he was done using old-school box modeling methods in 3ds Max.
Something I wish we’d had time to put into the game involved rare Little Sisters dressed in outfits raided from an abandoned costume shop. Their expressions would be modded to suit their pretend identity; a cowgirl Sister could have referred to her Big Daddy as “Sheriff,” while a space cadet could call him “Commander,” for example. It would have been a fun way to add variety to the Sisters, but there was simply no time in the schedule to make them.
Can you walk us through the process of modeling the Lizard Man for Underworld Ascendant?
Since this was the first sentient character we’ve designed for the game, there was a lot of iteration and experimentation involved. We also wanted to find a good middle ground between the two major concepts that we’d shown in the backer poll some time ago: a design that was overtly lizard-like while also having the potential to appear intelligent and civilized.
Nate explored concepts via clay and I made a series of quick rough models in Zbrush that explored different proportions and features. A great tool during this process was Adobe’s auto rigging tool Mixamo, which it allowed me to take these simple models and quickly get them moving so I could evaluate how their silhouettes looked in a variety of actions. I’ve included a small sampling of these experiments here, starting with a version inspired by our Blue Lizardman from the poll. From there we explored making him less chameleon and more iguana based, and you can see how he evolves from a more whimsical race to one with a build that can demonstrate equal amounts of strength, agility, and nobility.
Once Nate was happy with the overall forms of the lizardman, he did a drawover of the model’s face to define the kind of scale treatment he was looking for.
From there I refined the hipoly model in Zbrush. This is also one of our first characters done in the “authored style,” so there’s a lot of experimentation involved at this stage as well.
I generally approach it stylistically as though I’m making a fantasy miniature (which I’ve sculpted about two hundred of while working for the board game company Greenbrier Games), but still allowing for more detail that I know would end up being lost on a 28mm scale figure.
I created a low poly model from that using the Freeform tool in 3dsMax. His polycount is about 18k, a far cry from the 4-6 thousand used in Bioshock. He was UV mapped in 3dsMax and his normal maps were projected in Knald. From there, I began texturing in Substance Painter.
Next time, we’ll show the final pass at the Lizard Man, plus give a new peek at the Mind Crippler. Anything you want to tell fans about it?
The Mind Crippler has been great fun. It’s much more bizarre and otherworldly than what I usually get to make. I’ve always loved/been repulsed by brain-themed creatures… One of my favorite toys as a kid was a cheap PVC figure of a Grell from Dungeons & Dragons. Working on this feels like a fun homage to that thing.
Thanks! Right before we published this update, Jed sent over a few additional rounds of texturing and modeling, which we’ll share here.
After final texture feedback from Nate, it’ll be sent over to our animator Dax to weight the armor to hang and more. Next time, you see the Lizard Man, he’ll be animated, armed, and in-game!
For more on Jed’s video game and miniature work, check out his portfolio here.
The Evolution of the Lizard Men – Part 2: The Voice
For the next stage in bringing the Lizard Man to life, we stepped into the studio with talented voice performer, Liam O’Brien.
One of the reasons why we enjoy collaborating with Liam is the care and depth he brings to every role, whether he’s playing a narcissistic citizen of Rapture in BioShock Infinite: Burial at Sea or the shrieking, chittering Infected seen in The Last of Us. He’s equally at home with both dramatic roles and monsters.
We checked in with Liam to talk about his career and recording for Underworld Ascendant’s Lizard Man.
What was your first voice acting role? What drew you to the field?
The first VO job I ever landed was doing an English dub for a Japanese animated series called Boogiepop Phantom. I was playing a disturbed teenager obsessed with dating sim games. He was the first in a long line of nutters I have had the pleasure of portraying.
When I stumbled into voice over, I was busy cutting my teeth on stage, trying to be a serious actor. But in the background, I was always pretty preoccupied with games and animation. I had a small, growing collection of anime at the time, so the chance to work on that kind of a project was a huge thrill, and luckily started the Rube Goldberg going that lead to the rest of my career.
What are some of your favorite voice acting game roles?
Well, I have been in love with Tolkien’s books my entire life, so getting to do full performance for Gollum in Shadow of Mordor rates pretty high. And neck and neck would be Illidan from The World of Warcraft, which is a role I’ve gotten to live in for somewhere around a decade at this point?
You’re also a gamer yourself. What grabbed you first: pen and paper or interactive?
I still remember when I was five and my father brought home a machine called The Vectrex, which is where gaming started for me. That was followed up with the original Atari. So I hit video games first. It’s funny, though. My father published an early video game magazine for a short time called Electronic Fun, so I had access to a lot of games at an early age. But the magazine shuttered just before the NES arrived on the scene, and I missed out on that massive wave.
It was right around then that I stumbled across the D&D Red box, Dragon Lance, Forgotten Realms, and tabletop gaming in general. That lasted through my high school years, then faded as I got to NYU. I spent my college years being an over eager acting student, but once I started going out on the road to do theatre, I found my way back into gaming through the original PlayStation.
You’ve been a regular since the start on the Geek & Sundry’s Critical Role, where you and a group of other voice performers play D & D live on camera each week. How’d you become involved?
Long story. I got to know our Dungeon Master, Matthew Mercer, working on Resident Evil 6 several years back. I was directing him and we hit it off in the studio, and he began inviting me to sit in on the campaign he was running. I kept passing, due to a lack of free time, but after the game wrapped, I ended up asking him to run a one-shot game for me and a handful of other actor-y friends, and we were all hooked.
We played at home for a few years, and word got out about the voice actor game of D&D. Felicia Day at Geek & Sundry caught wind of us, and we ended up picking up the game and carrying it in front of a camera. We have been playing now for about 5 years, and are basically a family now.
What’s your favorite D & D module? And favorite (console or PC) RPG?
That is such a hard question to answer. Jeez. I mean? Matt’s campaign, probably? I don’t know anyone more creative than Mercer. The longer I work and play with him, the more enraptured I am with his imagination. Kind of amazing that my first real DM is arguably one of the greatest of all time.
I’ve also begun DM-ing again (I did as a teenager), in three separate games for my kids, and I’m pretty taken with Wizards of the Coast’s Curse of Strahd. I didn’t play the original Ravenloft, but I could not stop reading the book they put together for 5th edition.
As far as RPGs go? How about some of my favorites? I loved Pool of Radiance, Wasteland, and Baldur’s Gate back in the day. Phantasy Star on the SEGA Master System. I’ve loved Fallout 3 and every follow up since. And Skyrim swallowed me whole for quite a while. That might have been the last RPG I made time to get lost in for months.
You recently recorded for Underworld Ascendant’s Lizard Man. Any unique challenges speaking in their language?
I definitely tried to channel the feel of a real world language and accent. Cold reading is at the center of most game VO, as you are usually seeing dialogue for the first time when you walk in the booth. So trying to invent a cadence of lilt for something I had no prior knowledge of would probably have been dicey. It helps to have a base to work from.
I think on some level, I always hope that our creature-y, foul mouthed ad libs will get slipped into the game somehow as well, but so far, no dice.
Thanks, Liam!
Here’s an exclusive early preview of Liam’s Lizard Man voice work:
Can you translate these lines from Lizard Man into common tongue? Share on our forums!
Update: Lizard Man Language Fan Participation
Speaking of… Last month, we mentioned how the Lizard Men — who were part of a particularly well-loved sequence in the original Ultima Underworld — will play a big role in Underworld Ascendant.
We invited fans to help us expand their vocabulary even further and the response so far has been phenomenal.
Many thanks to all who have contributed!
Check out the latest progress right here.
And remember, it’s not too late to help! You may hear your suggestions voiced in-game.
In Other News…
And finally, a few things you might find interesting:
SWAT 4 — which our own Nate Wells and Jed Wahl helped develop — is now available on GOG.
Obsidian’s Pillars of Eternity II: Deadfire is in its final hours of crowdfunding on FIG!
Stoic’s Banner Saga 3 is wrapping up its last few weeks on Kickstarter.
ICYMI – Glixel recently ran a selection from Ultima creator Richard Garriott’s upcoming memoir, Explore/Create.
inXile’s eagerly-anticipated RPG Torment: Tides of Numenera is launching next week! Look for it at midnight PST on the 28th for Windows, Mac, Linux, PlayStation 4, and Xbox One.
Until next time!
Best,
The Team at OtherSideFor most Americans, last week's images were a shock: attacks on US compounds and the murder of diplomats in countries they thought they had been helping since the so-called Arab Spring which some are now dubbing the Arab Nightmare.
The crisis and the presidential election overlay each other, and the inference from the right, of course, is that it has in part been created by President Barack Obama, right. By week's end, a Mitt Romney foreign policy adviser, Richard Williamson, was briefing reporters that if his man had been in the Oval Office none of this would have happened. In Libya, the US would have done more in "reconciliation and reconstruction efforts", he insisted.
With seven weeks until the US election, the peril for Mr Obama, who otherwise has gathered significant new polling momentum since his party's convention in Charlotte, is plain to see. To economic uncertainty now add foreign policy uncertainty. In their darkest moments, Democrats recall the 1979-80 Iranian hostage crisis that doomed Jimmy Carter's hopes of a second term. On foreign policy he was deemed weak and indecisive.
We’ll tell you what’s true. You can form your own view. From 15p €0.18 $0.18 $0.27 a day, more exclusives, analysis and extras.
Can this be attached now to Mr Obama, as evidence mounts that the Benghazi raid was planned by militants possibly affiliated to al-Qa'ida? The US denies it had prior indications of the attack, but surely the date – 11 September – might have been enough for all overseas stations to have been put on high alert.
But it may be that most Americans will be watching what Mr Obama does now rather than blaming him for actions past, as Mr Romney did when he came out all barrels blazing on Wednesday, fiercely scolding the administration because of a statement issued by the US embassy in Cairo even before the trouble started in Libya that he considered too conciliatory to the protesters outside. Mr Romney even called it "apologetic".
That was seen widely as a blunder. But in the days since, Republicans have honed their message of a feeble Obama foreign policy stance. In a speech to conservative activists on Friday, Mr Romney's running mate, Paul Ryan, said Mr Obama had emboldened America's enemies in the Middle East. "Amid all these threats and dangers, what we do not see is steady, consistent American leadership," he said.
Yet the Republicans may still be miscalculating. Attacking any president during a time of national crisis is a risky proposition. It especially doesn't help if the president in question is at his very best politically at such times.
So it was on Friday, when every broadcast network joined the cable news channels in covering live a ceremony at Andrews air force base outside Washington DC receiving home the bodies of ambassador Christopher Stevens and the other three who were killed in Benghazi. A clearly emotional Hillary Clinton, the US Secretary of State, took the microphone first to pay tribute to her lost State Department colleagues and to assure Americans they had died in a battle still worth fighting. "The people of Egypt, Libya, Yemen and Tunisia did not trade the tyranny of a dictator for the tyranny of a mob," she said.
"There is no doubt these are difficult days," Mr Obama told mourners. "In moments such as this, so much anger and violence, even the hopeful among us must wonder. The United States of America will never retreat from the world. We will never stop working for the dignity and freedom that every person deserves."
As the President stepped back, Mrs Clinton looked at him, reached out and clasped his hand, just briefly, but it was a moment that spoke powerfully of shared grief and shared determination.
Mr Romney popped up a few minutes later in a bright red fleece in Ohio complaining about jobs. If elections are won in part on TV optics, last week should not have been Mr Obama's, with flames and smoke overseas. And yet somehow it probably was.
We’ll tell you what’s true. You can form your own view.
At The Independent, no one tells us what to write. That’s why, in an era of political lies and Brexit bias, more readers are turning to an independent source. Subscribe from just 15p a day for extra exclusives, events and ebooks – all with no ads.
Subscribe nowThis weekend kicks off the real recruiting season for members of the class of 2017 and beyond because starting on April 15th a live evaluation period officially begins. A live evaluation period means college coaches are allowed to attend and evaluate recruits at certified events. This particular evaluation period lasts through April 17th with another full weekend of live evaluating on the schedule beginning on April 22nd. Nike and Under Armour will kick off their grassroots leagues in NYC, while adidas gets started in Dallas this weekend. There are also some other events going on this weekend that Providence recruits will be playing in.
As I traditionally do each spring and summer, I’ll be providing a guide for fans to follow along and see where Providence’s targets are playing during a given live evaluation period. This post will be updated as the weekend goes on and more information is known. Note: All teams are 17U unless otherwise noted.
The Nike EYBL circuit is widely considered to be the best run grassroots league with the most talent. While the other shoe company-run leagues by adidas and Under Armour are getting better, EYBL is still the gold standard. There are a lot of Providence targets playing on the EYBL circuit this season and Providence will have a coach in Brooklyn to take in the action this weekend.
Game times are local to Brooklyn, NY (EDT).
BABC
2017 Terrell Brown
2017 Justin Mazzula 4/16 – 8:00am vs. Las Vegas Prospects – Court 3 4/16 – 3:30pm vs. Spiece Indy Heat – Court 4 4/17 – 12:30pm vs. RM5 Elite – Court 4
Boo Williams
2017 Devante Carter
2017 Jordan Cross
2017 Dajour Dickens 4/16 – 2:00pm vs. Howard Pulley – Court 4 4/16 – 9:30pm vs. Team Takeover – Court 1 4/17 – 9:30am vs. We All Can Go – Court 3
CIA Bounce
2017 Christian David ~ Injured
~ Injured 2018 Jaelin Llewellyn 4/16 – 9:30am vs. Team Griffin – Court 3 4/16 – 5:00pm vs. Albany City Rocks – Court 2 4/17 – 9:30am vs. Houston Hoops – Court 4
E1T1 United
2017 Tyler Polley 4/16 – 9:30am vs. We All Can Go – Court 2 4/16 – 5:00pm vs. Georgia Stars – Court 1 4/17 – 11:00am vs. Pro Skills – Court 2
Expressions Elite
2017 Jordan Hardwick
2017 Kimani Lawrence
2017 Jermaine Samuels
2017 Tremont Waters 4/16 – 9:30am vs. The Family – Court 1 4/16 – 3:30pm vs. Elfrid Payton Elite – Court 3 4/17 – 8:00am vs. Las Vegas Prospects – Court 3
Meanstreets
2017 Alonzo Verge 4/16 – 9:30am vs. Georgia Stars – Court 4 4/16 – 5:00pm vs. We All Can Go – Court 4 4/17 – 8:00am vs. King James – Court 1
NY Lightning
2017 Matt Turner 4/16 – 11:00am vs. Playaz Basketball Club – Court 3 4/16 – 6:30pm vs. The Rens – Court 1 4/17 – 11:00am vs. Mokan Elite – Court 3
PSA Cardinals
Team CP3
2017 JP Moorman 4/16 – 3:30pm vs. Mac Irvin Fire – Court 1 4/16 – 9:30pm vs. Howard Pulley – Court 4 4/17 – 12:30pm vs. All Ohio Red – Court 1
Team Final
2017 Dhamir Cosby-Roundtree 4/16 – 12:30pm vs. Arkansas Wings – Court 4 4/16 – 8:00pm vs. Oakland Soldiers – Court 4 4/17 – 2:00pm vs. Elfrid Payton Elite – Court 4
Team United
2017 Isaiah Whaley 4/16 – 12:30pm vs. Oakland Soldiers – Court 2 4/16 – 8:00pm vs. Arkansas Wings – Court 3 4/17 – 11:00am vs. The Rens – Court 4
The Rens
2017 Hamidou Diallo
2017 Jordan Tucker 4/16 – 6:30pm vs. NY Lightning – Court 1 4/17 – 11:00am vs. Team United – Court 4 4/17 – 3:30pm vs. PSA Cardinals – Court 1
The Spring Takeover is part of Nike’s EYBL for U15 and U16 teams. This event will be played in Neptune, NJ and includes a win and advance portion after the first 3 scheduled games.
Game times are local to New Jersey (EDT)
Team Takeover 16U
2018 Jalen Smith 4/15 – 6:30pm vs. Meanstreets – Court 2 4/16 – 12:30pm vs. The Travelers – Court 4 4/16 – 6:30pm vs. BABC – Court 3 4/17 – TBD
The Under Armour Association is a fast-rising league on the grassroots circuit. The setup is similar to Nike EYBL in that there are 3 “sessions” which lead to a final event. The UAA’s final event is in Atlanta. This is the first step towards reaching Atlanta. With the EYBL also in NYC this weekend, I’m guessing whichever Providence coach covers EYBL will also jump over to the UAA for some games.
Game times are local to New York (EDT)
New Heights
2017 Isaiah Washington
2017 Sidney Wilson 4/15 – 7:10pm vs. Earl Watson Elite – Court 3 4/16 – 11:40am vs. South Jersey Jazz – Court 4 4/16 – 7:15pm vs. WE R1 – Court 2 4/17 – 2:15pm vs. Baltimore United – Court 3
Sports U
2018 Naz Reid 4/15 – 6:00pm vs. Philly Pride – Court 7 4/16 – 1:00pm vs. Houston Defenders – Court 6 4/16 – 7:15pm vs. Showtime Hoops – Court 4 4/17 – 9:15am vs. KC Run GMC – Court 2
Team Felton
2017 Iran Bennett 4/15 – 7:10pm vs. Illinois Wolves – Court 5 4/16 – 9:10am vs. Florida Vipers – Court 5 4/16 – 2:15pm vs. Indy Hoosiers – Court 3 4/17 – 9:15am vs. Canada Elite – Court 3
WE R1
2017 Zach Kent
2018 Eric Ayala 4/15 – 9:30pm vs. Beast Mode – Court 3 4/16 – 11:40am vs. Young Legends – Court 2 4/16 – 7:15pm vs. New Heights – Court 2 4/17 – 1:00pm vs. Team Breakdown – Court 3
This is the 3rd of the shoe company sponsored leagues that will be playing this weekend. The Adidas Gauntlet series has 2 qualifying rounds (Dallas and Indianapolis) to get into the series finale in Atlanta in July. The first 4 games being played by all teams are part of pool play. Games will be live steamed at http://www.threestripehoops.com/livestream
Game times are local to Dallas (CDT).
Brookwood Elite
2018 Luguentz Dort
2018 Junior Farquhar
2018 Noah Kirkwood 4/15 – 7:20pm vs. Team FAST – Duncanville Fieldhouse 2 4/16 – 9:00am vs. M33M Elite – Duncanville Fieldhouse 5 4/16 – 2:20pm vs. Mass Rivals – Duncanville Fieldhouse 6 4/17 – 8:00am vs. Texas PRO – Duncanville Fieldhouse 6
Mass Rivals
New England Playaz
2017 Jerome Desrosiers
2017 Tomas Murphy
2018 Nate Laszewski 4/15 – 6:00pm vs. Team Loaded VA – Duncanville Fieldhouse 5 4/16 – 11:40am vs. Colorado Hawks – Duncanville Fieldhouse 3 4/16 – 5:00pm vs. Gateway Basketball Club – Duncanville Fieldhouse 4 4/17 – 10:40am vs. Stackhouse Elite – Duncanville Fieldhouse 2
Team Loaded NC
2017 Jordan Davis 4/15 – 7:20pm vs. Mass Rivals – Duncanville Fieldhouse 1 4/16 – 1:00pm vs. Team Belief – Duncanville Fieldhouse 6 4/16 – 6:20pm vs. New Orleans Elite – Duncanville Fieldhouse 5 4/17 – 12:00pm vs. Team FAST – Duncanville Fieldhouse 5
Team Loaded VA
2017 Mario Haskett
2017 Aamir Simms 4/15 – 6:00pm vs. New England Playaz – Duncanville Fieldhouse 5 4/16 – 10:20am vs. Team Lillard – Duncanville Fieldhouse 1 4/16 – 2:20pm vs. Wisconsin Playground Warriors – Duncanville Fieldhouse 4 4/17 – 9:20am vs. Team YGC36 – Duncanville Fieldhouse 6
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Liked it? Take a second to support pcbb1917.com on Patreon!MARTINSBURG -– A 16-year-old boy who alleges he was sexually abused while a resident in a juvenile treatment facility has filed suit against the Board of Child Care of the Baltimore-Washington Conference of the United Methodist Church and one of its employees.
The teenager, who is only mentioned as John Doe throughout the suit, claims he was repeatedly sexually abused by David Bayles, an employee of the facility, during the summer of 2005, according to a complaint Mary Ritter filed on his behalf in Berkeley Circuit Court on Dec. 2.
"The sexual abuse included repeated acts of touching and rubbing of the plaintiff's penis and buttocks and the performance of oral sex on the plaintiff by David Bayles," the suit states.
The abuse happened in the boy's bedroom and in the pool area of the Board of Child Care residential treatment facility located in Falling Waters, W.Va., he claims.
Only during a psychological evaluation Feb. 8 did the boy reveal the sexual abuse that happened while he was in the custody of the Board of Child Care, according to the complaint.
John Doe was admitted to the Board of Child Care residential treatment facility on June 27, 2005, after he was adjudicated as a delinquent and pleaded to the charge of petit larceny in January 2005, the suit states.
He was then placed on a nine-month supervised probation that was revoked in May 2005 for his alleged violation of probation terms, causing his placement in the facility, he claims.
Because of Bayles's sexual abuse of the boy, John Doe has experienced severe emotional distress, marked feelings of insecurity, lack of trust and sexually maladaptive behaviors, according to the complaint.
He will require treatment to address his sexually maladaptive behaviors, to process his sexual trauma and to address disruptive and aggressive behaviors, the suit states.
He has also experienced a lack of trust in caretakers and caregivers "resulting in his behavior being interpreted by others as oppositional and/or aggressive in nature," the suit states.
Both Bayles and the Board of Child Care breached their duties of good faith and due care by violating the boy's trust and best interests and by manipulating and exploiting his vulnerable position, he claims.
The Board of Child Care breached its duty of protection against injury and a duty to use reasonable care to ensure the safety, care, well-being and health of the boy while under its care, according to the complaint.
"Defendant knew or in the exercise of reasonable care should have known that David Bayles was unfit, dangerous, and a threat to the health, safety and welfare of the minors entrusted to his counsel, care and protection," the suit states.
The Board of Child Care had a duty to warn the boy's guardian or to protect him against the risk of David Bayles, but breached that duty, John Doe claims.
It also breached its duty to have appropriate policies in place to ensure the safety and well-being of juveniles admitted to its facility, according to the complaint.
In the 11-count suit, the boy is seeking a judgment for unspecified compensatory and punitive damages, pre- and post-judgment interest, costs and other relief the court determines appropriate.
Harry P. Waddell of Martinsburg will be representing him.Berkeley Circuit Court case number: 08-C-1382I recently built a new gaming computer housed in a Rosewill Challenger case. I read several reviews that the Corsair H55 should fit into the case with no issues. But after installation yesterday, I notice that the top left corner of the panel cannot close all the way as the radiator partially blocks it (The opening is about 2-3mm). I did not have too much time to fiddle around with it, but its a mistake more on my part and not corsairs. Hopefully I can mess around with it and get it to close properly. The cooler, so far, keeps my Idle temps low at around 30C, Ambient = 28C. While playing BF3, my CPU temps used to raise to about 70-75C, but with this new cooler I did not raise above 60C after 1 hr of gaming. Which is freaking amazing to me! The installation can be a bit tricky as the instructions are very vague picture diagrams. I would recommend watching the youtube tutorials on how to install this unit, and you should have absolutely no issues! Overall, I love this product so far. It does what its supposed to do, and it was a good price! (59.99 after price-matching Newegg)
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The central government has issued guidelines on preserving and developing excellent traditional culture, eyeing a "marked boost" in the international influence of Chinese culture by 2025.
The guidelines, which were jointly issued by the General Office of the Communist Party of China (CPC) Central Committee, and the General Office of the State Council, have been designed to preserve and carry forward various forms of traditional arts and Chinese culture.
The guidelines set out that by 2025, major achievements will be registered in traditional culture-related research, education, protection, inheritance, innovation and exchanges. The international influence of Chinese culture should register a "marked boost."
Specific tasks were listed in the guidelines, including protecting traditional Chinese villages, residences, historic architecture, agricultural and industrial heritage; preserving dialects; and supporting Chinese poetry, music, dance, calligraphy, painting, historical and cultural documentaries, animation and publications.
"Cultural relics must be protected amid urbanization and development of new socialist countryside," the guideline said. "Historically and culturally significant cities, streets, blocks and former residences of historical figures, as well as distinctive features of cities must be preserved."
The guideline warned against rendering cities identical through urban development, preferring instead to dig into each city's unique historical and cultural values.
It also called for protecting historic townships and villages, and supporting time-honored Chinese brands.
International cultural exchanges were also emphasized. Overseas Chinese cultural centers, Confucius institutes, cultural festivals, exhibitions, book fairs, movie festivals, sports events should be harnessed to promote excellent Chinese traditional culture, according to the guidelines.Seated on his window seat aboard Jet Airways flight 9W 618 to Pune from Kolkata via Mumbai on Sunday, Tata Consultancy Services employee Manas Deka was an unknown man until of course destiny chose otherwise. Travelling with his team on an official assignment, little did Deka know, that this journey would turn out to be an epic one.
And what a way to get famous!
Those tense moments when he had a rather heated argument with Jawaharlal Nehru University Students' Union (JNUSU) president Kanhaiya Kumar and his group aboard the flight catapulted his popularity from Nowheresville to the land of trolls and TRPs.
After a failed attempt on Monday, it was on Tuesday that Firstpost was able to contact Deka to learn about his version of what happened.
"I was in the window seat while this guy (Kanhaiya Kumar) was in the aisle seat. Kanhaiya and 12-13 other boys were there in the group and they had boarded the flight in Mumbai. It so happened that when I was coming out from the seat my hand touched Kanhaiya's shoulder. I am suffering from a boil in my thigh and it gets extremely painful when the area hits something. I was quite careful not to hurt it. In the process, since it's a cramped area my hands touched Kanhaiya's shoulder. He immediately reacted saying that I was going to kill him and in non time turned the whole situation into a drama," Deka told Firstpost from Pune.
"There were 18 of us who were travelling to Pune as our base was temporarily shifted out of Kolkata because of the ongoing West Bengal Assembly Election. Since the private firms were asked to shut down operations on poll days, this was a temporary arrangement as all our clientele are all from abroad and we cannot afford to close down our operations. We are to function out of Pune till 27 May," the TCS employee said.
"Since there was a half-hour halt in Mumbai I just thought of chatting with my colleagues on board and that's why I had come out of my seat," Deka said while explaining the sequence of events.
But it was all havoc, the moment his hand touched Kanhaiya's shoulder.
Taken aback by this reaction, the TCS staffer instantly offered his apologies to the JNUSU president and explained him about his medical condition. "But Kanhaiya would have none of it," Deka said.
"Immediately all his friends surrounded me and threatened me with dire consequences. If you seen the clip there was one guy in a while shirt. He became so aggressive that I felt that he was going to rain blows soon after," he said.
"Very soon, it snowballed into a heated altercation."
What was intriguing was the BJP link. Where did the party jump in from in all that pandemonium?
"As soon as the fight escalated, the CISF and police were called into the aircraft. When they asked my name I told them it was Manas Jyoti Deka. Someone from Kanhaiya's group might have googled it immediately when the name of BJP's Manas Deka had probably appeared," the TCS employee said. "That's how the wrong Manas Deka of the BJP in all likelihood came into the picture. They did not have the time to ascertain the facts in their zeal to pin me down," he said.
The TCS staffer was furious that an innocent individual was unnecessarily dragged into the whole controversy.
"If Kanhaiya Kumar is such a big leader as he thinks he is, he should have some common sense. Can't there be many individuals with the same name? He claims to be a student but he is too much into politics," Deka said.
The TCS employee also took umbrage to the way Kanhaiya used his language. "Tu Kolkata se hai na? Aa raha hoon mein. Dikhatu hoon tujhe! (You are from Kolkata, right? I am coming. I will show you). That's how he abused me in public," Deka said.
Belonging to a nondescript village near Sarthebari town in Assam's Barpeta district, TCS staffer Manas Deka is the son of |
an endless number of formations to disguise about fifty basic plays. That made it easy for the offense to memorize and difficult for defenses to recognize.
Smith had no idea what Leach was talking about. But one thing was obvious to her: the guy sitting across from her sipping root beer through a straw was no casual fan of the game. He wasn’t some armchair quarterback either. In high school Leach had started a “coaching” file, filling it with newspaper clippings from the sports pages and schematic ideas he scribbled on loose sheets of paper. By the time he got to Provo and could watch LaVell Edwards up close, he was mapping out his future. “BYU had a state-of-the-art offense,” Leach said. “The best in the country. I started studying it very closely. LaVell Edwards had a major impact on me.”
After one date with Leach, Smith never saw anyone else. “Of all the people I dated at BYU, he was the only guy who knew exactly what he wanted to do,” Smith said. “He told me right away that he knew he was going to be a lawyer or a college football coach. I found it very attractive that he had a plan and was very confident about achieving it.”
Never mind that Leach had never played college football and his only coaching experience was as a Little League baseball coach back in Wyoming. Smith wasn’t worried. “He could analyze the game and the way coaches were coaching, and he had it in his mind that he could do it better at a young age,” she said. “Confidence is a very attractive feature.”
In June 1982, Mike and Sharon were married in St. George, Utah. After BYU, they moved to Southern California, and Mike attended law school at Pepperdine. But just before he got his law degree, he posed a practical question to Sharon: “Do you want me to come home miserable and making a lot of money or come home happy and not earning as much money?”
She told him that being happy was more important than making a lot of money.
Leach didn’t bother taking the bar exam. Instead, he and Sharon headed to Alabama so Mike could attend the U.S. Sports Academy. After he obtained his master’s, they returned to California, and Mike talked his way into a part-time assistant’s position with the football team at Cal Poly San Luis Obispo, then a Division II school. The fact that Leach had a law degree intrigued the head coach enough to offer him a job helping out for $3,000. Sharon figured that was a monthly salary. But it was $3,000 for the season.
With a one-year-old baby, the Leaches moved into campus housing. Their bed was a floor mattress. They didn’t own a television. Their motto was “Opportunity trumps money.”
After one season, the head coach at Cal Poly San Luis Obispo predicted that Leach would develop into a big-time college football coach. Over the next decade Mike and Sharon crisscrossed the country, taking coaching jobs at College of the Desert in California, Iowa Wesleyan and Valdosta State. Leach even spent a year coaching football in Finland. He held every position from offensive line coach to linebacker coach to quarterback coach. He even served as sports information director and equipment manager at one school. And when all the other coaches left at the end of the day, Leach stayed behind to watch film—always alone, sometimes until dawn—night after night.
For the first fifteen years of marriage, Sharon made more money doing clerical work and miscellaneous jobs than Mike made coaching. They were happy but broke. Plus, they were up to three kids with a fourth on the way. Then things changed in 1997. Kentucky’s head coach, Hal Mumme, hired Leach as his offensive coordinator. Suddenly Leach jumped from small schools in the middle of nowhere to the SEC, the best conference in college football. His offensive scheme—referred to as “the spread”—would be tested against Florida, Alabama, Georgia, LSU, Tennessee and Auburn.
Working under Mumme and drawing from the BYU offense he’d studied in the early 1980s, Leach added new wrinkles that opened up the field even more, making it easier for his quarterback to throw into open passing lanes. “I spend more time trying to make my offense easy for the quarterback to memorize than anything,” Leach said. “I want to make it as simple as possible because I want guys to trigger as quick as possible. The key isn’t finding good plays. The key is packaging.”
One of the most revolutionary aspects of Leach’s system was spacing the offensive linemen three feet apart. At first glance, it appears to give pass rushers a clear shot at the quarterback. But the result was fewer sacks and cleaner passing lanes for the quarterback. The SEC had never seen anything like it. In Leach’s first season as offensive coordinator, Kentucky upset Alabama and finished the year with the No. 1 offense in the country, led by quarterback Tim Couch. The following year Kentucky knocked off LSU; Couch threw for more than four thousand yards and went on to become the No. 1 pick in the NFL draft. Meanwhile, Leach’s offense set six NCAA records and forty-one SEC records. The Wildcats had a winning record in the toughest conference in the country.
Coaches in the SEC weren’t the only ones who noticed. Coaches from around the country—including Urban Meyer at Notre Dame, Tommy Bowden at Tulane and Mark Mangino at Kansas State—traveled to Kentucky to learn more about Leach’s system. Even a number of NFL coaches made the trek to Lexington. The interest level was so high that Leach made an instructional video on the finer points of throwing and receiving techniques. It sold thousands of copies.
After two seasons at Kentucky, Leach accepted the position as offensive coordinator at Oklahoma. He was there less than one year before he got offered the head job at Texas Tech. The opportunity had some downside. It was 1999 and Tech was on academic probation for recruiting violations, academic fraud and unethical conduct. Eighteen scholarships were stripped from the football program between 1999 and 2001. Not only would Leach be competing against Texas, Oklahoma and Texas A&M, but he’d be doing it with eighteen fewer scholarships for his first three seasons.
There were other problems. Tech’s graduation rates were among the lowest in the nation. Leach held two advanced degrees and had no interest in a football culture that ignored the importance of academics.
Plus, there was the unenviable task of replacing Tech’s Spike Dykes, who had won more games—eighty-two—than any football coach in the history of the school. In Lubbock, where football is right beside God in importance, Dykes was beloved.
Despite all this, Leach said yes. At thirty-eight, a guy who never played college football was off to Lubbock to coach the Red Raiders in the Big 12.
Six years later, a cup of coffee in one hand and a remote control in the other, Mike Leach was alone in his office going over game film. Play. Pause. Rewind. Play. Pause. Rewind. Next sequence.
It was after midnight when he stood up to stretch his legs. He parted the blinds on his office window that overlooked the Texas Tech practice facility. That’s when he spotted a shadow moving across the field. It was a human shadow. “Who in the hell is that?” he mumbled.
The facilities were locked, the lights off. The place was deserted. Leach wondered if it was a prowler. He headed downstairs to have a look.
Approaching the field, Leach spotted tiny orange cones. They were arranged in rows. Someone was darting in and out of them. Suddenly the figure came into focus.
“Michael?”
“Oh, hey, Coach.”
It was Tech receiver Michael Crabtree, considered the top wideout in the country.
“Michael, what are you doing?”
“I got to thinking about the corner route,” he said in between deep breaths. “If I come out of my cut like this”—Crabtree pointed his toes and jigged hard to the right—“I’ll be open every time.”
Impressed, Leach folded his arms and nodded.
“So,” Crabtree continued, “I set up some cones, and I’m out here working on it.”
Leach’s eyes went from Crabtree to the cones and back to Crabtree. The most talented wide receiver in college football was alone in the dark. There was no ball. No quarterback. No position coach to tell him what to do. It was just Crabtree in his stance, doing starts and stops, running in and out of cones.
The truth was that Crabtree worked out alone at night a lot. He lived across the street from the practice complex and would sneak in after dark. “I always worked on my game,” Crabtree said. “Coach Leach just happened to catch me that night.”
Determined not to disrupt hard work, Leach turned and headed back inside without saying another word.
Leach and Crabtree had the kind of relationship that didn’t require much talk. When Leach arrived in Lubbock six years earlier, Tech didn’t land blue-chip recruits like Crabtree. A star quarterback at David W. Carter High School in Dallas, Crabtree was also one of the top high school basketball players in the state. Bobby Knight offered him a basketball scholarship. And Texas, Oklahoma, Texas A&M and LSU were all over him with scholarship offers to play football. Tech’s facilities couldn’t compete with those schools’. And Leach’s budget was a fraction of his rivals’.
Still, Leach was winning with guys who had been passed over by the Longhorns and the Sooners and the Aggies. In Leach’s first six seasons, Tech had gone 49-28, appeared in six straight bowl games and finished in the top twenty in both 2004 and 2005. But the thing that really got Crabtree’s attention was Leach’s Air Raid offense. “They threw the ball every play,” Crabtree said. “Leach had the whole program going. I said to myself, ‘Man, if I go to Tech, it’s gonna be on.’ ”
Tech indeed had the most explosive offense in the country when Leach started recruiting Crabtree in 2004. That year, Tech’s football scores often looked like basketball scores. The Red Raiders put up seventy points against TCU. Then they put up seventy against Nebraska, marking the most points scored against the Cornhuskers in the program’s 114-year history. Virtually every Tech game was an offensive exhibition, and Leach’s quarterbacks were leading the nation in passing year in and year out.
But Leach told Crabtree up front that he planned to play him at receiver, not quarterback. Crabtree had been the best athlete on his high school team, and—as is often the case for superior high school athletes—he got asked to play quarterback. But Leach saw in him all the raw materials to make a great receiver—breakaway speed, great leaping ability, big hands and fearlessness. He went as far as to tell Crabtree that he could see him playing wideout in the NFL.
Crabtree had never played receiver. But it didn’t take much to convince him to switch. “I didn’t want to stay in college that long,” Crabtree said. “I wanted to get on to the NFL. If I played quarterback, I’d be at Tech for five years. I figured if I played receiver at Tech, I would tear it up.”
The chance to play receiver at Tech also made it easier not to choose Texas or Oklahoma. “I didn’t want to go to Texas or OU and just be another guy,” Crabtree said. “I wanted to go somewhere to make a name for myself. With Leach at Tech, I had a chance to take it to another level.”
All he told Leach, however, was one thing: “I want to score touchdowns.”The maple syrup season could be tapped out before it even starts this year.
The colder than normal temperatures are keeping production of the iconic Canadian treat at a standstill in parts of southwestern Ontario.
"There's just absolutely no sap flow at all. If you try and tap trees in the sharp cold it will crack the bark and create leakage around the spiral," said Don Giffin a maple syrup producer in Blenheim, Ont.
Environment Canada is predicting chilly temperatures to continue throughout February and into March, according to meteorologist Peter Kimbell.
Kimbell said temperatures in February have been seven or eight degrees below average in Ontario, sometimes even 10 degrees below.
Syrup producers need the mercury to drop below freezing at night.
"It's strictly mother nature, and you just have to hope for cold nights, warm days with lots of sunshine, and it will happen," said Robert Jakeman, a fourth generation maple syrup maker in Woodstock.
Some farmers are worried the syrup season could run dry if the mercury does not co-operate this year.
"There's always that risk. Nothing's for sure. There's definitely a concern there," said Jakeman.
But when the sap starts to flow, it could bring a strong crop.
"A cooler than normal season sometimes gives us a higher quality maple syrup," said Jakeman. "We're gonna have maple syrup, it just depends when it comes."On 7th April, Indian Express via this article announced dramatically that “Akbar, Newton may make way for ‘local heroes’ in Rajasthan textbooks”. The article made claims that Saffronization of School Textbooks would take place at the behest of RSS. The article commented that “Akbar the Great, Pythagoras and Issac Newton would be nudged out”. The most interesting part was this story was run ONLY by Indian Express. Firstpost later curated this same report, but there were no other independent reports on this story.
The problem with the Indian Express story is, in its headline it says “Akbar & Newton may make way” and they reiterate this claim in the body. BUT, if we see the quotes of the Minister in the same piece, there is not a single quote mentioning “nudging” Akbar or Newton or any other “foreign leaders”.
From a plain reading, it seems that the Primary Education Minister Vasudev Devnani only wanted to include Indian personalities like “Veer Savarkar, Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose, Bhagat Singh, Maharaja Suraj Mal and Mahatma Gandhi” in History books, who he feels haven’t been given their due in Indian Textbooks. He also says he would like to add “Aryabhatta, Bhaskaracharya” in science books.
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Following are the exact words of the Minister, as per the report of Indian Express itself:
“Why should our children only learn about Akbar, the Great? Why not Maharana Pratap, the Great?, Our children are constantly learning about foreign rulers, mathematicians, scientists et al. Soon after I took charge, I wanted to rework the textbooks but I was told printing had started and making changes would cause a huge financial loss. This year, we will bring significant changes. In science books, we will include Aryabhatta, Bhaskaracharya. We have to build a feeling of of nationalism in our children.”
As you can see there is not a single quote where the Minister says he will remove Akbar or Newton. This is further established by reading this report in Patrika on the same matter. This report says 5 new chapters will be “added” on the famous characters earlier mentioned by us. There is no mention of any deletion of Newton etc.
All the facts of this case can be summarized as below:
1. Indian Express report is the only report on this issue
2. It claims Newton, Akbar & Pythagoras will be nudged out of text books
3. This claim is not backed by any quotes of the Minister, in Indian Express’s own article
4. This claim is not backed by any other media report
Based on the above, there is serious concern whether the Indian Express report is accurate, or whether they have added their own narrative to sensationalise the issue. It is more dangerous since, just last month Indian Express was caught with their pants down when they tried to communalise Kolkata’s Archbishop’s statement.
There is no doubt that Indian history books should definitely have chapters on great Indian leaders such as Veer Savarkar, Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose, Bhagat Singh, Maharaja Suraj Mal and Mahatma Gandhi. There is also no doubt that Indian education system in most places is in desperate need of revamp. There might be some who may express concern over inclusion of Aryabhatta, Bhaskaracharya in Science textbooks, but the fact is, the entire world has acknowledged many contributions of these stalwarts in the field of science. There are those who claim everything worthwhile was invented in Ancient India, while there are those who claim nothing ever came from there. Sadly, the truth lies in between the two, and there is no harm in propagating this truth.
We had asked an opportunity to enquire with the author of the Indian Express report, but we are still awaiting a reply.
UPDATE (10 April, 2015): 3 days after publishing the misleading article, Indian Express has now published excerpts from an interview of the concerned minister Vasudev Devnani, which confirms what we had pointed out. In the interview, the minister says: “I am not saying stop teaching Newton altogether but let us give due credit to everyone.”
This is exactly what we pointed out, that there was no proof that Newton will be nudged out or dropped, as the earlier report by Indian Express claimed. Strangely, despite this explanation by the minister to Indian Express itself, the earlier article has not been corrected by the publication.
Share This Post and Support:I feel obliged to post this since the clip’s making the rounds, shorn of context, and has already fooled people on Twitter. It fooled me too yesterday when I saw captioned screencaps of it and didn’t recognize it immediately. It *looks* authentic. That’s the “Red Eye” set and that’s Greg Gutfeld moderating the discussion. Did CK really go on Fox News and get in the face of a Christian woman, telling her he was going to masturbate to her after the show? What a scumbag.
Well, yes, what a scumbag. But not for insulting this woman. This isn’t a real Fox clip, you see; it’s from CK’s show, “Louie,” on FX. (Note the FX, not Fox News, logo in the corner.) I remember Gutfeld tweeting about getting a call and being asked if he wanted to do a cameo as a combative Hannity-style Fox host. CK scripted this entire segment and they evidently shot it at Fox News’s studios.
The seeds of his eventual public rehabilitation can be found in this clip, though, and in the now-shelved film he was about to release, “I Love You, Daddy.” That movie was about a Woody-Allen-esque director preying on underaged girls and includes a scene in which a character … pretends to masturbate in front of a woman. But it’s not played for laughs; according to Kyle Smith, who’s seen the film, “it portrays its sexually entitled male characters as badly behaved and in desperate need of relocating their moral compasses.” You get the same vibe from the clip above, that CK is reproaching himself to some extent by having his character behave waaaaay too defensively towards a woman who disapproves of his masturbation habit.
CK’s fans will seize on stuff like this plus the endless self-deprecation about masturbation in his stand-up sets as evidence that he’s not as bad as the other predators out there. He’s not Harvey Weinstein. He didn’t assault anyone (or did he?). And he has a conscience. He’s been giving us glimpses of it in his comedy for years. Even the NYT story that blew him up yesterday reported that he reached out to some of the women he’d victimized over the years and apologized privately. On top of that — and this must be said — he’s a great talent, and that unfortunately matters in the calculus of which scumbag celebrities do and don’t get exiled to professional Siberia. No one will miss Weinstein. No one but the hardest of hardcore political hacks will miss Halperin. Lots of people will miss CK. Even comics who had heard all the stories about him wanking in front of unsuspecting women couldn’t hate him because he made them laugh so much. Comedian Kath Barbadoro wrote about it today for WaPo:
All of us performers were beside ourselves with excitement. If you’re a comedian, and especially if you’re a white millennial comedian, you love Louis C.K. His set was great. All of his jokes were about animals — moose, giraffes, goats — and many of them ended up in his “Saturday Night Live” monologue in April. The audience was dazzled; they laughed and hollered and so did we comedians, gathered in the back. In typical Louis C.K. fashion, the jokes ranged from philosophical to touching to absolutely disgusting. Mostly disgusting. I loved it. My boyfriend at the time had come to the open mic with me, and I felt like my proximity to such a universally respected celebrity legitimized my modest comedy career in his eyes. Then I felt sick: I knew — like everyone did — what he had done to women. But I was still laughing… “Louis C.K. at our open mic! Can you believe it?” I said, as I took the mic from the stand. “I guess it just goes to show you that stand-up is a performance art — you have to try new jokes for an audience no matter what. If you don’t do it in front of people, it doesn’t count. Unfortunately, Louie also feels that way about masturbation.” The comics in the back roared, but the audience stared at me blankly. I was baffled. I hung out with comics, and since they had heard the rumors, I’d assumed everyone had. Clearly, that was wrong.
Comedians are more likely than other sleazebags to get second chances, I think, because their entire art is articulating sensibilities that the audience shares but can’t or won’t articulate themselves. It’s the art of connection. If the offense is grievous enough, like Bill Cosby allegedly drugging and raping women, even an adoring audience won’t forgive them. But CK punching the clown in front of women who were afraid to tell him to stop? Yeah, he’ll be back. Especially after his shrewdly cynical apology this afternoon, which wisely admitted the truth of the allegations and shifted to repentance mode. Louie’s so sensitive and honest. And he did apologize privately! He wants forgiveness. We should give it to him. It’s a matter of time before he gets it. Just remember one thing: As Barbadoro notes, the allegations of him masturbating in front of women have been around for *years*, and not just in whispered conversations among comics. They trickled out to the Gawker sites a few years ago and comedians like Jen Kirkman were dropping heavy hints in public about it as far back as 2015. Through it all, CK denied everything. As recently as September, he was asked about his alleged behavior and flatly denied it. “They’re rumors, that’s all that is,” he told the Times. In hindsight you wonder if the paper was trying to get his denial on record all the while knowing it was sitting on a bomb that would damage his career.
Either way, the fact remains: If not for the NYT story yesterday, there’s no reason to think CK ever would have come clean about what happened. The women he victimized and who’ve suffered professional marginalization while keeping his secret would have gone on suffering it. For some of his fans, bits like the clip above would have been apology enough.Cuan Di Xia is a village that dates back to the Ming dynasty. Located in the modern day Mengtou District of Beijing, the village is home to about 500 courtyard homes, which are preserved in a traditional Chinese architectural style reminiscent of the Ming and Qing dynasties.
Fast Facts: Name: 爨底下 / Cuàn Dǐ Xia Where: About 95km west of Beijing Getting There: Go to the last stop on the western end of the Line 1 Subway (Píngguǒyuán Zhàn | 苹果园站). Then either take a cab (which should take you around another 30 minutes), or take the 892 bus to Zhāitáng zhèn | 斋堂镇. What to Do: Walk around the courtyard houses; eat lunch; hike around the surrounding hills.
Cuan Di Xia makes for a perfect day-trip escape from the crowds and bustle of Beijing. Due to the village’s humble offerings, Cuan Di Xia isn’t on most first-time-to-Beijing tourists’ list, which means it’s quiet more often than not. Go during the winter after a snowfall for a particularly dramatic view of the village from the opposing hillside.
In an effort to consolidate all of our travels in one place, this post, in addition to several more to come, is a quick update to China Nomads of some of our earlier China travels. We visited Cuan Di Xia back in 2011, about 2 years after we moved to China. I’ve found that looking back at old pictures is both a great way to keep old memories fresh, and an interesting exercise in re-imagining old images and taking note of how one’s photography has changed over the years.The motion picture capital of the United States, if not the world, is Los Angeles, California—specifically, Hollywood. The weather is conducive to year-round shoots and rarely has rain in the forecast. The area has diverse scenery too, with beaches and the ocean as readily available as deserts, forests, and even mountains. On top of that, when some of the first Hollywood studios opened around 1915, land was cheap and labor was plentiful. All the area needed was an industry, and the movie industry made a lot of sense.
Oh, and there was one other reason the movie industry made its way west. Los Angeles was far away from New Jersey—and Thomas Edison was in New Jersey.
Edison, over the course of his career, held over 1000 patents in the United States. He was credited with inventing a bevy of technological devices from the incandescent light bulb to the phonograph. He also had a role in the invention of the Kinetoscope, an early movie camera (although most of the work was done by William Kennedy Dickson, an employee of Edison). And during the late 1800s and into the 20th century, he held many of the patents over the technologies needed to create movies. Edison apparently used these patents as a cudgel.
Because Edison held so many patents, and because these patents applied to both the creation of movies and the technology used to run movie theaters, he was able to cajole other patent holders into forming a consortium which he would lead. Together, these firms formed the Motion Picture Patent Company, and exhibited a near monopoly on the production, distribution, and exhibition of all things film. The MPPC’s Wikipedia entry sums up well how viciously the company enforced its patents:
[T]he MPPC also established a monopoly on all aspects of filmmaking. Eastman Kodak, which owned the patent on raw film stock, was a member of the Trust and thus agreed to only sell stock to other members. Likewise, the Trust’s control of patents on motion picture cameras ensured that only MPPC studios were able to film, and the projector patents allowed the Trust to make licensing agreements with distributors and theaters – and thus determine who screened their films and where.
In short, if you wanted to be in the movie business, you did so at the pleasure of Thomas Edison. And Edison (via the MPPC) was not one to back down. The Company took to the courts to prevent the unauthorized use of everything from cameras to projectors — and in many cases, the films themselves. According to Steven Bach in his book, Final Cut, the MPPC even went to the extreme “solution” of hiring mob-affiliated thugs to enforce the patents extra-judiciously. Pay up — or else.
Many in the film industry, known as “independents,” chose a third option: flee. California made a lot of sense, not only for the reasons listed above, but also because it was in an area where judges were less friendly to the patents awarded to Edison and company. And even if the patents were held valid (or if the MPPC again tried to go with the extrajudicial solution), enforcement would be tricky, as cross-continental travel was expensive and cumbersome for mobsters and federal marshals alike. This time lag was all the “independents” needed, as the Company’s patents were expiring and the organization was losing antitrust cases in the courts.
Hollywood, born out of a desire to avoid Edison’s intellectual property claims, quickly became the primary location of the motion picture industry.
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New Zealand’s prime minister, John Key, has been accused of making light of rape after participating in a radio stunt referencing sexual assault in prison.
Key appeared for an informal interview on The Rock radio station on Wednesday when he was asked to enter a cage and pick up a bar of soap – a clear reference to rape in prisons.
When he picked up the soap, the radio station’s staff dissolved into laughter and the leader then commented that the soap smelt bad and was greasy.
The radio host told him the soap was taken from the men’s urinal.
Ken Clearwater from Survivors of Sexual Abuse New Zealand said he found the stunt “bloody appalling”.
“Rape is not a joke, full stop. Regardless of the gender of the victim. The psychological damage done to men and boys is the same as to women.”
I told New Zealand’s parliament about my sexual assault – it was difficult, but necessary | Metiria Turei Read more
Deborah Russell, a feminist commentator and Massey University lecturer, said she too, was “appalled” by the prime minister’s participation in the stunt, which she said was further evidence of his weak stance on tackling sexual violence in New Zealand.
“He [John Key] has a terrible history of not standing up against sexual violence in this country. He has cut funding to rape crisis, he silenced women parliamentarians who spoke out about their own sexual assault experiences and now we have him making jokes about prison rape on a national radio station. When will it end?”
Greens MP Jan Logie was one of the female MPs who walked out of parliament in November after being silenced for openly discussing her personal experience as a survivor of sexual violence.
“It seems to me that this is not the first time that the PM has made light of rape and made fun of marginalised people to increase his own popularity. And again he has behaved like a school yard bully, and it makes it really hard to change the culture in New Zealand that will make people feel more safe.”
Rae Duff, the national president of New Zealand’s National Council of Women, said Key was routinely “trivialising” sexual violence, and he should apologise for the radio stunt.
“We are disappointed to see prime minister John Key joking about and trivialising sexual violence. Violence is a serious issue in New Zealand with many cases going unreported.
“Key’s ‘joke’ shows a lack of respect for victims and contributes to the stigma faced when speaking out about violence and harassment. We call on John Key to apologise for his ‘joke’ and to do more to support the victims of violence in New Zealand.”
In the 2011 United Nations Report on the Status of Women, New Zealand was ranked worst of all the OECD countries for rates of sexual violence.
The Rock radio stunt is the latest in a series of live radio appearances Key has made this year, many which have pushed boundaries and revealed intimate details.
In October, Key appeared on Radio Hauraki and admitted he had urinated in the shower, didn’t trim his pubic hair and had never sent a “dick pic”.
John Key: New Zealand prime minister's weirdest moments (so far) Read more
Political commentator Dr Bryce Edwards told Radio New Zealand on Thursday morning the prime minister’s “jokey blokey” persona was a key part of his public image and the radio stunts would not hurt his reputation in the long term.
“He remains a very popular prime minister and it’s because he is not aloof like a typical prime minister. He’s not a stick in the mud, he does go in for these jokes.”
A spokesperson for Key told the Guardian: “The prime minister does these interviews in the spirit of Christmas and the content is decided by the hosts.
“The interviews are meant to be light hearted, and the prime minister hopes the media and the public take them that way.”A federal judge has agreed to release Trump campaign manager Paul Manafort from house arrest once he meets a series of conditions that would hold his family liable to forfeit $10 million in assets if he fails to appear in court.
Under the new conditions, Mr. Manafort would reside at his home in Palm Beach Gardens, Florida and have to comply with a nightly curfew. He would also remain under GPS monitoring. Mr. Manafort would be allowed to travel to D.C. for court appearance but would have to obtain prior approval for any other domestic travel, according to the order issued Friday by U.S. District Judge Amy Berman Jackson.
The order follows a prolonged fight between Mr. Manafort and special counsel Robert Mueller’s team over his bail package. Since Mr. Manafort’s Oct. 30 indictment on charges including conspiracy to commit money laundering and failure to file proper financial disclosures, he has been held on house arrest in Virginia and subject to GPS monitoring.
Under Judge Jackson’s order, Mr. Manafort will be required to execute documents agreeing to forfeit four properties if he fails to appear in court — his Alexandria, Virginia home, a residence in Bridgehampton, New York, a home in Palm Beach Gardens, Florida, and a Manhattan condo. If the properties had to be forfeited and their value did not add up to $10 million, Mr. Manafort’s wife and daughter are required to deposit a combined total of $7 million in a bank account that cannot be touched unless authorized by a court order.
Earlier this week, Judge Jackson admonished Mr. Manafort for his role in crafting an editorial that ran recently in a Ukrainian newspaper, warning him that she would not tolerate attempts to influence the public perception of the case through the media.
She didn’t punish Mr. Manafort for the publication, but noted that the point of her prior ruling barring involved parties from making public statements about the case was to ensure that the case was “debated by the parties in the courtroom and not in the press.”
Prosecutors from Mr. Mueller’s team flagged the op-ed as a concern last week while negotiating a bail package for Mr. Manafort, arguing that his “ghostwriting” of the document constitutes a violation of the court-imposed gag order and raises doubts about whether he will adhere to the bail conditions.
Copyright © 2019 The Washington Times, LLC. Click here for reprint permission.Are women oppressed today? If so, why is it that they live more? Why are they happier?
Long-time political activist Adam Leonas examines the arguments about the oppression of women, and shows that all the supposed disadvantages are essentially trade-offs against much worse alternatives.
He takes a fascinating look into the biology of the sexes, to find where female superiority and male weakness is located: sex. He argues that the point in history when the prehistoric gender balance was overturned was during “the worst mistake in human history”: the Agricultural Revolution, when what he calls “the Female Coup d’etat” took place.
The author, being unrelentingly radically progressive, concludes that in historic societies, capitalism included, women’s power is greater due to their control over sex. He proposes radical ways for men to deal with their disadvantaged position, as well as radical ways to remedy the gender balance in society as a necessary prerequisite for equality and social peace.
Read excerpts from the book.
The Table of Contents.
Review by National Coalition for Men PR Director J. Steven Svoboda.
What readers say about the book.
Video review.
AdvertisementsAs Gizmodo notes, the scientists used a process of elimination to focus their attention on the handful of asteroids that couldn't be linked to families, but shared similar albedos (reflection factor). It wasn't hard to tell that they were 'dark' asteroids whose primitive material composition and large size indicated they were born in the Solar System's early days, when huge collisions were par for the course.
The findings at once validate and challenge notions of what the early Solar System was like. They support the notion of a far larger asteroid belt with some of the larger planets (Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune) closer to the Sun. However, they also raise questions: what does it mean that asteroids formed when the Solar System looked much different than it does now? And what can we learn about the very beginnings of our cosmic home? There's a lot more work to be done to get better answers, but this is an intriguing start.My Secret Santa had asked me if there was anything specific I needed this holiday season and after some thought I realized I always listen to music in the bathroom while showering and getting ready in the mornings. I usually keep my iPad in there and play music through there and I figured maybe I could use a Bluetooth speaker so I could keep my iPad away from the bathroom.
Needless to say, he or she delivered. I got a waterproof, compact Bluetooth speaker! Despite it's small size, the sound quality is surprisingly good, far better than what the iPad can handle. Best of all, since it's waterproof and has a suction cup at the bottom, it fits easily in my shower and allows me to actually change songs and control volume from the shower!
Great gift and I'm extremely grateful! Another awesome Reddit Secret Santa in the books!
For those looking for something similar, I've used it for a few days and I strongly recommend it, it's something I never even knew existed!Photo
A New York City police officer who had just gotten off duty was fatally shot late Thursday in East Harlem by a fellow officer who mistook him for an armed criminal, Police Commissioner Raymond W. Kelly said.
The officer who was killed, Omar J. Edwards, 25, a two-year veteran who was assigned to patrol housing projects and was wearing plain clothes, was shot in the arm and chest after a team of three other plainclothes officers in a car came upon him chasing a man on East 125th Street |
. Sterile. It is no coincidence that the words we use to describe the places we find least comforting are also the conditions required of the spaces in which we seek medical treatment. To put it more acutely, the environments designed to make us feel better often make us feel worse. The experience of industrialized modern medicine, with its pinging machines and sharp edges, can strip us of our humanity and elicit a profound sense of anxiety. This presents architects with a difficult challenge: reassuring us that we are receiving the most advanced treatments, but doing so in spaces that enhance rather than compromise our dignity. The actual correlation between health care outcomes and design is difficult to track, though an entire field has developed within the architectural profession devoted to improving patient satisfaction and medical performance. Its presumptions are that design that provides access to nature, that is sympathetic to the body in material and color, and that is intuitive in its organization will alleviate stress, minimize clinical errors and result in faster and more successful recoveries. Good, or luxurious, design is also good business, a way of luring the wealthy and well-insured patients hospitals crave. Meeting this demand, however, has proven to be a task with all the complexity of microneurosurgery, as illustrated by a pair of massive new Dallas Medical District complexes: the new Parkland Memorial Hospital, which opens in August, and UT Southwestern’s Clements University Hospital, which opened in December. The facilities for these at once competitive and mutually dependent institutions cost in excess of $2 billion and combine to represent both the best intentions of contemporary health care design and also some of its continuing weaknesses. The uneasy relationship between the two hospitals is reflected in their proximity — or lack thereof. The two public institutions have been partnered since 1943, with UTSW providing practitioners to Parkland and Parkland in return serving as a training ground for doctors from UTSW. Yet the two facilities are located so far from each other within the Medical District that walking between them is not a realistic option. Parkland, if nothing else, is hard to miss: Its reflective aluminum bulk seems visible from nearly all quarters of the city, looking like nothing so much as some mythical giant’s collapsed Jenga tower. In fact, it is a highly considered composition of metallic bars stacked and cantilevered across one another at perpendicular angles, designed as a joint venture by the Dallas architecture firms HDR and Corgan. The 2.8 million-square-foot campus boasts 862 patient rooms, 154 emergency treatment rooms, 44 labor and delivery rooms, 27 surgical suites and a garage with 6,000 parking spaces. Those numbers suggest an overwhelming scale, and indeed that is Parkland’s fundamental problem. Parkland’s board had, in fact, considered the idea of building a smaller central hospital with several satellite inpatient facilities, thereby bringing Dallas County’s principal public hospital system more directly to the population it is intended to serve. That plan was rejected under pressure from administrators at UTSW, who feared it would complicate staffing arrangements and compromise care. A memorial to President John F. Kennedy and Lyndon Johnson was moved from the old hospital to the new $1.3 billion Parkland Memorial Hospital. Medical monument The result is a massive complex that draws patients from across the county. For those who drive, this means navigating a garage that would be at home in a sci-fi film — it is delineated by lines of black glass and white concrete — and then walking across open ground to the hospital proper. Public transit commuters are also exposed to the elements on a long walk from bus and rail stop. No matter the means of arrival, visitors find themselves before a colossal medical machine. “The thing about it that I like the most is that most people would think it’s an office building, not a hospital,” a Parkland executive, Lou Saksen, told me on a recent tour. “It makes a very strong sculptural statement.”
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It is a statement that suggests just how sadly ingrained Dallas’ corporate culture has become in the city’s design consciousness. An office building? Surely a better model would be a resort hotel. At the very moment patients should be reassured they will be greeted and cared for as individuals, the new Parkland instead offers grids of identical square windows set in burnished aluminum panels that become progressively lighter as they rise toward the sky. As sculpture it is bold, but as architecture it is alienating. Things improve dramatically in the lobby, a limpid double-height space with handsome terrazzo floors, calming slate walls and detailing in a warm blond pecan wood. A tasteful display adjacent to the waiting area acts as both a historical marker and memorial to John F. Kennedy, who will forever be the hospital’s most famous patient. The pleasant light is filtered through windows etched with the names of Dallas County residents who responded to a mass mailing asking for a $10 donation. From afar, the names dissolve into floral patterns in the glass; a handsome effect that speaks to the philanthropic nature of the entire city, not just its wealthiest citizens. Sunlight streams through the east windows of the Parkland lobby. The lobby serves what are essentially two different hospitals: a 17-story acute care center and a nine-story facility for women and infants that crosses underneath it. Parkland administrators wanted them effectively separated, which accounts for their perpendicular orientation. The design allows the facilities to share a main lobby and mechanical cores. If this seems logical on paper, it too often becomes disorienting when one is actually in the bowels of this complex beast. Patients, and perhaps employees, will find it easy to get lost, to get turned around, to end up going in the wrong direction. The color scheme, lots of beige with pale blue and avocado accents and almost no natural materials, is the depressing product of group-think. In an effort to be a conscientious citizen, Parkland engaged a community advisory group to help choose the colors, instead of leaving that job to to professional designers, who might have thought more creatively. The design failure is perhaps most egregious in the preoperative rooms, where patients are prepped for surgery and presumably asked to put signature to the hospital’s liability forms. Here, where patients are at their most vulnerable, Parkland has presented them with the most depressing tableau imaginable: a beige wall with a sad little landscape print that is intended to be soothing but instead merely reinforces a sense of removal and isolation.
Parkland’s patient rooms awkwardly place the bathrooms along the outer wall, cutting into the view from the window.
All private rooms Patient rooms are more humane, if imperfect, their most significant features being that every one, as at Clements, is private and that every one has a view toward the city through one of the large, square windows that mark the exterior. The flooring is a pleasant vinyl faux wood, and rooms are each equipped with a sofa that pulls out into a queen-size bed. The layout is awkward, however: The bathrooms, purchased as prefabricated units, have been inserted on the window side, which means that the bed must be set far from the view and that anyone sitting on the sofa in the cove-like space in front of that window is in perpetual silhouette during the day. It is instructive to compare these patient rooms with those at Clements, which was designed by the Dallas office of the firm RTKL. Here, almost identical prefabricated bathrooms are set along the corridor wall, allowing the bed to be placed closer to a broad window. Both have nurses’ stations set just outside of each room, with windows, operable from inside and out, that allow for the monitoring of patients without disturbance.
The Clements patient rooms, all of which are private, come close to being resort-like.Welcome to our Mashup Monday Spotlight Series, where we feature up-and-coming brewers from around the world. It’s been a hot and busy summer and we hope you’ve all been experiencing some great new brews from all around. This week’s spotlight homebrewer is Craig Tamble, who, as a molecular scientist, has some great and unique insight into his brewing world. We hope enjoy his story and keep sending us your own! Cheers!
What is your name and where are you from?
*taps mic* Hello, my name is Craig Tamble and I just moved away from beertiful San Diego, California to the Massachusetts country side.
How long have you been homebrewing?
About 2 years, so I’m relatively new, but I brew at least once a month and according to BeerSmith, I’ve done over 24 different beers to date.
When did you know you wanted to brew your own beer?
I came across a recipe online for ginger beer one night, realized I had everything to make it, and brewed up a batch because I wanted to make better Moscow mules. Before I even tried it I started ordering everything I needed to jump right in to all-grain brewing and never looked back. The ginger beer was excellent by the way (sadly I can’t remember the site I used). I’d been fermenting many other things prior to beer (sauerkraut, kimchi, sourdough starters) and making my own limoncello using Everclear, but fermenting beer never occurred to me, well it occurred to me but living in San Diego at the time I started made it too easy to get all the great beer I needed.
We know brewing can be a hobby, but do you plan on making it a living?
I think almost everyone that homebrews thinks of jumping into it as a profession at some point and I’m no different. I’ve had people offer to pay me to make them beer, which is a nice compliment (and if anyone in the Federal Government [IRS/ATF/NSA] is reading this, I haven’t taken anyone up on this offer), but as of right now it’s just for fun so I can make beers I want to drink that aren’t necessarily out there on the market right now (like a rauchbier with star anise I made earlier this year, holy hell was that good, recipe is below). Though 5-10 years from now…something might be in the cards. I like the idea of opening up a small vegan brewpub that’ll serve great small run beers and also show people vegan food can be just as flavorful and unhealthy as food found on the standard American diet.
What are some of your long-term goals?
It’s as simple as becoming a better brewer and to start entering more competitions. Accolades from friends are great, but I always assume they’re just being nice about liking my beer so I keep brewing it and keep giving it to them, but the medals and ribbons I’ve won feel pretty damned good. My first medal was for a sour stout that took 2nd place in the specialty beer category at AFC 2015, which leads me into another long term goal: I’d love to get a bigger pipeline of sours going, and now I have a giant 2000 square foot unfinished basement to take advantage of…hello barrel program!
What are some of your favorite breweries/brewers?
In San Diego that was like trying to pick your favorite pet (it’s Higgins…sorry Spock) or child (n/a), but Modern Times quickly become one of my favorites. They started out slowly, but are now dropping monthly and seasonal beers that are absolutely killer and have way too many specialty releases. Keith, one of their brewers, is a great guy to follow on social media if you’re a fan of seeing random steps of a microbrewery’s brewing process and lots of random pics of dogs (@theveganbrewer on IG and Twitter).
Fall Brewing and Toolbox Brewing are newer to the scene too and have a solid array of beers that I really enjoy. Fall has an amazing Berliner Weisse and an Imperial Black Lager that I pretty much always ordered if I saw it on tap at a bar. And Toolbox does amazing things with brett and bacteria on many different styles of beer, they’re tucked away in a random industrial center (like so many breweries here), but I’d recommend anyone in the area go check them out. In Massachusetts I just went to Tree House Brewing the other week and holy hell can they make a good beer. I’m going to be drinking a lot of their stuff in the near future.
What style of beer do you find to be the toughest to brew? The easiest?
The toughest? I’d say making a good, well balanced sour. The time required to age (I still drink mine too young but they start tasting so good too soon!), keeping oxygen to a minimum so you don’t end up with acetic acid and acetone notes, having good levels of funk and sour that don’t drift too extreme in either direction…it seems like a simple set it and forget it beer, but there’s a good deal of effort that goes in to not only creating the recipe but executing it.
The easiest to make drinkable quickly is probably an IPA. Take a simple grain bill (90% 2 row, 7.5% biscuit malt, 2.5% honey malt) to an OG of ~1.065, bitter to 50 IBUs with magnum/warrior, toss in a bunch of flavorful/aromatic hops near the end of the boil, do a hopstand with even more hops, and then dry hop and you’ll cover up a lot of mistakes from upstream in your process, especially when using super clean ale yeasts. There’s a million and one ways to make a tasty IPA and I love that. It’s also the easiest to be able to experiment around with while still creating a very enjoyable beer, the number of new hop varietals makes mixing and matching so fun.
What are you currently brewing?
I’m working on 3 beers for the BrewUnited Challenge where you have to use a set 4 grains then 2 hops from a list of 6 to make different styles of beers. I’m doing a Traditional Bock (currently lagering and oh so delicious), a Blonde (currently fermenting and on the road to greatness), and an American Amber (recipe finalized, brew day next week). Then I’ve got a Trappist Single to brew for a hombrew club competition and an imperial lager dedicated to Jaromir Jagr called Jaromir Lagr that’ll be 6.8% ABV with 68 IBUs because why not.
Do you have recipe you are willing to share for other brewers?
Here’s a wonderful Anise Rauchbier that I absolutely loved. I made it for a workout group I was in (so not your typical beer nerd group) and everyone kept going back for more, so I took that as a good sign:
6lbs Smoked Malt (Weyermann Beechwood)
2lbs Munich Malt
2lbs German Pilsner Malt
1lbs Vienna Malt
4oz Carafa III
Dough in at 113 °F for 30 minutes (0.9 qt water/lb grain ratio). Infuse the mash slowly with boiling water while stirring gently to raise the temperature by about 2F per minute to 150F for a 30 minute rest. Infuse the mash again with boiling water to reach 162F for another 30 minute rest. Finally infuse the mash to reach 170F and start sparging.
90 minute boil
1.25oz Tettnang at 60min
0.25 oz of Hallertauer and Tettnag at 20min
1 whole star of anise at 15 min (removed at flameout)
1oz Hallertauer and 10 min
Cooled to 52F, pitched 2 packs of rehydrated Saflager 34/70
Followed Brulosopher’s lager method (http://brulosophy.com/methods/lager-method/)
During fermentation I took 2 whole star anise and added to 4oz of vodka to make a tincture. Ended up using ~1oz in the final 5 gallons to get the anise level to where I wanted it. The beer had a nice touch of malty sweetness and body at the end, assertive smoke flavor without being aggressive that the anise worked really well with. I’m already dreaming up more ways to play around with this Rauchbier base.
Brewing is a lot of trial and error. What was the biggest mistake you have made brewing?
Cold crashing without removing the blowoff tube is a great way to suck in a crap ton of Star San into your beer. It was pretty well stratified, so I just racked below the Star San, but man I felt stupid. Luckily that’s probably been the dumbest thing I’ve done so far. I spent way too much time reading about brewing and studying different techniques when I decided to start this whole brewing thing, plus having a laboratory background really helped make sure I didn’t do anything too stupid in the beginning, but the ideal gas law got me. I still spend way too much time reading about the brewing process, but it’s a fascinating subject that I love.
What is your current homebrew setup? (i.e. 5 gallon, 10 gallon, All-Grain, Extract, etc.)
I’ve got a pretty simple 10 gallon all-grain system. A 15 gallon aluminum stock pot for heating water and boiling wort, two different chest coolers for mashing (depending on batch size) with a copper manifold for mashing, I do batch sparging so nothing fancy on that end. An upright freezer for use as a fermentation chamber that holds 4 6 gallon carboys at max capacity, a little 2 corny keg kegerator, and lots of kegs and bottles to fill with beer.
What would be your ideal brewhouse?
I’ve always loved the idea of getting an all electric system just so I can push giant buttons and watch liquid recirculate and not have to worry about running out of propane during a 7 hour boil. Get a few barrels for aging sours would be nice too so that I could pull off 5-10 gallons from them, make different blends, and then top them off with fresh wort. Having a freezer stocked with glycerol stocks of different brett strains would be wonderful to have too. In time I think I’ll get there.
Is there a brewery you would like to work for?
It’s not technically a brewery, but I’d love to live in some far off farm in Norway making tradition Norwegian farmhouse ales. But since that probably won’t happen, if anyone has some traditional kveik they want to share with me, I’m pretty sure I can find some juniper branches and brew it here.
Do you have a brewery name already chosen out? If so, what is it?
Right now I’m working under the name Van Brewin’ Boys. My friends and I are big Seinfeld nerds and took the name Van Buren Boys for our goony little squad, so it only felt right. I’ve brewed special beers for most of the guys in my group, which is always fun. But I’ll be changing the name soon, I’ve google searched it the best I could and it doesn’t look like it’s taken, so I’m keeping it under wraps until I make the official transition. Which sounds like I have some super awesome name, but I really don’t. It’s Wild Science Brewing Company. So hopefully now that moniker doesn’t get taken by another scientist who loves taking a hyper analytical approach to regular and wild brewed beers.
Any advice you would give to other up-and-coming brewers?
Whether you’re brewing now already or thinking about starting, the best thing you can do is to read about the process, read about everyone’s mistakes knowing full well you will make many of the same ones, and then keep reading even more about the process. It’s not difficult to follow instructions from pre-made kits and recipes you find online (either extract or all-grain), but there’s so much more to brewing than the recipe. Hell, 5 different people can use the same kit/recipe and make 5 pretty distinct beers and all of them will tell you they followed the recipe exactly the way it was written. That’s why understanding as much as you can about the process (why you do certain things, what changing X will do, what changing Y will do) will make you better at the craft. That’s not to say you can’t enjoy making beer from recipes where you simply follow instructions, but if you really want to make something that’s your own (even when it comes to following someone else’s recipe), knowing the science behind brewing is the best way to do that…says the molecular biologist.
If you want to have a spot on this weekly homebrew blog, shoot us an email at mashup@bottletrade.com and we’ll help you get set up.
Advertisements1. Stephen Colbert is thoroughly entertained as Neil does his happy dance, which will make you wanna do the same.
2. Yes, this is real footage. And yes, it is unbelievably awesome. MJ and JT got nothing on NdGT. Look at that fancy footwork! Now make it twerk, Neil!
3. I think this one is better left unexplained. “Hold me back Nye, hold me back bro!”
4. We somehow got our hands on this sneak peak. Neil fights off a dire wolf in the next season of Game of Thrones. Oh wait, that’s a scene from the Cosmos series? Well maybe George RR Martin should call him up.
5. Whether this was a plug for the popular facebook site or just an exclamation of his unbridled love, Tyson isn’t afraid to drop the f bomb in the name of science.
6. He has a stride cooler than Shaft and looks better in black than Will Smith and Tommy Lee Jones. Now bow down and worship the real King of the Cosmos.
We hope you enjoyed these as much as we did. We love you Neil! Keep making science sexy!
Check out: 6 Reasons Richard Dawkins Is The Ultimate Science BadassBreaking News Emails Get breaking news alerts and special reports. The news and stories that matter, delivered weekday mornings.
Dec. 10, 2015, 11:31 AM GMT / Updated Dec. 10, 2015, 11:34 AM GMT By Corky Siemaszko
Donald Trump might be tapping into Americans' wariness with his call to stop all Muslims from coming into the U.S., a new poll finds — but the flood of Islamic immigrants is a mirage.
Not one predominantly Muslim nation makes the list of top 10 countries of origin for legal immigrants in 2013, according to the most recent census figures compiled by the Migration Policy Institute.
At #14, Pakistan was the top-ranked Islamic country with 13,251 legal permanent residents — just 1 percent of the total 990,553 immigrants who received Green Cards that year, the figures showed.
“Definitely as a share of the foreign population, Middle Eastern and North African immigrants are small,” Marc Rosenblum, deputy director of the organization’s U.S. immigration policy project, told NBC News. “But right now there is a lot of fear about terrorism and that affects how people perceive those numbers.”
There has been for several years a “perception that immigration has been out of control is disproportionate to the facts on the ground,” Rosenblum said. “The numbers of people immigrating to the U.S. have been pretty stable the last few years, and illegal immigration is much lower than it was a decade ago.”
The biggest difference is that the new arrivals aren’t coming — as they have in the past — from European countries like Italy, Ireland, Germany and Poland.
“Now the total foreign population is a third Mexican and three-quarters Latin American and Asian,” said Rosenblum. “Europe accounted for just 12 percent of the foreign-born population in 2013. It was 75 percent in 1960.”
Two years ago, the top three Green Card recipient countries were Mexico, 135,028, China, 71,798, and India, 68,458, according to the figures.
Only 9,552 Iraqis and 1,463 Saudis got Green Cards in 2013. As for Syrians, whom Trump and much of the GOP wants to bar from the United States, just 3,366 were granted permanent residency.
When it comes to other Muslim countries, 10,294 Egyptians, 3,532 Yemenis, 2,783 Lebanese and 376 Libyans were allowed into the U.S. in that year.
Trump caused worldwide outrage this week with his anti-Muslim remarks, but a new Associated Press-GfK poll found the Republican front-runner was reflecting a sentiment of his supporters.
Three-quarters of GOP voters think Muslim immigration is already too high and nearly the same percentage is convinced that Syrian refugees are too dangerous to let into the country, according to the poll.
Pollsters also found that a majority of Americans were opposed to the Obama Administration’s plan to allow 10,000 Syrian refugees into the country.
While much of the fear of Muslims is grounded in the 9/11 attacks and mass killings of Americans by Islamic fanatics like the recent San Bernardino slaughter, Ibrahim Hooper of the Council on American-Islamic Relations said something else here is at play.
“You have a well-coordinated Islamophobia industry promoting fear and hysteria about Muslims,” said Hooper. “There have been numerous studies that have shown that more people in America were killed by right-wing extremists. But you would be hard-pressed to find anybody who knows that fact.”Aerostich is traveling west to colorful Colorado to bring all of the latest riding gear and equipment for a special Four-Day Pop-Up event. Join factory sizing experts and see, feel and touch all of the latest Aerostich riding gear, including the new Cousin Jeremy Waxed Cotton Suit, Useful Suit, 'R-3' (Roadcrafter 3) Suit, Roadcrafter City and Tactical Suits, Women's sized Roadcrafters, Utility Riding Pants, and more. Try on gear, get measured for optional custom alterations (if needed) and experience the better feel and fit of graded sizes.
The dates are May 18- 21, 8023 S. Broadway, Littleton, Colorado, in the Market at Southpark shopping center. Along with a full array of Aerostich suits, jackets and pants, riders are invited to check out Messenger Bags, Elkskin and Deerskin Gloves, Tank Panniers, Saddle Bags, Seat Bags, Fleece, Electric Liners.
Advance scheduled fitting appointments are also available all days. Contact Lynn at lwisneski@aerostich.com.There’s something big that the Windows Dev Center does right: its API.
Almost every report you can view in the Dev Center is driven by the official API, and you can have access, too. The documentation is fresh. Uptime and speed are both decent. It’s unmetered, free, and secure.
But if you look around, you won’t see anyone chomping at the bit to make their own reporting dashboard out this API. And most of the Store developers I talk to are small shops that don’t have the server-side dev cycles they’d need to really make use of it.
So we’re unleashing this beautiful, neglected API. Ombudsman is a free, open-source (MIT) Zapier integration for the Microsoft Store Analytics API.
It lets you do cool stuff like this, with no coding required:Pupils at seven schools could have shorter days after a trust head say he may have to cut hours to save money.
Dave Baker, of the Olympus Trust which operates near Bristol, said government cuts had left it at "crisis point".
Parents described the funding problem as "diabolical". A union said the idea was "terrible" but families deserved to know the truth about funding.
A Department for Education (DfE) spokesman said new funding plans would increase the trust's budget by 2.4%.
The Olympus Trust runs one secondary, one all-through school and five primary academies in South Gloucestershire, to the north of Bristol.
In the letter Mr Baker warned parents of the "unthinkable" decisions the trust could be forced to make from September.
These include shortening the school day "because we cannot afford to staff lessons for the whole week".
Other proposals are cutting teaching and support jobs within the schools, increasing class sizes and reducing the curriculum.
'Shocking'
The letter also says parents may be asked to make regular financial contributions to supplement school funding.
Mr Baker said South Gloucestershire was one of the five worst-funded local authorities so had less reserves to draw upon.
Beckie Morton, a parent of two daughters at Charlborough Road Primary School, is anxious about the impact any cuts will have on her girls, aged 10 and seven.
She said: "It's shocking - I don't know what I'd do work-wise if they shortened the school day.
Image caption Kevin Courtney said the trust's suggestions were "terrible" but "understandable"
"If they do this, all that will be left is the lessons and no extra support for pupils.
"My eldest daughter suffers panic attacks and has received a lot of pastoral care - this will have a massive impact on her final year there."
Natalie, who has a son attending at Bradley Stoke Community School, called the proposals "diabolical".
She said: "At the moment we are hoping to have a special needs support worker for my son and if they cut funding he won't have that.
"I don't blame the school, they are trying their best."
'Inconsistent funding'
In December, the government announced the biggest shake-up of school funding for decades.
The DfE said the current system was "unfair, opaque and outdated" and the changes would see more than half of England's schools get more cash.
"We recognise that schools are facing cost pressures, which is why we will continue to provide support to help them use their funding in cost-effective ways, including improving the way they buy goods and services, so they get the best possible value. "
Kevin Courtney, chair of the National Union of Teachers (NUT), said schools were still facing an 8% reduction in spending power.
He said: "All schools in England will have less money in real terms per pupil in 2020 than they do now.
"This cash they talk about doesn't keep pace with spending pressures on schools.
"The proposals Mr Baker has mentioned are terrible and none of them should happen, but parents deserve to know the truth about the position schools are in."
The consultation on the new formula runs until 22 March 2017.With every new technology comes a way to use that technology for sex. Porn dominated the early Internet. Smartphones became the mailing service for scandalous selfies. Google Glass has already been used to make (and watch) an immersive XXX film starring that James Deen. So, it’s not surprising that when academics get together to talk about robots, their potential erotic use comes up. Rosie won’t just be doing the Jetsons’ housework, wrote a business professor and a futurist a couple years back, she’ll be working the corner as a robot prostitute. They argued robot sex workers would eliminate human exploitation, ensure a disease-free experience (as long as the robots were hosed down after), and could be enjoyed in places where prostitution is illegal. It may sound weird, but think about the intimate relationship you have with your iPhone. You’ve taken it to bed multiple times already; imagine if Siri could actually massage you.
“We’ve had sex toys for as long as mankind, and womankind, have been around,” said Ron Arkin, Georgia Tech’s Mobile Robot Lab director, while speaking on a robot ethics panel at Berkeley on Friday. “But how will we deal with robot intimacy? Will we consider it beastiality? Could we use it to treat sex offenders?” Once we start creating sex-robots, what will be the limits we put on them? It’s not a human being so you should theoretically be able to rock your human-like Rumba however you want, but there may be some situations that create moral panics even if the Cylon-victim involved is just a bundle of algorithms and plastic. I asked the panel how society would deal ethically and legally with a hypothetical company that starts producing child sex-robots to satisfy deviant sexual desires.
Arkin said that while he doesn't approve of child sex bots for recreational use, he’d like to see them used for research purposes. “Child-like robots could be used for pedophiles the way methadone is used to treat drug addicts,” said Arkin. He said research should be done to test the effectiveness of such a treatment. “There are no presumptions that this will assuredly yield positive results - I only believe it is worth investigating in a controlled way to possibly provide better protection to society from recidivism in sex offenders," he said. "If we can save some children, I think it’s a worthwhile project."
He added that he did worry about the possible creation of a black market that would offer the robots outside of a clinical setting. This isn’t the first time Arkin has broached the indelicate subject. After he made a comment about it in the press years ago, he says he got a call from a clinician who works with sex offenders who wanted to do the research. However, prepubescent sex bots don’t exist yet (at least that we know about). There are bot-like babies: People in the “reborner movement” buy incredibly human-looking baby dolls for as much as $4,000 -- sometimes outfitted with heartbeats and chests that rise and fall -- though they want the babies to protect and nurture, not to exploit sexually. If an entrepreneur started up KidSexBots-R-Us, would it be legal?
Ryan Calo, a law professor at the University of Washington, thinks it might be, based on the Supreme Court’s treatment of child pornography. “What appears to be child porn, but isn’t, is not illegal,” said Calo. Making or possessing child pornography results in severe legal penalties; those who watch child porn sometimes get longer sentences than people convicted of actually molesting children. However, in 2002, the Supreme Court drew a line between child porn and “virtual child porn” where the "child" is actually a young-looking adult or a computer-rendered image. It said images that are wholly faked, no matter how realistic they were, are legal. So the law might see sex with a “virtual child” the same way. At least in the U.S.
If you’re a Canadian, the hypothetical KidSexBots-R-Us could get you in trouble. Last year, a 48-year-old Canadian man ordered a 4-foot, 2-inch school-uniform-wearing sex doll made of "foam-like material." For some reason, it was intercepted and unboxed by Canada Border Services agents at Toronto airport. They arrested the doll fan and charged him with child pornography. According to local media, child sex dolls are illegal in Canada, which doesn’t bode well for child sex bots in the Great White North. The man has pleaded not guilty and faces a trial this month. It will be a test case for virtual sexual freedom.
We likely have quite a few years before an autonomous robot that looks and acts like a child will be on the scene. But I’m sure that many people would be horrified at the idea of that robot being molested and do their best to shut down such a company even if the law embraces it. “It’s a decision for society to make,” said robot expert Noel Sharkey, adding that people could circumvent the question by saying their sex robots were just “short adult robots.”What is Glass?
What is Glass from a developer's point of view?
Back to writing code.. Currently we can decide between two ways to develop for Glass: The Mirror API or an early preview of the Glass Development Kit (GDK). Let's have a look at both and see what they are capable of.
The Mirror API
The Mirror API has been the first API that has been introduced by the Glass team. It's a server-side API meaning the applications don't run on Glass itself but on your server and it's your server that interacts with Glass.
The Mirror API is great for pushing cards to the timeline of Glass and sharing content from Glass with your server application.
Some examples of applications that could use the Mirror API:
Twitter client : The server pushes interesting tweets to the timeline of the Glass owner. The user can share photos and messages with the application and they will be posted to the Twitter timeline.
: The server pushes interesting tweets to the timeline of the Glass owner. The user can share photos and messages with the application and they will be posted to the Twitter timeline. Context-aware notifications: Your server subscribes to the user's location. Every now and then your server will receive the latest user location. You use this location to post interesting and related cards to the timeline of the user.
More about the Mirror API:
With the GDK you can build Android applications that run directly on Glass. Think of the GDK as Android 4.0.3 SDK with some extra APIs for Google Glass. It's worth mentioning that the GDK is currently in an early preview state. The API is not complete and some important parts are missing.
When developing Glass you have two options how your application should show up on Glass:
Live Cards
How a live card shows up in the Glass timeline.
Your application shows up as a card in the timeline (left of the Glass clock). You have again two options how to render these cards: Your application shows up as a card in the timeline (left of the Glass clock). You have again two options how to render these cards:
Low-Frequency Rendering : Your card is rendered using Remote Views. Think of it as a Home screen widget on Android phones. A background service is responsible for updating these views. You only update the views every now and then.
: Your card is rendered using Remote Views. Think of it as a Home screen widget on Android phones. A background service is responsible for updating these views. You only update the views every now and then. High Frequency Rendering: Your background service renders directly on the live card's surface. You can draw anything and are not limited to Android views. Furthermore you can update the card many times a second. Immersion
An Immersion is not part of the timeline but "replaces" it.
An immersion is at the bottom a regular Android activity. For your activity to look like a timeline card:
Don't assign a theme to your activity or use the DeviceDefault theme as base for your customization.
Even though you can use the touch pad of Glass almost like a d-pad: Try to avoid most input-related Android widgets. They don't make much sense on Glass because you are not using a touch screen. Instead try to use gestures with the GestureDetector class or voice input.
Use the Card class and its toView() method to create a view that looks like regular Glass card.
More about the GDK
I recently got my hands on Google Glass and decided to write some articles about developing applications for Glass. After all it's Android that is running on Glass.It's very complicated to explain Google Glass just using text. Only wearing and using it will give you this aha moment. However the following video, made by Google, gives you a good impression about how it feels like.Google Glass is an Android device running Android 4.0.3. What you see through Glass is basically a customizedapplication (a |
next time the pendulum swings, it will swing wildly to the left. That pendulum will tear this country apart.
And there is more. The Trump cabinet is easily “the most radical Administration in American history.” They are mostly military or billionaires, most have huge conflicts of interest, and all are extraordinarily inexperienced. Add to this Trump’s failure “to divest himself of his assets,” and you have a situation in which he will try to use his newfound power to enrich himself, as we have seen by his urging “foreign diplomats to stay at his hotel.” Crawford concludes that such improprieties will slowly undermine his legitimacy and don’t bode well for the future of our republic.
The consequence of that will be that the loss of legitimacy will be transferred from the President to the US government. Why should the blue states submit to a President they opposed? Why should they tolerate the transfer of so much of their tax money to red states? Why should they submit to policies on abortion, gun rights, foreign policy, public spending, and the environment that they find outrageous?
The election of Mr. Trump is the first step in the unravelling of the American republic. The chasm between red and blue is unbridgeable. A house divided against itself cannot stand.
I must say that I completely agree with Mr. Crawford’s analysis. When the will of the people is thwarted in fundamental ways—gerrymandering congressional districts is a fundamental example—the people will slowly lose faith in their government, as has been happening for a number of years. This is not to say that lying, vote stealing, voter suppression, and more haven’t always been a part of America’s flawed democracy, but that corruption has been escalating in the last few decades.
I’d also say our current situation has a lot to do with the increase of the Gini coefficient, a measure of wealth distribution. What that measures show is that income inequality has steadily increased in America over the last 40 years. But the most complete analysis I’ve seen of the multiple problems in American politics come from two books by the conservative constitutional scholars Thomas Mann and Norm Ornstein:
It’s Even Worse Than It Looks: How the American Constitutional System Collided with the New Politics of Extremism, and
The Broken Branch: How Congress Is Failing America and How to Get It Back on Track.
In addition, Jonathan Rauch’s short piece in the Atlantic, “How American Politics Went Insane,” is the best short analysis of the fundamental problems with American politics today that I have found.The Second Anglo–Mysore War was a conflict between the Kingdom of Mysore and the British East India Company from 1780 to 1784. At the time, Mysore was a key French ally in India, and the conflict between Britain against the French and Dutch in the American Revolutionary War sparked Anglo–Mysorean hostilities in India. The great majority of soldiers on the company side were raised, trained, paid and commanded by the company, not the British government. However, the company's operations were bolstered by Crown troops sent from Britain, and by troops sent from Hanover,[1] which was also ruled by Britain's King George III.
Following the British seizure of the French port of Mahé in 1779, Mysorean ruler Hyder Ali opened hostilities against the British in 1780, with significant success in early campaigns. As the war progressed, the British recovered some territorial losses. Both France and Britain sent troops and naval squadrons from Europe to assist in the war effort, which widened later in 1780 when Britain declared war on the Dutch Republic. In 1783 news of a preliminary peace between France and Britain reached India, resulting in the withdrawal of French support from the Mysorean war effort. The British consequently also sought to end the conflict with Mysore, and the British government ordered the Company to secure peace with Mysore. This resulted in the 1784 Treaty of Mangalore, restoring the status quo ante bellum under terms company officials such as Warren Hastings found extremely unfavourable.
Background [ edit ]
Hyder Ali ruled Mysore (though he did not have the title of king). Stung by what he considered a British breach of faith during an earlier war against the Marathas, Hyder Ali committed himself to a French alliance to seek revenge against the British. Upon the French declaration of war against Britain in 1778, aided mostly by the popularity of philosopher Benjamin Franklin, the British East India Company resolved to drive the French out of India, by taking the few enclaves of French possessions left on the subcontinent.[2] The company began by capturing Pondicherry and other French outposts in 1778. They then captured the French controlled port at Mahé on the Malabar coast in 1779. Mahé was of great strategic importance to Hyder, who received French-supplied arms and munitions through the port, and Hyder had not only explicitly told the British it was under his protection, he had also provided troops for its defence. Hyder set about forming a confederacy against the British, which, in addition to the French, included the Marathas and the Nizam of Hyderabad.
War [ edit ]
Theater map for the First and the Second Anglo-Mysore Wars
In July 1780 Hyder Ali invaded the Carnatic with an army of 80,000. He descended through the passes of the Eastern Ghats, burning villages as he went, before laying siege to British forts in northern Arcot. The British responded by sending a force of 5,000 to lift the sieges. From his camp at Arcot Hyder Ali sent part of his army under the command of his eldest son, Tipu Sultan, to intercept a British force from Guntur sent to reinforce Colonel Hector Munro's army 145 miles (233 km) to the north at Madras.[2] On the morning of 10 September 1780, the British force from Guntur under the command of Colonel William Baillie came under heavy fire from Tipu's guns near Pollilur. Baillie formed his force into a long square formation and began to move slowly forward. However, Hyder Ali's cavalry broke through the formation's front, inflicting many casualties and forcing Baillie to surrender. Out of the British force of 3,820 men, 336 were killed. The defeat was considered to be the East India Company's most crushing loss in India at that time. Munro reacted to the defeat by retreating to Madras, abandoning his baggage and dumping his cannons in the water tank at Kanchipuram, a small town some 50 kilometres (31 mi) south of Madras.[3] Naravane states in fact that it was a massacre with only 50 officers and 200 men taken prisoner, one of them Baille.[4]
Instead of following up the victory and pressing on for a decisive victory at Madras, Hyder Ali instead renewed the siege at Arcot, which he captured on 3 November. This decision gave the British time to shore up their defences in the south, and despatch reinforcements under the command of Sir Eyre Coote to Madras.[3]
The British Army encamped below the rock of Sholingarh
Coote, though repulsed at Chidambaram, defeated Hyder Ali three times in succession in the battles of Porto Novo, Pollilur and Sholinghur, while Tipu was forced to raise the siege of Wandiwash, and besieged Vellore instead. The arrival of Lord Macartney as governor of Madras in the summer of 1781 included news of war with the Dutch Republic. Macartney ordered the seizure of the Dutch outposts in India, and the British captured the main Dutch outpost at Negapatam after three weeks of siege in November 1781 against defenses that included 2,000 of Hyder Ali's men. This forced Hyder Ali to realize that he could never completely defeat a power that had command of the sea, since British naval support contributed to the victory.
Tipu also defeated Colonel Braithwaite at Annagudi near Tanjore on 18 Feb 1782.[4] This army consisted of 100 Europeans, 300 cavalry, 1400 sepoys and 10 field pieces. Tipu seized all the guns and took the entire detachment as prisoners. In December 1781 Tipu had successfully seized Chittur from British hands. These operations gave Tipu valuable military experience. Both Hyder Ali and Tipu Sultan successfully gained alliances with Ali Raja Bibi Junumabe II and the Muslim Mappila community and later met with Muslim Malay from Melacca under Dutch service.
During the summer of 1782 company officials in Bombay sent additional troops to Tellicherry, from whence they began operations against Mysorean holdings in the Malabar. Hyder Ali sent Tipu and a strong force to counter this threat, and the latter had successfully pinned this force at Panianee when he learned of Hyder Ali's sudden death due to cancer. Tipu's precipitate departure from the scene provided some relief to the British force, but Bombay officials sent further reinforcements under General Matthews to the Malabar in late December to relieve before they learned of Hyder Ali's death. When they received this news, they immediately ordered Matthews to cross the Western Ghats to take Bednore, to the extent that he felt compelled to do so despite a lack of sound military footing for the effort. He successfully entered Bednore, which surrendered after Matthews successfully drove Mysorean force from the ghats. However, Matthews had so overextended his supply lines that he was soon thereafter besieged in Bednore by Tipu, and forced to capitulate. Matthews and seventeen other officers were taken to Seringapatam, and from there to the remote hilltop prison of Gopal Drooge (Kabbal Durga)where they were seemingly forced to imbibe a lethal poison.[5]
On the east coast, an army led by General James Stuart marched from Madras to resupply besieged fortifications and to dispute Cuddalore, where French forces had arrived and joined with those of Mysore. Stuart besieged Cuddalore even though the forces were nearly equal in size. The French fleet of the Baillie de Suffren successfully drove away the British fleet, and landed marines to assist in Cuddalore's defence. However, when word arrived of a preliminary peace between France and Britain, the siege was ended. General Stuart, who was engaged in disputes with Lord Macartney, was eventually recalled and sent back to England.
The British captured Mangalore in March 1783, but Tipu brought his main army over, and after recapturing Bednore, besieged and eventually captured Mangalore. At the same time, troops from Stuart's army were joined with those of Colonel Fullarton in the Tanjore region, where he captured the fortress at Palghautcherry in November, and then entered Coimbatore against little resistance.
Treaty of Mangalore [ edit ]
During this time, company officials received orders from company headquarters in London to bring an end to the war, and entered negotiations with Tipu. Pursuant to a preliminary cease fire, Colonel Fullarton was ordered to abandon all of his recent conquests. However, due to allegations that Tipu violated terms of the cease fire at Mangalore, Fullarton remained at Palghautcherry. On 30 January the garrison of Mangalore surrendered to Tipu, having lost half its number principally to starvation and scurvy.
The war was ended on 11 March 1784 with the signing of the Treaty of Mangalore,[4] at which both sides agreed to restore the others' lands to the status quo ante bellum. The treaty is an important document in the history of India, because it was the last occasion when an Indian power dictated terms to the Company[citation needed].
The great advantage to Tipu was the psychological impact of his victory with the British. The mode of conclusion was highly satisfactory to him. The march of the Commissioner all the way from Madras to Mangalore seeking peace made Munro remark that such indignities were throughout poured upon the British "that limited efforts seemed necessary to repudiate the Treaty at the earliest time."
Aftermath [ edit ]
This was the second of four Anglo–Mysore Wars, which ultimately ended with British control over most of southern India. Pursuant to the terms of the Treaty of Mangalore, the British did not participate in the conflict between Mysore and its neighbors, the Maratha Empire and the Nizam of Hyderabad, that began in 1785. In Parliament, the Pitt administration passed the Pitt's India Act that gave the government control of the East India Company in political matters.[6]
Battle Honour [ edit ]
A battle honour, Carnatic was awarded for two periods: 1780-1784, during the Second Anglo-Mysore War, when Hyder Ali threatened Madras; and 1790-1792, during the Third Anglo-Mysore War, up to the siege of Mysore. Originally awarded to three battalions of Bengal Native Infantry in 1829, it lapsed after their disbandment due to participation in the 1857 uprising. In 1889, it was awarded to twenty units of the Madras Presidency Army. The battle honour is considered repugnant.[7]
See also [ edit ]
Notes [ edit ]
^ Hanoverians, Germans, and Europeans: Colonial Identity in Early British India, Chen Tzoref-Ashkenazi, Central European History, Vol. 43, No. 2 (JUNE 2010), 222. a b Barua (p.79) a b Barua (p.80) a b c Naravane, M.S. (2014). Battles of the Honorourable East India Company. A.P.H. Publishing Corporation. pp. 173–175. ISBN 9788131300343. ^ Tim Willasey-Wilsey 'In Search of Gopal Drooge and the Murder of Captain William Richardson, The Journal of the Families in British India Society, no 31 Spring 2014 pp. 16-15. ^ C. H. Philips, "The East India Company 'Interest' and the English Government, 1783-4." Transactions of the Royal Historical Society (Fourth Series) 20 (1937): 83-101. ^ Singh, Sarbans (1993). Battle Honours of the Indian Army 1757 - 1971. New Delhi: Vision Books. p. 102. ISBN 8170941156.
Further reading [ edit ]Oh what a difference one year has made for the Arizona Diamondbacks. Whether it’s on the mound, in the field, or at the plate, the Dbacks have improved immensely over the course of the year. In 2016, the Diamondbacks totaled only 69 wins, and a paltry nine series wins. This season, Arizona already owns 53 wins before the All-Star break, and the Diamondbacks will look to keep adding to that total when the second half kicks off.
Arizona Diamondbacks Surge from Bust to Contender
The Difference at Home
Over the course of the entire 2016 season, the Diamondbacks only racked up 33 home wins. Halfway through the 2017 campaign, now sitting at 53-35, the Diamondbacks have matched their 2016 total for wins at home. The teams 53 wins in 2017 before the All-Star break is the best such mark in franchise history. Also before the break, the Diamondbacks are 33-14 at home, giving them the second-best home record, behind only the Los Angeles Dodgers. The nine home series wins in 2016 for the Diamondbacks already doesn’t match up to the 11 home series wins this season.
Different Players
In 2016, the Diamondbacks only sent one player to the All-Star Game: Paul Goldschmidt. Although Jake Lamb was in the Final Vote, he did not accompany Goldy to San Diego. This season, the Diamondbacks will be sending four players to Miami, though many more are deserving. Representing the Diamondbacks will be Robbie Ray, Lamb, Goldschmidt, and Zack Greinke.
This will be the third time in Dbacks history that four or more players will be going to the All-Star Game, and though that is an achievement worth celebrating, it should have been five. Despite posting a 1.10 ERA and 47 strikeouts in 41.0 innings pitched, Archie Bradley was not named to the National League’s Midsummer Classic roster. This came as a surprise many because his numbers are some of the best in baseball among relievers. What should come as no surprise, on the other hand, is that first-year manager Torey Lovullo believes in his players; he has publicly spoken about how many of them deserved the trip to Miami.
After the Break
After the All-Star break in the 2016 season, the Dbacks fell apart. It is crucial for this year’s team to keep a steady win pace and not fall off the tracks. If they win the majority of the final games, the Diamondbacks have a good shot at finishing first in the race for the National League West crown.
Main Photo:Mario Soares, who steered the country to democracy after the Salazar dictatorship, said all political forces should unite to “bring down the government” and repudiate the austerity policies of the EU-IMF Troika.
“Portugal will never be able to pay its debts, however much it impoverishes itself. If you can’t pay, the only solution is not to pay. When Argentina was in crisis it didn’t pay. Did anything happen? No, nothing happened," he told Antena 1.
The former socialist premier and president said the Portuguese government has become a servant of German Chancellor Angela Merkel, meekly doing whatever it is told.
“In their eagerness to do the bidding of Senhora Merkel, they have sold everything and ruined this country. In two years this government has destroyed Portugal,” he said.
Dario Perkins from Lombard Street Research said a hard-nosed default would force Portugal out of the euro. “It would create incredible animosity,” he said. “Germany would be alarmed that other countries might do the same so it would take a very tough line.”
Mr Perkins said all the peripheral states are “deeply scared” of being forced out of EMU. “They fear their economies would collapse, which is ridiculous. But in the end voters are going to elect politicians who refuse to along with austerity as we are seeing in Italy, and the EU will lose control,” he said.
Raoul Ruparel from Open Europe said Portugal had reached the limits of austerity. “The previous political consensus in parliament has evaporated. As so often in this crisis, the eurozone is coming up against the full force of national democracy.”
The rallying cry by Mr Soares comes a week after Portugal’s top court ruled that pay and pension cuts for public workers are illegal, forcing premier Pedro Passos Coelho to search for new cuts. The ruling calls into question the government’s whole policy “internal devaluation” aimed at lowering labour costs.
A leaked report from the Troika warned that the country is at risk of a debt spiral, with financing needs surging to €15bn by 2015, a third higher than the levels that precipitated the debt crisis in 2011. “There is substantial funding risk,” it said.
In a rare piece of good news, eurozone finance ministers agreed on Friday to extend repayment of rescue loans for Portugal and Ireland by a further seven years, reducing the pressure for a swift return to markets.
Brussels said both countries are “still highly vulnerable” to forces beyond their control, and deserve a “strong signal” of support. Critics say it is too little, too late. Fast-moving events on the ground now have a will of their own.Robert Fludd, also known as Robertus de Fluctibus (17 January 1574 – 8 September 1637), was a prominent English Paracelsian physician with both scientific and occult interests. He is remembered as an astrologer, mathematician, cosmologist, Qabalist and Rosicrucian apologist.
Fludd is best known for his compilations in occult philosophy. He had a celebrated exchange of views with Johannes Kepler concerning the scientific and hermetic approaches to knowledge.[1]
Early life [ edit ]
He was born at Milgate House, Bearsted, Kent, not too long before 17 January 1573/4.[2] He was the son of Sir Thomas Fludd, a high-ranking governmental official (Queen Elizabeth I's treasurer for war in Europe), and Member of Parliament.[3] His mother was Elizabeth Andrews Fludd.[4]
Education [ edit ]
He entered St John's College, Oxford as a commoner in 1591, graduating with a B.A. in 1597 and a M.A. in 1598.[2] St John’s College, Oxford was one of the few in England with any provision for Fellowship (medicine); William Huffman suggests that the presence of a Medical Fellow at St John's College, Oxford influenced Fludd's interest in studying medicine.[2] During Fludd’s time at St John’s College, the Medical Fellow in residence was Matthew Gwinne; Gwinne had previously produced a tract indicating that, while he practiced Galenic medicine, he was also familiar with the main Paracelsian medical work. Fludd may have encountered Gwinne, or his writing, during his time at Oxford, providing an additional influence for his later medical philosophy and practice.
Career [ edit ]
Between 1598 and 1604, Fludd studied medicine, chemistry and hermeticism on the European mainland following his graduation. His itinerary is not known in detail.[5] On his own account he spent a winter in the Pyrenees studying theurgy (the practice of rituals) with the Jesuits.[6] Furthermore, he indicated that he travelled throughout Spain, Italy and Germany following his time in France.
Upon returning to England in 1604, Fludd matriculated to Christ Church, Oxford. He intended to take a degree in medicine. The main requirements to obtain this, at the time, included demonstrating that he (the supplicant) had read and understood the required medical texts—primarily those by Galen and Hippocrates. Fludd defended three theses following these texts, and on 14 May 1605, Fludd made his supplication. He graduated with his M.B. and M.D. on 16 May 1605.
After graduating from Christ Church, Fludd moved to London, settling in Fenchurch Street, and making repeated attempts to enter the College of Physicians. Fludd encountered problems with the College examiners, both because of his unconcealed contempt for traditional medical authorities (he had adopted the views of Paracelsus), and because of his attitude to authority—especially those of the ancients like Galen. After at least six failures, he was admitted in September 1609. He became a prosperous London doctor, serving as Censor of the College four times (1618, 1627, 1633, and 1634).[2] He also participated in an inspection of the London apothecaries put on by the College in 1614, and helped to author the Pharmacopoeia Londinensis in 1618—a directory of standardized pharmaceutical preparations given by the London College of Physicians. He became such an established figure within the College that he was included in seventeenth-century critiques of the College, including those by Nicholas Culpepper and Peter Coles.
Subsequently, both his career and his standing in the College took a turn very much for the better. He was on good terms with Sir William Paddy.[5] Fludd was one of the first to support in print the theory of the circulation of the blood of the College's William Harvey.[7] To what extent Fludd may have actually influenced Harvey is still debated, in the context that Harvey's discovery is hard to date precisely.[8] The term "circulation" was certainly ambiguous at that time.[9]
Occult interest [ edit ]
While he followed Paracelsus in his medical views rather than the ancient authorities, he was also a believer that real wisdom was to be found in the writings of natural magicians. His view of these mystical authorities was inclined towards the great mathematicians, and he believed, like Pythagoras and his followers, that numbers contained access to great hidden secrets. Certainty in religion could only be discovered through serious study of numbers and ratios. This later brought Fludd into conflict with Johannes Kepler.
Mystical theory of nature [ edit ]
Tripartite division of matter [ edit ]
Much of Fludd's writing, and his pathology of disease, centered around the sympathies found in nature between man, the terrestrial earth, and the divine. While Paracelsian in nature, Fludd's own theory on the origin of all things posited that, instead of the Tria Prima, all species and things stemmed from first, dark Chaos, then divine Light which acted upon the Chaos, which finally brought forth the waters. This last element was also called the Spirit of the Lord, and it made up the passive matter of all other substances, including all secondary elements and the four qualities of the ancients. Moreover, the Fluddean tripartite theory concluded that Paracelsus' own conception of the three primary principles—Sulphur, Salt and Mercury—eventually derived from Chaos and Light interacting to create variations of the waters, or Spirit.
The Trinitarian division is important in that is reflects a mystical framework for biology. Fludd was heavily reliant on scripture; in the Bible, the number three represented the principium formarum, or the original form. Furthermore, it was the number of the Holy Trinity. Thus, the number three formed the perfect body, paralleling the Trinity. This allowed man and earth to approach the infinity of God, and created a universality in sympathy and composition between all things.
Macrocosm-microcosm relationship [ edit ]
Fludd's application of his mystically inclined tripartite theory to his philosophies of medicine and science was best illustrated through his conception of the Macrocosm and microcosm relationship. The divine light (the second of Fludd’s primary principles) was the "active agent" responsible for creation. This informed the development of the world and the sun, respectively. Fludd concluded, from a reading of Psalm 19:4—"In them hath he set a tabernacle for the sun"—that the Spirit of the Lord was contained literally within the sun, placing it central to Fludd’s model of the macrocosm.[10] remained in manuscript.[11] As the sun was to the earth, so was the heart to mankind. The sun conveyed Spirit to the earth through its rays, which circulated in and about the earth giving it life. Likewise, the blood of man carried the Spirit of the Lord (the same Spirit provided by the sun), and circulated through the body of man. This was an application of the sympathies and parallels provided to all of God’s Creation by Fludd’s tripartite theory of matter.
The blood was central to Fludd's conception of the relationship between the microcosm and macrocosm; the blood and the Spirit it circulated interacted directly with the Spirit conveyed to the macrocosm. The macrocosmal Spirit, carried by the Sun, was influenced by astral bodies and changed in composition through such influence. Comparatively, the astral influences on the macrocosmal Spirit could be transported to the microcosmal Spirit in the blood by the active commerce assumed between the macrocosm and the microcosm. Fludd extended this interaction to his conception of disease: the movement of Spirit between the macrocosm and microcosm could be corrupted and invade the microcosm as disease. Like Paracelsus, Fludd conceived of disease as an external invader, rather than a complexional imbalance.
Death [ edit ]
Fludd died on 8 September 1637 in London. He was buried in Holy Cross Church, Bearsted.
Controversial works [ edit ]
Fludd's illustration of man the microcosm within the universal macrocosm
Fludd's works are mainly controversial. In succession he defended the Rosicrucians against Andreas Libavius, debated with Kepler, argued against French natural philosophers including Gassendi, and engaged in the discussion of the weapon-salve.[12]
Defence of Rosicrucianism [ edit ]
Fludd was not a member of the Rosicrucians, as often alleged, but he defended their thoughts as expressed in numerous manifestos and pamphlets.[13] He produced a quick work, the Apologia Compendiaria, against the claims of Libavius that the Rosicrucians indulged in heresy, diabolical magic and sedition, made in his Analysis confessionis Fraternitatis de Rosea Cruce (Analysis of the Confession of the Rosy Cross) of 1615. Fludd returned to the subject at greater length, the following year.[2]
Apologia Compendiaria, Fraternitatem de Rosea Cruce suspicionis … maculis aspersam, veritatis quasi Fluctibus abluens, &c., Leyden, 1616. Against Libavius.
, &c., Leyden, 1616. Against Libavius. Tractatus Apologeticus integritatem Societatis de Rosea Cruce defendens, &c., Leyden, 1617.
, &c., Leyden, 1617. Tractatus Theologo-philosophicus, &c., Oppenheim, 1617. The date is given in a chronogram. This treatise "a Rudolfo Otreb Britanno" (where Rudolf Otreb is an anagram of Robert Floud) is dedicated to the Rosicrucian Fraternity. It consists of three books, De Vita, De Morte, and De Resurrectione. In the third book Fludd contends that those filled with the spirit of Christ may rise before his second coming.[12]
It is now seriously doubted that any formal organisation identifiable as the "Brothers of the Rose Cross" (Rosicrucians) ever actually existed in any extant form. The theological and philosophical claims circulating under this name appear, to these outsiders, to have been more an intellectual fashion that swept Europe at the time of the Counter Reformation. These thinkers suppose that in claiming to be part of a secret cult, scholars of alchemy, the occult, and Hermetic mysticism, merely sought that additional prestige by being able to promote their views while claiming exclusive adherence to some revolutionary pan-European secret society. By this logic, some suppose the society itself to never have existed.
Between 1607 and 1616, two anonymous Rosicrucian manifestos were published by some anonymous person or group, first in Germany and later throughout Europe. These were the Fama Fraternitatis, (The Fame of the Brotherhood of RC), and the Confessio Fraternitatis, (The Confession of the Brotherhood of RC). The first manifesto was influenced by the work of the respected hermetic philosopher Heinrich Khunrath, of Hamburg, author of the Amphitheatrum Sapientiae Aeternae (1609) who himself had borrowed generously from the work of John Dee. It referred favourably to the role played by the Illuminati and it featured a convoluted manufactured history dating back to archaic mysteries of the Middle East, with references to the Kabala and the Persian Magi.
The second manifesto had decidedly anti-Catholic views which were popular at the time of the Counter Reformation. These manifestos were re-issued several times, and were both supported and countered by numerous pamphlets from anonymous authors: about 400 manuscripts and books were published on the subject between 1614 and 1620. The peak of the "Rosicrucianism furore" came in 1622 with mysterious posters appearing on the walls of Paris, and occult philosophers such as Michael Maier, Robert Fludd and Thomas Vaughan interested themselves in the Rosicrucian world view. Others intellectuals and authors later claimed to have published Rosicrucian documents in order to ridicule their views. The furore faded out and the Rosicrucians disappeared from public life until 1710 when the secret cult appears to have been revived as a formal organisation.
It is claimed that the work of John Amos Comenius and Samuel Hartlib on early education in England were strongly influenced by Rosicrucian ideas, but this has not been proven, and it appears unlikely except in the similarity in their anti-Catholic views and emphasis on science education. Rosicrucianism is also said to have been influential at the time when operative Masonry (a guild of artisans) was being transformed to speculative masonry—Freemasonry—which was a social fraternity, which also originally promoted the scientific and educative view of Comenius, Hartlib, Isaac Newton and Francis Bacon.
Rosicrucian literature became the sandbox of theosophists, and charlatans, who claimed to be connected with the mysterious Brotherhood. Robert Fludd led the battle. It is said by some that he was "the great English mystical philosopher of the seventeenth century, a man of immense erudition, of exalted mind, and, to judge by his writings, of extreme personal sanctity".[14]
It has also been said that what Fludd did was to liberate occultism, both from traditional Aristotelian philosophy, and from the coming (Cartesian) philosophy of his time.[15]
Against Kepler [ edit ]
Johannes Kepler criticised Fludd's theory of cosmic harmony in an appendix to his Harmonice Mundi (1619).[16]
Veritatis Proscenium Frankfort, 1621. Reply to Kepler. In it Fludd argued from a Platonist point of view; and he claims that the hermetic or "chemical" approach is deeper than the mathematical. [17]
Frankfort, 1621. Reply to Kepler. In it Fludd argued from a Platonist point of view; and he claims that the hermetic or "chemical" approach is deeper than the mathematical. Monochordon Mundi Symphoniacum Frankfort, 1622. Reply to Kepler's Mathematice, 1622.
Frankfort, 1622. Reply to Kepler's, 1622. Anatomiæ Amphitheatrum, Frankfort, 1623. Includes reprint of the Monochordon.[12]
Against the natural philosophers [ edit ]
Summum Bonum under the name of Joachim Frizius Titlepage of theunder the name of Joachim Frizius
According to Brian Copenhaver, "Kepler accused Fludd of being a theosophist, and Kepler was right". Fludd was well-read in the tradition coming through Francesco Giorgi.[18] Marin Mersenne attacked him in Quæstiones Celebres in Genesim (1623).
Sophiæ cum Moria Certamen, Frankfort, 1629. Reply to Mersenne.
, Frankfort, 1629. Reply to Mersenne. Summum Bonum, Frankfort, 1629. Under the name Joachim Frizius, this was a further reply to Mersenne, who had accused Fludd of magic.[12]
Pierre Gassendi took up the controversy in an Examen Philosophiæ Fluddanæ (1630). This was at Mersenne's request. Gassendi attacked Fludd's neo-Platonic position. He rejected the syncretic move that placed alchemy, cabbala and Christian religion on the same footing; and Fludd's anima mundi. Further he dismissed Fludd's biblical exegesis.[12][19]
Fludd also wrote against The Tillage of Light (1623) of Patrick Scot; Scot like Mersenne found the large claims of hermetic alchemy to be objectionable.[20] Fludd defended alchemy against the criticisms of Scot, who took it to be merely allegorical. This work, Truth's Golden Harrow,[10] remained in manuscript.[11]
The weapon-salve controversy [ edit ]
"Doctor Fludds Answer vnto M. Foster, or, The Sqvesing of Parson Fosters Sponge", &c., London, 1631, (defence of weapon-salve, against the Hoplocrisma-Spongus, 1631, of William Foster, of Hedgerley, Buckinghamshire); an edition in Latin, "Responsum ad Hoplocrisma-Spongum", &c., Gouda, 1638.[12]
The idea that certain parallel actions could be initiated and linked by'sympathetic' mysterious forces was widespread at this time, probably arising mainly from the actions of the magnet, shown by Gilbert, to always point towards some point in the northern sky. The idea owed a lot of the older Aristotelian and neo-Platonic views about soul-like forces.
Cosmology and other works [ edit ]
Utriusque Cosmi Historia, 1617 "An Astrologer Casting a Horoscope", from Robert Fludd's, 1617
Fludd's philosophy is presented in Utriusque Cosmi, Maioris scilicet et Minoris, metaphysica, physica, atque technica Historia (The metaphysical, physical, and technical history of the two worlds, namely the greater and the lesser, published in Germany between 1617 and 1621);[21] according to Frances Yates, his memory system (which she describes in detail in The Art of Memory, pp. 321–341) may reflect the layout of Shakespeare's Globe Theatre (The Art of Memory, Chapter XVI).
In 1618, Fludd wrote De Musica Mundana (Mundane Music) which described his theories of music, including his mundane (also known as "divine" or "celestial") monochord.[22]
In 1630, Fludd proposed many perpetual motion machines. People were trying to patent variations of Fludd's machine in the 1870s. Fludd's machine worked by recirculation by means of a water wheel and Archimedean screw. The device pumps the water back into its own supply tank.[23][24]
His main works are:[12]
Utriusque Cosmi... metaphysica, physica atque technica Historia, &c., Oppenheim and Frankfort, 1617–24. (It has two dedications, first to the Deity, secondly to James I, and copperplates; it was to have been in two volumes, the first containing two treatises, the second three; it was completed as far as the first section of the second treatise of the second volume.)
, &c., Oppenheim and Frankfort, 1617–24. (It has two dedications, first to the Deity, secondly to James I, and copperplates; it was to have been in two |
twice with the hacker who goes under the name of Rovion Vavilov who told Voorhees how he/she managed to penetrate two of Shapeshift’s new infrastructures using purchased information that the rogue employee stole.
Voorhees stated in an April 13 update: “The story continues to unfold, and evidence continues to be revealed. We have been working with a forensic specialist from LedgerLabs, who has been terrific. A civil suit is ongoing, as are multiple criminal investigations of the perpetrators.”
As a result of these security failures, ShapeShift brought Michael Perklin, a professional forensic investigator from Ledger Labs to start a forensic audit. As well as refunds for pending orders which are being processed.
Even though the rogue employee has been identified and a civil suit opened, only some funds have been recovered. Luckily no customer funds were at risk or lost during all 3 attacks according to ShapeShift and the platform should be back on April 20.One month into the rollout of Obamacare, 106,185 people had chosen a private health insurance plan using the health care reform law's troubled exchanges, the Department of Health and Human Services announced Wednesday, the first time the Obama administration has given enrollment figures.
The disappointing results of the first phase of Affordable Care Act enrollment underscore the fragility of the new marketplaces and the urgent need for the Obama administration to get HealthCare.gov reliably functioning by the end of this month. The coverage of millions of people whose plans are being eliminated hangs in the balance, as does the prospect of reducing the ranks of the 48 million Americans who have no health insurance.
"With the issues we've had, these marketplaces are working and people are enrolling," Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius said during a conference call with reporters Wednesday. "We can reasonably expect that these numbers will grow substantially over the next five months."
Some 26,794 people who have selected a health plan did so via the federally run insurance exchanges, compared to the more than 79,000 who used the exchanges in the 15 states and the District of Columbia that are operating their own marketplaces, according to the HHS report, which spans the period from Oct. 1 to Nov. 2.
Not all of the more than 100,000 people tallied by the administration have taken the final necessary step and actually made the first payment for their coverage, which begins in January, the report indicates. The Department of Health and Human Services doesn't have accurate data on how many people made payments to insurers, which aren't due until Dec. 15, Sebelius said.
An additional 975,407 people have completed the application to determine whether they can receive subsidies and now have only to choose a health plan, the report says. More than 396,000 people using the exchanges have been deemed eligible for Medicaid or the Children's Health Insurance Plan.
The administration continues to plead for patience, emphasizing that the enrollment period doesn't end for more than four months. "This data represents only a month into a sustained six-month enrollment and outreach effort and we're confident that, as more people across the country learn about their new options, more people will find a plan that meets their needs and their budget and more will enroll in coverage," Sebelius said.
The report cites the precedents set by the rollout of the Massachusetts health insurance exchange in 2007 and the launch of the Medicare Part D prescription drug benefit in 2006. The White House maintains that Obamacare enrollment will surge in December and again near the end of March.
"We're well ahead of the pace that was set by Massachusetts, so there's not cause for concern with these particular numbers," Don Mould, HHS assistant secretary for planning and evaluation, said during the conference call.
Although the Massachusetts health reform program and Medicare Part D also suffered from balky rollouts, the troubles besetting HealthCare.gov and some state exchanges appear more serious. On top of technical glitches, the political firestorm is more intense this time, raising questions about whether the administration can make up for lost time.
The White House is inviting individuals frustrated by their first sign-up attempts to try again, and has vowed to get HealthCare.gov running smoothly by the end of November. That timeline, which is in doubt, would leave just over two weeks for individuals to get health coverage before Dec. 15, the last day to enroll in a health plan or Medicaid in order to be covered on Jan. 1.
"The early experience of HealthCare.gov was enormously frustrating. It is getting better. It's getting better every day, so I'd urge people to visit the site," Sebelius said.
The White House sought to get 500,000 people enrolled in private insurance via the federal and state exchanges by the end of October, according to an internal document cited by the Associated Press that the administration has never confirmed. By the end of this month, the target is 800,000 people, including Medicaid enrollees, Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services Administrator Marilyn Tavenner told a congressional committee last week.
The administration has always predicted that the early weeks of enrollment on the exchanges would be slow, even before severe technological failures hit HealthCare.gov and exchange websites in states including Oregon, Vermont and Maryland. The White House has re-emphasized that argument in recent weeks, while saying pent-up demand for coverage will boost sign-ups when the website is fixed.
Sebelius advised consumers not eligible for subsidies to consider buying plans directly from health insurance companies while the administration continues repairing HealthCare.gov.
Although people could use alternate means to buy health insurance, such as paper applications and the telephone hotlines for the exchanges, these methods have significant shortcomings. Health insurance tax credits for people who earn between the poverty level and four times that amount -- up to about $46,000 for a single person -- only are available via the exchanges. And the only way to compare every plan sold in a local area side by side is to visit an exchange website.
The contrast between the states with well-functioning enrollment systems and those relying on HealthCare.gov is stark. More individuals in California, the most populous state and home to the most uninsured people, have chosen a plan than in all the states with federally run marketplaces combined, the report shows. The number of Californians who got that far is more than 12 times higher than in Texas, the state with the second-largest population and number of uninsured. In five of states using HealthCare.gov -- Alaska, Delaware, North Dakota, South Dakota and Wyoming -- fewer than 100 people have selected insurance.
Medicaid enrollments are outpacing private insurance sign-ups, the report shows. Twenty-five states and the District of Columbia are expanding the federal-state health program for the poor to anyone earning up to 133 percent of the poverty level, which is about $15,300 for a single person. The remaining states opted out of the expansion, leaving about 8 million people without health coverage.
The raw numbers of people getting private insurance on the exchanges in each state arguably are less important than having the right mix of healthy and sick customers, which is crucial to keeping premiums down in future years. Of the 7 million people originally projected to buy insurance on these marketplaces, the White House estimated that 2.7 million needed to be younger and healthier. HHS isn't releasing demographic information yet about who is signing up, Sebelius said. The first enrollees were older than expected, the Wall Street Journal reported last week, citing health insurance industry sources.
Obamacare is under intensifying scrutiny on Capitol Hill, as Republicans stage a series of hearings to hammer away at the administration's failure to launch a working web portal. They will also highlight consumers whose current health plans won't be available next year in spite of Obama's oft-stated promise that people wouldn't lose their benefits because of the law.
The House is scheduled to vote this week on a measure that would let insurers extend 2013 policies into next year, and the bill has attracted a handful of Democratic supporters. In the Senate, Mary Landrieu (D-La.) has been joined so far by six Democrats in favor of legislation that would let insurance companies keep offering their current plans indefinitely to existing customers. Former President Bill Clinton on Tuesday urged Obama to find a way to let people keep their plans into next year.
The White House has rejected such legislation as anathema to the Affordable Care Act's goal of reforming the health insurance market by guaranteeing a minimum level of benefits and financial protections and by keeping insurers from turning away people with pre-existing conditions. The insurance industry has also warned that such proposals could increase premiums by keeping healthy people out of the exchanges. At the same time, Obama apologized to people losing their coverage and said his administration is looking for ways to ease the transition, although he didn't say how.Maria Shriver and Arnold Schwarzenegger are have been perusing the real-estate market in Los Angeles—just not for themselves. The former couple reportedly, with Shriver leading the charge, showed interest in buying two houses directly across the street from each other for two of their three children: recent University of Southern California graduate (and Taylor Swift's ex-boyfriend) Patrick, 23, and published author Katherine, 27.
Shriver, who currently resides in Brentwood, has been house-hunting around Los Angeles with both Patrick and Katherine and had nearly locked down the two homes (one for $2 million and one for $3 million; Shriver's own home costs $12 million), but ultimately withdrew her bid for one of the houses when the offers began getting too high.
The two houses are located near the Pacific Design Center in Los Angeles, a gorgeous red-and-green facility that houses showrooms and conferences throughout the year and is located in Los Angeles’s bustling West Hollywood neighborhood.
Maria Shriver and Arnold Schwarzenegger parted ways in 2011 and finalized their divorce just this year.One in ten of the world’s population lives within a hundred kilometers of a volcano that has the potential to erupt.1 These people face immediate danger from future eruptions, but volcanic eruptions can have impacts far beyond their immediate surroundings. The 2010 eruption of the Eyjafjallajökull volcano in Iceland disrupted air traffic across Europe, causing an estimated economic impact of US$5 billion.2 The biggest eruptions, such as that of Indonesia’s Mount Tambora in 1815 (which ejected 150 to 200 times more rock than Eyjafjallajökull), have had global impacts on climate. The Mount Tambora eruption caused a 1 °C temperature drop and is linked to poor harvests and famine in parts of Europe and North America.3 With increasing development and globalization, our vulnerability to volcanic hazards is increasing. Therefore, to minimize the impact of future eruptions, we must give attention to understanding volcanoes. With this in mind, the scientific study and monitoring of volcanic and other natural hazards provides a compelling opportunity for constructive science engagement through the shared goals of protecting life and property for global benefit.
In a recent study, volcanologists analyzed the risks associated with volcanoes in thirty-one countries around the world.4 They concluded that volcanoes present significant risk to people living within a number of countries, but that just as concerning are the large uncertainties in many of these risk assessments. In other words, there are many volcanoes where the impacts of an eruption could be significant, but for which little or no information is currently available. The report suggests that volcanologists should prioritize these volcanoes for future study.
To minimize the impact of future eruptions, we must give attention to understanding volcanoes.
This lack of knowledge could be attributed to a number of causes: remote locations; a lack of local specialist training or adequate resources; or, in some cases, inhibited access to the volcano caused by political strains. Indeed, 193 volcanoes lie within countries under some form of international sanctions. These range from active volcanoes in the Democratic Republic of the Congo and Russia to those that have erupted within the last few thousand years (yesterday to a geologist) in places such as Syria, Sudan, and the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK, the formal name for North Korea). Just because these volcanoes remain difficult to access does not make understanding them any less important. Indeed, the humanitarian impacts of an eruption in these countries could be even higher because of strained relationships with the international community. It was with this in mind that Clive Oppenheimer and I accepted an invitation in 2011 from the DPRK to visit and discuss an increase in volcanic activity at Mount Paektu.5
Mount Paektu
Mount Paektu (also known as Changbaishan) is a dramatic yet enigmatic volcano on the border of the DPRK and China. Its summit, at more than 2,500 meters above sea level, is the highest point on the Korean Peninsula and holds significant cultural importance for all Koreans, being the purported birthplace of Dangun, the founder of Gojoseon, the first Korean kingdom. Mount Paektu has particular significance for DPRK people, presenting the base for the revolution led by Kim Il-sung. It is a regular pilgrimage site, with visitors either ascending the summit or visiting the restored revolutionary camps nearby, including the reputed birthplace of former leader Kim Jong-il. Indeed, the symbol of Mount Paektu permeates DPRK culture, featuring prominently in television broadcasts, in the DPRK national emblem and anthem, and as the backdrop for national leaders’ statues at Pyongyang’s Mansu Hill Grand Monument.
The volcano is equally fascinating to geologists worldwide. The spectacular four-kilometer-wide caldera lake at its summit, Lake Chon (also known as Tianchi), is thought to have formed in 946 AD during one of the largest eruptions in the last few thousand years—an eruption comparable to the 1815 event at Mount Tambora. More recently, a marked increase in earthquake activity and emission of volcanic gases has pointed to unrest at Mount Paektu.6 Studies by both DPRK and Chinese scientists have suggested the recent developments were caused by an injection of molten rock from the earth’s mantle (>35 kilometers) into shallow depths (~5 kilometers) directly beneath the volcano. While the volcano returned to its restful state in 2006, it focused domestic and international attention on the volcano.
One hundred and ninety-three volcanoes lie within countries under some form of international sanctions.
Our 2011 trip marked the first time Western scientists had visited the DPRK’s volcano observatories. We participated in a four-day workshop with approximately thirty DPRK scientists aimed at developing ideas for international collaboration on volcanology. The meeting culminated in two key questions that we all felt should be addressed: (1) What is the eruption history at Mount Paektu? (2) What is the current state of the volcano? On returning to the United Kingdom, and along with our colleagues at the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS, publisher of Science & Diplomacy) in the United States, we developed a proposal focused on these two questions and presented these ideas to the Richard Lounsbery Foundation, which provided seed funding to allow us to put the project into action.
In a typical international scientific collaboration, the hardest steps are often developing a strong research idea, building a team, formulating a proposal, and obtaining funding. However, because of the significant political strain between the DPRK and the international community, we faced a number of unique challenges for this project that required us to develop and implement diplomatic skills to facilitate these important scientific objectives.
International sanctions against the DPRK posed our steepest challenge. During the planning stages of our project, volatility associated with the joint U.S.–South Korea military exercises, DPRK missile launches, and nuclear tests caused tensions to increase. The already strong international sanctions were increased resulting in significant delays to our work, and at times the delays and uncertainty threatened to derail the entire project.
The Eritrean Model
To overcome the diplomatic hurdles, we drew on our recent experiences on projects in Ethiopia and Eritrea, the latter being another country under international sanctions. Over the past twenty years, British and other international scientists have collaborated with Ethiopian scientists to study the East African Rift Valley, a large series of faults running from Mozambique in the south through to Ethiopia, Eritrea, and Djibouti into the Red Sea and the Gulf of Aden. This incredible natural phenomenon is the surface expression of large forces causing the African continent to slowly break apart, with a new tectonic boundary forming down the length of Africa.
The processes that occur at the northern tip of the rift are similar to those that happen at mid-ocean ridges. At these locations, as the tectonic plates are pulled apart, molten rock fills the gaps, generating new crust. However, mid-ocean ridges are below kilometers of water and are thus difficult and expensive to study. As a result, earth scientists are drawn to East Africa because it offers a unique opportunity to study these processes on land. Recently, through a large international collaboration, dozens of seismometers—sensitive instruments used to record earthquakes—were deployed in northern Ethiopia, right up to the border of Eritrea.7 This work has allowed us to produce images from the surface to a few hundred kilometers deep, furthering our understanding of how a continent breaks apart.8 However, the final stages of continental breakup on land are occurring in Eritrea, so it was important for us to collaborate with Eritrean scientists.
For science collaboration to succeed during periods of political strain, clear, strong scientific objectives that can be separated from any political agenda are essential.
With this in mind, we opened communication with scientists at the Eritrea Institute of Technology in July 2009 and, as is typical when discussing science with like-minded experts, we received a warm response. We started to develop agreements to formalize our collaboration, but in December 2009 international sanctions linked with border disputes and instability in the Horn of Africa, led by the UK and the United States, were imposed on Eritrea. Because of British involvement in these sanctions, it became impossible for us to implement our plans and deploy instruments in Eritrea. However, we continued to discuss our research and plans with our Eritrean colleagues. Through this relationship and despite continuing political tensions, we were invited to present our proposal at a mining conference in Eritrea. This was an opportunity to present our scientific case and develop local support with both Eritrean scientists and government officials. Our proposal—to use seismology to provide detailed images of how Africa was tectonically breaking apart—focused on clear scientific objectives with no political agenda. It was enthusiastically backed. Two years after our initial contact, despite the ongoing political tensions, we received support from the Eritrean government to travel to Eritrea to deploy our seismometers, the first broadband seismometers ever deployed in the country.
Thanks to a strong relationship and mutual trust with our Eritrean peers, we were uniquely positioned in June 2011 to respond to the eruption of the country’s Nabro volcano.9 We deployed another eight seismometers and recruited an Eritrean PhD student in the effort. Despite the challenges funding overseas PhD students in the UK, this became a key measure of the project’s success. Funding a regional PhD student allowed us to deliver on our promises to develop local skills, thereby enhancing our relationship with both Eritrean scientists and government officials. The PhD student is working on our data and developing skills in earthquake and volcanic hazards that will be valuable to Eritrea in the future.
From this process, we learned some valuable diplomacy for science lessons:
For science collaboration to succeed during periods of political strain, clear, strong scientific objectives that can be separated from any political agenda are essential. It is important to have scientific collaborators who are passionate and driven about these science objectives. For the collaboration to work, good communication is essential. Setting realistic objectives can help participants deliver on promises (e.g., our funding of the Eritrean PhD student).
These factors are important in establishing trust between the partners, an essential part of any collaboration, but are even more important when political strain is present.
Applying Lessons in the DPRK
We used our experience in East Africa to develop a network of people to facilitate our collaboration with DPRK scientists. We had already achieved our first two objectives:
Strong scientific focus: Driven by the recent unrest at the volcano, both DPRK and international scientists recognized the need to understand more about the driving forces behind and geological history of the volcano. Enthusiastic scientific partners: The research collaboration was initiated by our DPRK collaborators and, through their long history of research, it was clear that monitoring and understanding the volcano was a scientific priority in the DPRK.
The next step was to develop good communication. Despite our initial meeting, it was not possible for us to directly contact the geologists at the Earthquake Administration, DPRK while outside of the DPRK, but we took advantage of good communications between two environmental NGOs working in the DPRK (in fact, it was through this channel that our initial invitation was issued). An international NGO, the Environmental Education Media Project, with twenty years of experience working in the DPRK has for the last ten years been working with a DPRK NGO, the Pyongyang International Information Centre of New Technology and Economy (PIINTEC). Through PIINTEC’s good relationships with the Earthquake Administration, we had an effective mechanism for communication. Despite this, face-to-face communication was essential to the effort, and one or two meetings were held annually between us, PIINTEC, and the Earthquake Administration. Typically these meetings took place in Beijing (2012) or Pyongyang (2013, 2014), with occasional opportunities to meet in Europe (Berlin 2013, Paris 2014). The need for translation added extra complications, but a common understanding and enthusiasm to address the big scientific questions, effective translators with scientific backgrounds, and patient discussion allowed us to overcome these challenges.
For this project, however, a second avenue of communication was necessary—that between us as scientists and international government organizations that provide export licenses to comply with international sanction regulations. Here, we received valuable advice and support from AAAS in the United States and the Royal Society in the UK. These organizations work at the intersection of science and policy, which allowed us to better communicate our clear, strong scientific objectives to the relevant government institutions.
Despite all this support, we still faced major challenges. Our project aims involved using sophisticated and sensitive equipment to record earthquakes and measure the earth’s conductivity—proven methods of showing where molten rock may be stored beneath a volcano. This led to a two-year discussion with UK and U.S. authorities that ultimately failed to yield the appropriate licenses to use equipment to measure the earth’s conductivity. The technology we sought, which can measure the magnetic-field fluctuations caused by storms and solar activity, has similar capabilities to equipment used in submarine detection. This means it is classified as a dual-use item—an item that could be used for civilian as well as military purposes. We had to revise our plans accordingly, requiring a longer deployment of seismometers to achieve our main scientific objectives. Again, clear and open communication was key in discussing this with our DPRK scientific colleagues.
All these challenges, whether in communication or exporting equipment, highlight a fifth lesson in using diplomacy for science—flexibility.
With this network of institutions in place and our licenses issued by UK and U.S. governments, we were able to travel to the DPRK in August 2013, with our broadband seismometers, and our team of UK and U.S. geologists could begin recording earthquakes and collecting geological samples.10 The mutually trusting relationship established among our international group of scientists has facilitated a number of successes. Through amazing access to geological outcrops never before granted to international scientists, together with state-of-the-art homes for our seismometers built by DPRK scientists and corresponding excellent data quality, we have submitted our first joint publications to leading international journals, these will be the first joint Western-DPRK publications ever in the field of earth science.
Much of the work was conducted during a month-long visit to the UK by three DPRK scientists from the Earthquake Administration and State Academy of Science, together with a translator from PIINTEC. This culminated in a meeting at the Royal Society where DPRK scientists presented results to the UK volcanology community—the first ever engagement between the Royal Society and the DPRK. Since this meeting, we have presented our results together with our DPRK colleagues at meetings in China, attended by Chinese and South Korean scientists. We are now planning future, more ambitious projects, hopefully including training opportunities and infrastructure development to allow us to better understand Mount Paektu, facilitate future monitoring, and extend our collaboration to other areas of earth and environmental science.
The success of this project and our ability to plan for the future was only possible by observing these five guidelines in using diplomacy for science:
Strong, clear science objectives Enthusiastic scientific partners Good, open communication Delivering on promises made (and therefore ensuring that commitments are realistic in the first place) Flexibility
These five factors allow for trust to be established among all partners, showing that scientific collaboration can overcome even the most obstructive political complications. Earth and environmental science is particularly well placed, being largely separate from any political agenda, and thus offers hope for addressing not only volcanic hazards but also other global scientific issues such as earthquakes, flooding, and climate change.
EndnotesJennifer Lawrence doesn't take her fame for granted, but she does take it with a grain of salt.
The Oscar winner, who graces the cover of the September issue of Vogue, revealed to the magazine that there's a darker side to being thrust into the spotlight. Though she understands that the public doesn't have much empathy for famous people whining about the pitfalls of being famous, Lawrence admits she's not loving this new life.
"I’m just really starting to feel like a monkey in a zoo," she laments.
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"I teeter on seeming ungrateful when I talk about this, but I’m kind of going through a meltdown about it lately," she confesses further. "All of a sudden the entire world feels entitled to know everything about me, including what I’m doing on my weekends when I’m spending time with my nephew. And I don’t have the right to say, 'I'm spending time with my family.'"
View photos
The truth is, she can say that, but it will likely only encourage the press to follow her even more adamantly. (People want to know what she's doing with her family, of course!)
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Even "Silver Linings Playbook" director, David O. Russell — who has worked with his share of super-famous stars — feels for the young thesp.
"When she first showed up on the set of 'Silver Linings,' she was asking Bradley Cooper and Robert De Niro what it’s like to have people come up to you on the street,' he recalls. "That wasn’t really happening to her. People didn’t really know who she was. But by the time the film was released and we did an event in Santa Barbara, it was like being at a Beatles concert. There were thousands of screaming people. It was mind-blowing."
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Now, before you roll your eyes for this "poor little rich (and famous) girl," hear her out. "If I were just your average 23-year-old girl and I called the police to say that there were strange men sleeping on my lawn and following me to Starbucks, they would leap into action. But because I am a famous person, well, sorry, ma’am, there’s nothing we can do. It makes no sense."
We have to admit; the girl's got a point. But it's not even the paparazzi who bother her most; it's the people who tell her to just get over it.
"I am just not OK with it. It's as simple as that," she explains. "I am just a normal girl and a human being, and I haven’t been in this long enough to feel like this is my new normal. I’m not going to find peace with it."
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Whether she finds peace with it or not is ultimately up to her, but her feelings are unlikely to dissuade the media from tracking her every move. Our two cents (not that she asked) is to find a way to manage it, if not make peace with it, and then champion a worthy cause using her newfound ability to influence change.
For more of Jennifer Lawrence's interview, check out September issue of Vogue, on newsstands on August 20.
Relive Jennifer Lawrence's Amazing Day at the Oscars.
More Celebrity Features on Yahoo!:No one likes being sold to.
When I worked in real estate, I cold called people to pitch them on refinancing their mortgage.
Nearly every person who picked up the phone was annoyed. Even when my offer was potentially useful, I struggled to get anyone to hear me out.
I had way more people tell me “Fuck off!” than “Oh yes, I’m so happy you called!”
It’s because people are turned off by “salesmen”. They envision guys with ill-fitting suits trying to convince them to buy something they don’t want.
So where dating is concerned, I tell my clients: “Be the buyer, not the seller.”
This means approaching women with the mindset that YOU are choosing a compatible person for YOU. You should not be acting like a desperate salesman trying to prove that you’re good enough.
Being the “seller” means you value the approval of others over your own opinion of yourself. You worry about their judgment and you work hard to impress them. You’re afraid of losing any opportunity (scarcity) rather than focusing on finding ones that you find fulfilling (abundance).
This is an unconfident, needy mindset. As I’ve written before, neediness is the biggest turn-off for women.
But implementing the “buyer” mindset means raising your self-esteem. I know that’s not easy to do overnight.
What you need to do is change your behavior and develop new habits that breed a high-value mindset. So I created 4 exercises that will help you cultivate a confident mentality of choice and abundance.
Note: If you need help with starting conversations for the exercises, reference my approaching eBook or post here.
1. Curiosity exercise
You might believe that finding other people who like you is next to impossible. You expect everyone to think you’re awkward and creepy. This fear prevents you from meeting new people regularly.
When you do socialize, you try to act cool rather than have genuine fun with the conversation. Then you obsess over every opportunity because you don’t know when you’ll get another one.
We need to trick you into being more social by removing the pressure of performing. We’re going to focus on simply being curious.
Objective: Be more social through exposure to different people. Expand your social circle and develop an abundance mentality. See for yourself that many people will like you for you. Exercise: Head out to a bar, club or social event. The game is to remember a single fact about each person you talk to. That could be their occupation, how they met their friends, or what they do for fun. No other goals. Approach people and talk for 3-5 minutes at a time. This can be individuals or groups – male or female. Once you’ve learned enough, leave to another person or group. You can say something like, “It was nice meeting you but I’m going to go grab a drink.” Or “I’m going to mingle for a bit, maybe I’ll see you around later.” Repeat for at least 30-45 minutes. After that, I want you to return to the people you spoke to earlier. Approach them using the fact you remember about them. For example: “Hello my favorite accountant!” or “It’s the elementary school besties!” or “So what’s the next stop on your ever-expanding travel list?”
This may seem basic but you’re actually doing something powerful.
By leaving conversations to continue mingling, you’re showing that you’re not desperate. You’re also being seen as the confident, outgoing guy in the room and therefore creating social proof.
When you return to talk to the people you left, they’ll see you as more valuable. They’ll show interest and work to win your approval.
Only then will you see that plenty of people will love your company. Putting your best self forward is enough to attract them.
2. Walk away exercise
Too many of you correlate a woman’s appearance with her value. You automatically place hot women (“9’s and 10’s”) as superior human beings. You put them on a pedestal. You’re terrified of being rejected and feel like you have to win these women over.
All this is before you even know who the girl is!
Let me tell you something: hot women are all over the place. Walk down any busy street. Go to a mall, bar, or club. How many attractive women do you see? More than you could ever handle.
Finding people who are beautiful on the inside, however, is much more rare.
You need to get past seeing attractiveness as invaluable and see it for what it is. Feeling attraction is just the initial indicator of whether or not you’re interested in getting to know someone more intimately.
Objective: Stop placing total value on looks and subconsciously seeing yourself as less. Become comfortable talking with attractive women. Get over the fear of losing an attractive prospect — aka scarcity mentality. Exercise: When’s the last time you turned down or walked away from an attractive woman? Probably never. In fact, you’ve likely done the opposite – and tried everything in your power not to get rejected by them. For an entire night, you’re going to remove the possibility of being rejected. How so? You’re going to reject women first. That means you’re not allowed to ask for a single number or try to meet up again. Tell yourself that before heading out, “I’m going to walk away from hot women all night.” When you approach a woman, I want you to act disinterested (shorter answers, no compliments, looking past them while they’re talking). Set a 2-5 minute limit and then walk away from the interaction. “It was nice meeting you but I have to get going. Have a good night.”
I don’t want you to do this to hurt a woman’s feelings. I don’t want you to be rude or insulting. And this isn’t going to be your long-term strategy.
But I do want you to realize that hot women are common. It’s not a big deal to speak to them. If you don’t click with one, there are a dozen more you can immediately talk to. We aren’t running out of them anytime soon.
3. Friend zone exercise
Now that you’ve gotten used to speaking with attractive women, you need to see them as people, not just conquests. You need to break free of that “must win every hot girl” mentality.
Do you have any attractive female friends? I’m not talking about the girls you hang out with that you secretly desire. I mean true, platonic friends.
There’s a good chance you answered no.
Again, physical beauty does not mean you have to be with that person. There’s this tiny little thing called compatibility.
You need to be okay with women not being attracted to you in that way. Being considered “just a friend” is not a personal attack on you. It doesn’t mean you “lost”. And it doesn’t make you less of a person.
Objective: Remove your results-based mentality. Stop needing to prove yourself to every beautiful woman. Be happy with some connections not being romantic. Exercise: You must intentionally friend zone every attractive woman you speak to for a night. You don’t have to worry about success because you’re not pursuing anyone romantically. I want you to use the word “friend” explicitly in conversation. Make statements like, “I knew we were going to be best friends.” Or “Look at us, we’re already friends.” When you ask for her number, express it under friendly intentions, “You seem like a great friend to have, we should hang out some time.” If a woman responds to a number request like, “I’m sorry but I have a boyfriend.” you reply with, “That’s okay, I’m just looking to make friends. Nothing more, promise.”
The key to this is that you have to mean it. You have to legitimately be her friend and nothing more. No ulterior motives allowed.
This exercise will not only reinforce gorgeous women as people but it will also provide new, meaningful friendships. And as everyone knows, having attractive female friends comes with some great benefits:
1. Walking into any social setting with beautiful women improves your social proof. Other women will see you as more desirable. Also, girls make amazing wingmen.
2. They will introduce you to their other attractive friends.
Having female friends is always a win.
4. Qualification exercise
We’ve worked on being more social. We’ve taken hot women off the pedestal and forced you to see them as everyone else. The final step is internalizing your own value to truly embrace the buyer mentality.
High value people have standards for themselves. They know who they are and what they want. They don’t just chase anyone – even if they’re hot, powerful, or wealthy.
When they meet someone new, they think, “Who is this person? Do I want them in my life? Why or why not?”
If you’re focused on selling yourself and convincing people of your value, you’re not building real connections.
You won’t be listening well. You’ll constantly be in your head trying to say the right thing. You’ll be performing rather than trying to get to know others. It’s an insecure, self-centered mindset.
We need to shift your objective from proving yourself to seeing if someone meets your qualifications.
Objective: Become genuinely interested in discovering who people are. Critically evaluate if they match what you’re looking for. Develop a mindset of choice by screening people and thus recognizing your value. Exercise: Write down a minimum of 5-10 qualities you find attractive in someone and 5-10 qualities you consider turn-offs. For example, you might write… Like – Ambition, respect, strong family ties, open-minded, socially liberal, traveler, can have intellectual discussion Dislike – Cynicism, negativity, dishonesty, lack of career goals, no political or world interests, can only hold thin conversation Then, I want you to approach women and ask questions that filter for those qualities. Use questions from this article for ideas. From the start of conversation, I want you to put women on the spot and make them prove themselves to you. Challenge them. After they answer a question, I want you to follow up with another, and repeat. Even go overboard on the questions. Within 5-10 minutes, you must honestly decide whether or not you should continue speaking with them based on their answers. If they don’t meet your standards, move on to someone else.
The idea is to break the “I need everyone’s approval” mentality. You should want quality people, not just need anyone.
This also flips the script on women. Most guys they talk to never qualify them or make them work for their attention. By doing so, you immediately stand out as a catch with options. And they’ll be more attracted to you because of it.
—
Want more options and control in your dating life? Have a free consultation with me. |
since - our membership has doubled."
He added: “It’s a long struggle, I totally accept that - I am not for one minute trying to say we will get back to where we were.”
Nick Clegg met with Maidstone and the Weald Liberdal Democrat candidate candidate Jasper Gerard and Mid Kent College principle Simon Cook
He said the party had the chance to move into the centre ground as Labour moved to the left and the Conservative party went to the right.
“There is a large area of centre ground which did look very crowded at the election but suddenly looks an empty space for us to populate.”
“The interesting thing is whether in five years time, we see some realignment in politics. Do sensible people in Labour want to be led by Jeremy Corbyn and do some reasonable people in the Conservative party want to be in with some of these headbangers?”
Guests Jasper Gerard and Professor Tim Luckhurst on KMTV "Paul On Politics"
But Professor Tim Luckhurst of the Centre for Journalism at the University of Kent, told the programme:
“If the Liberal Democrat’s strategy for recovery is based on the assumption that the Labour party is led by Jeremy Corbyn at the general election, it is fatally flawed.”
“Yes, the Liberal Democrats have made baby steps forward on Maidstone council...but they are in real difficulty nationally.”
The programme also considered the impact of the government's proposals to reform the BBC.These bloggers treasure taking a sleek, modern approach to reducing waste in their efforts to save the planet – but they face their fair share of criticism, too
Kathryn Kellogg, a 25-year-old print shop employee, spends four hours a day on her lifestyle blog Going Zero Waste. She posts on Instagram, engages with Facebook followers, and writes about homemade eyeliner and lip balm, worm composting, and shopping bulk bins – anything to avoid unnecessary waste. Her trash for the past year – anything that hasn’t been composted or recycled – fits in an 8oz jar.
Kellogg is earnest, enthusiastic, and admittedly still figuring out what it means to be zero waste. The aspiring actor has also weathered her fair share of criticism. “I’m not even that big yet and I get so much hate mail,” says Kellogg, who draws 10,000 unique page views a month and has 800 subscribers.
Since the launch of Going Zero Waste in March 2015, she’s been criticized on social media and in private messages for driving and flying, for not installing a grey-water system, and, no joke, for using toilet paper (she does have a bidet, by the way). She’s been chastised by vegans for eating eggs, and one visiting relative walked around Kellogg’s house pointing out anything made of plastic.
She’s also been called out as overly privileged, even though she lives in a modest two-bedroom house in Vallejo, a blue-collar city 32 miles north-east of San Francisco.
“They just nitpick every little thing because zero waste sounds like such an ultimatum,” Kellogg says. “My boyfriend thinks that I should change the term, but it’s there, and I don’t know what else to call it.”
Facebook Twitter Pinterest The amount of non-recyclable trash Kellogg says she produced in a year. Photograph: Andrew Burton for the Guardian
The leaders of this zero-waste lifestyle movement are young millennial women like Lauren Singer of Trash is for Tossers, Celia Ristow of Litterless, and Kellogg. They all embrace a sleek, modern aesthetic over the crunchy, hippy stereotypes of yore.
Most of these women trace their lightning bolt moment back to Bea Johnson, a charismatic, 42-year-old mother of two from the wealthy enclave of Mill Valley, California. Outspoken, French and with a taste for a stark minimalist aesthetic, Johnson solidified her status as a zero-waste lifestyle guru in 2013 with the publication of Zero Waste Home: The Ultimate Guide to Reducing Your Waste.
Ariana Schwarz, 27, runs the Paris-to-Go zero waste blog. As a sustainability major, Schwarz was frustrated by the focus on theory over meaningful lifestyle changes. Then, her geology professor sent her a copy of a Sunset magazine feature about Johnson and her 16oz jar of trash. “Here was a woman actually living as sustainably as possible,” Schwarz says. Inspired, she completed a school project, living zero waste for a month, then three months, and then a year. “Once I realized how easy it was, it kind of stuck with me.”
These young women aim to reduce their landfill trash at a time in history when, on average, every American produces nearly three pounds of trash per day. According to the Environmental Protection Agency, 40% of US greenhouse gas emissions come from hauling, making, using, and throwing away stuff and food.
On a drizzly, grey day back at the Vallejo farmers’ market, Kellogg shows off zero-waste grocery shopping in action. She dumps organic strawberries from the plastic trays into her own jar (after asking the stand worker whether he would reuse the container). She uses cloth produce bags for shelled peas, kale and raisins. She orders cheese in reusable glass containers from a local goat farmer. Kellogg says she aspires be a “strong, moderate voice” for the zero-waste lifestyle, which she discovered after health issues pushed her towards a more natural lifestyle.
“Anyone can participate in waste reduction practices,” Kellogg says. “I’m from Arkansas; I know that I’m so fortunate to live in California. None of this stuff – bulk stores, recycling programs, municipal composting – exists back home in the south. But I think absolutely anyone can participate, it’s to what degree they can.”
Rob Greenfield, 29, wrote Dude Making a Difference about his zero-waste journey across the US on a bamboo bicycle. He agrees that any effort counts, even if it’s not as extreme as his own. He’s also one of the few male zero-waste bloggers around.
Once I realized how easy zero waste living was, it kind of stuck with me Blogger Ariana Schwarz
Greenfield admits, so far in his travels, he’s only come across female zero-waste bloggers. “I don’t really know why that is,” Greenfield says. “But I don’t feel isolated by it because it doesn’t matter to me whether my comrades are male or female. I find great joy and passion in my work.”
It’s no coincidence that young women are leading the movement, says Kate Bailey, program manager at Eco-Cycle Solutions, a not-for-profit group that provides recycling and composting services in Boulder, Colorado.
“Women everywhere are deeply concerned about the health effects of the growing amount of chemicals and toxins in our everyday lives,” Bailey says. “Women are also the primary purchasers in the household so they are on the frontlines of hyper-consumption in the US. They’re frustrated by the growing prevalence of single-use, disposable products, the trend to over-package everything, and the lack of choices when it comes to sustainable, less toxic products.”
Facebook Twitter Pinterest Kathryn Kellogg checks on her compost bin, where she uses worms to break down biodegradable waste. Photograph: Andrew Burton for the Guardian
Celia Ristow, a 24-year-old tech company worker who started the blog Litterless, gives smartly written tips for minimizing waste when traveling, eating out, and in the domestic sphere. Unlike other zero-waste bloggers, she doesn’t track her trash in a jar. It’s misleading, Ristow says, and doesn’t take into account the fact that trash often accumulates in the production stream before products end up on store shelves.
Ristow admits that she’ll probably never be completely zero waste, but that doesn’t stop her from striving to produce as little trash as possible. She thinks of it as a daily lifestyle choice, a way of finding no-waste solutions to small decisions. Refusing samples in plastic cups. Saying no to the granola bar in non-recyclable packaging on the snack table at work. Bringing along a reusable water bottle – always.
Living in an apartment in Chicago does make taking the zero-waste route easier than it might be for, say, a family of six in rural Illinois. A composting service picks up Ristow’s food scraps each month. She buys shampoo, conditioner, bar soap and lotion in bulk at a local store. For clothes, she shops second-hand and doesn’t buy anything with packaging. Food is the easiest to procure, with a wealth of farmers’ markets and specialty grocery stores. She also takes advantage of an excellent city public transportation system.
Though Ristow has eliminated disposable products from her daily life, she admits that as one of 7 billion people on the planet, those actions have a microscopic effect on greenhouse gas emissions, at best. But, these choices are also the best way she’s found to individually combat climate change and live by her values.
“I can’t, and don’t want, to control what other people do,” she says. “I can only change my own actions. I support stores that sell bulk, zero-waste food. I buy from smaller companies that make sustainable, compostable, zero-waste home and hygiene goods. To the people around me, I’m modeling what small daily actions can look like.”
Facebook Twitter Pinterest Kathryn Kellogg at a farmers’ market in Vallejo, California. Photograph: Andrew Burton for the Guardian
Personal efforts to reduce waste should be applauded, says Dr Daniel Kammen, professor of energy at UC Berkeley’s Goldman School of Public Policy. “Seeing [zero waste] become part of the social dialogue is a wonderful first step,” he adds. Yet, in reality, it can be a challenge to quantify just how much reduction is actually happening, since “waste lurks in many corners”.
To that end, he and his students built a calculator to help people track their personal and household waste. To make true inroads on waste, according to experts, we’ll need stronger pricing of waste, attention to behavior science, and rewards from the public and private sector for low-waste lifestyles.
In the meantime, zero-waste devotees are “first-movers” and “latter-day Thoreaus”, says Edward Humes, who profiled Johnson’s work in his 2012 book Garbology: Our Dirty Love Affair with Trash. “Their neighbors may look at them askance, perhaps, or as extremists,” Humes says. “The early adopters of rooftop solar power a few decades ago were viewed in the same way. Now they look like visionaries. I think the zero-waste-istas are in a similar place, showing the rest of us what’s possible, spreading the word. Ten years from now, they will seem much more mainstream.”IOT or Internet of Things is a hot topic these days, but more than that its exciting. I have been a developer for more than 10 years now and although I have designed and built applications that can handle millions of calls and analyze terabytes of data in real time, the most exciting thing I have done in recent times is running a 12 volt DC motor on the click of a button on an app that I built.
In this article, I am going to walk you through step by step in:
Setting up AWS IOT service Setting up your Raspberry PI 3 Model B (although any other version will also do) Make a simple app which has one button to send a signal to AWS IOT service and listen for a response. Get the PI to listen to a topic on AWS IOT service and run a DC motor for a few seconds succeeding which it will send a success status to another topic.
Credits
This is a learning project which me and Sneha Gokarn (the wife :)) took up together.
What will you make
What you will need to build the entire thing
Raspberry PI, I used version 3 model B which comes with WiFi which you will need, US Amazon link, India Amazon link. A standard breadboard (optional, but recommended), US, India. AWS account with admin priviliges, everything that you will build will be in the AWS Free tier and will not cost you anything DC motor, I used a 12 volt, high torque version which can do some heavy lifting, US, India. L298 motor driver on a breakout board to drive your motor and control directions (forward or reverse), this can handle a voltage of 35 volts and drive two motors of upto 2 amps in switchable directions, US, India. Power supply which matches your motor, use an unused power adapter with matching rating, or get a battery with matching voltage and current. If you are gonna go with batteries, I recommend getting a case to hook up multiple AA batteries together, bigger 9V batteries will deplete very fast and are weaker with output current Jumper wires to hook everything up, US, India, also get some regular medium thickness copper wires for better hooking up the DC motor. Multimeter (optional), I would seriously recommend this so that you know what is going on. Hooking up multiple wires quickly add to a lot of resistance and current drops which will leave you scratching your head or blaming the motor, US, India. Smart phone, I will give you code for Android, you can port it to IOS if you like
Disclaimer: I will earn a small fee if you buy the above products via the links I have provided, thanks for your support! This is the only place where I will mention promotional (but useful :)) links.
Setting up your PI
What is Raspberry PI you ask? It is a small credit card sized chip which has a general purpose CPU with nominal amounts of RAM, it is built by the Raspberry PI foundation which is essentially a charity, so you are doing something good whenever you buy a PI, here is a wiki link.
If you just got your Raspberry PI, set it up using the awesome tutorials on the official Raspberry PI website. You should have gotten the SD card loaded with NOOBS software, setup Raspbian OS (optionally with UI) for this tutorial, NOOBS will give you options to install a bunch of other OS’s as well.
Make sure you have internet connectivity on your PI before proceeding further.
Tip: You can connect your PI with an HDMI cable if you chose the UI
version of Raspbian, hook up a mouse on one of the USB ports and
configure Wifi
If you have a Windows laptop, install Putty to SSH into the PI, if you have a MAC then you can simply use regular command line.
If you have never used Putty before, here is a helpful tutorial for windows users.
Mac users can use this tutorial by rackspace.
You can also choose to open the terminal on the pi itself by connecting it to your monitor/ TV, I recommend you learn how to SSH though, it will ease your life later.
TIP: If you have trouble finding your PI’s IP address so as to SSH into it, you can use the NMAP utility available in most popular platforms as explained in this article here.
Now, run the following command to get latest Kernel:
sudo apt-get install rpi-update
sudo rpi-update
To use the AWS IOT SDK:
Install cmake:
sudo apt-get install cmake
Install OpenSSL 1.0.2 developer version:
Add the following text at the end of /etc/apt/sources.list.d/raspi.list:
deb http://ftp.debian.org/debian jessie-backports main
Update the package list:
sudo apt-get update
Install Open SSL:
sudo apt-get -t jessie-backports install libssl-dev
Install AWS IOT SDK:
sudo pip install AWSIoTPythonSDK
Install the GPIO python lib:
sudo pip install RPi.GPIO
Setup AWS IOT Service
We will now setup the AWS IOT service, everything will be under AWS free tier if you are eligible for it and shouldn’t cost you anything, if you are not eligible for the free tier (1 year from starting the account), you should expect no more than a single US dollar for this tutorial.
Some terminologies that you should be aware of:
Thing: A thing is a device, derived from Internet of things a thing can be a Raspberry PI or Adruino etc, basically the end device sitting at the end location.
Thing Shadow: Its a shadow of your thing. Its typically a server / Lambda function sitting in the cloud which unlike your things is way more dependable for communications as the end devices are typically more prone to connection disruptions.
Step 1:
Sign in into the AWS Management console, head over to AWS IOT service home page. Choose “get started” if you have do not have anything in the IOT console yet.
Step 2:
Expand the registry menu from the left pane and click on Things.
Click on Register a thing or Create depending on whether you already have a ‘thing’ present.
Give the thing a name like motorRunner, proceed to click on Create.
Step 3:
Click on the thing card on the Things page that you wind up on after creating the ‘motorRunner’ thing.
Click on Interact from the left pane. Copy and save the Rest API endpoint, you will need this later.
Click on Security from the left pane and click on Create Certificate
Download 4 files from this page before you close and save them for later use:
A certificate for this thing – rename to cloud.pem.crt, note the original file name, it contains the name of your certificate. A public key A private key – rename to cloud.pem.key Root CA certificate – rename the file to root-ca.pem
For ease of communicating, I will be using the names I have asked you to rename the original file to later in the article.
Click on Activate.
Step 4:
Click on Attach a policy and then click on Create a new policy.
In the Action field, type in iot:*, in the Resource Arn field type in *, check the Allow checkbox in the Effect section.
Give the policy a name like motorRunnerPolicy, proceed to click on Create.
Step 5:
In IOT console page click on Certificates from the left pane under the Security heading.
Click on the menu button on the right top corner of the certificate that you had just created (see the name of the original file name), click on Attach Policy. Proceed to attach the policy that you just created.
Step 6:
Again click on the options menu on the top right corner of your certificate in the Certificates pane and choose Attach a thing.
Check the motorRunner thing and then click on Attach.
Configure AWS Cognito
Sign in to the Amazon Cognito console
Click on Manage Federated Identities Button.
Click on Create New Identity Pool
Create a new identity pool called Silo’s Treat.:
The identity pool we are creating must allow access to unauthenticated identities right now, so the checkbox for Enable access to unauthenticated identities option needs to be checked.
After which you’ll come to this step to select 2 roles an authenticated and unauthenticated role.
Under the Unauthenticated Role, paste the below policy, this will give you the required permissions to publish/subscribe/connect to your “thing”.
{
"Version": "2012-10-17",
"Statement": [
{
"Effect": "Allow",
"Action": [
"iot:AttachPrincipalPolicy",
"iot:CreateKeysAndCertificate"
],
"Resource": "*"
},
{
"Effect": "Allow",
"Action": "iot:Connect",
"Resource": "*"
},
{
"Effect": "Allow",
"Action": [
"iot:Subscribe"
],
"Resource": "*"
},
{
"Effect": "Allow",
"Action": [
"iot:Receive"
],
"Resource": "*"
},
{
"Effect": "Allow",
"Action": [
"iot:Publish"
],
"Resource": "XXX/homeProject_Core/req"
}
]
}
Note: homeProject_Core is the thing we want to publish onto.
Note down the identity pool ID. You specify this ID in your mobile application you create in the next section. The app uses this ID when it sends request to Amazon Cognito to request for temporary security credentials.
Disclaimer: The android app in the sample will used unauthenticated version of AWS Cognito and relevant permissions have been added for the same in this tutorial which is meant to get you started only.
Make the Android app
The Android app to connect to the service is present here: https://github.com/maingi4/TreatDropper.Android
Get Android Studio, get the code and get it on your phone. The GitHub repo’s readme will guide you through.
Code for Raspberry PI
Copy the following certificates for AWS IOT to your raspberry PI, the names below are what I mentioned in step 3 under topic setting up AWS IOT service above.
1. root-ca.pem
2. cloud.pem.key
3. cloud.pem.crt
I copied these by a relatively insecure method of uploading it to a public s3 bucket and then firing a wget command from my PI, feel free to use any copy-paste method that you like. If you use this method, don’t forget to immediately delete the certs from the public bucket after downloading them into the Pi.
Move the certificates into a folder in the PI in the path ‘/home/pi/homeAutomation/configuration/certs/’, if you change this path make sure to change the variable certRootPath in the program.py file that I have given later below.
Below is the program.py file which acts as the entry point for the program. The code does the following:
Connects to the AWS IOT service at the endpoint I mentioned in step 3 under topic setting up AWS IOT service. Make sure you put that URL in the code below. Authentication is done via the certificates we had downloaded before. Subscribes to a topic home/runMotor which is published to by our mobile app. Runs the pulse method of the motor_runner class by giving it a period of 2 seconds (motor will run for 2 seconds). Publishes a success status to the home/motorRunStatus topic which the mobile app listens to.
import time import os import motor_runner #import net_check from AWSIoTPythonSDK.MQTTLib import AWSIoTMQTTClient def run_motor(self, params, packet): motor_runner.pulse(2) myMQTTClient.publish('home/motorRunStatus', packet.payload, 0) myMQTTClient = AWSIoTMQTTClient("raspberryPiHome") #random key, if another connection using the same key is opened the previous one is auto closed by AWS IOT myMQTTClient.configureEndpoint("YOUR AWS IOT ENDPOINT HERE", 8883) certRootPath = '/home/pi/homeAutomation/configuration/certs/' myMQTTClient.configureCredentials("{}root-ca.pem".format(certRootPath), "{}cloud.pem.key".format(certRootPath), "{}cloud.pem.crt".format(certRootPath)) myMQTTClient.configureOfflinePublishQueueing(-1) # Infinite offline Publish queueing myMQTTClient.configureDrainingFrequency(2) # Draining: 2 Hz myMQTTClient.configureConnectDisconnectTimeout(10) # 10 sec myMQTTClient.configureMQTTOperationTimeout(5) # 5 sec myMQTTClient.connect() myMQTTClient.subscribe("home/runMotor", 1, run_motor) def looper(): while True: time.sleep(5) #sleep for 5 seconds and then sleep again #check_internet() looper() def function_handler(event, context): return
Motor runner file, the code does the following:
Sets the numbering system of the PI GPIO pins to ‘Board’, read this article for types of numbering. Configures pins 12 and 36 to mode output. Turns pin 12 to high and the other to low. Sleep for the number of seconds provided as input. Sets pin 12 to low.
We will understand why we are doing the above in the next topic when we make the physical circuit to run the motor.
import RPi.GPIO as GPIO from time import sleep import platform import logging def pulse(secs): if platform.system().lower()!= "windows": GPIO.setmode(GPIO.BOARD) Motor1A = 12 Motor1B = 36 GPIO.setup(Motor1A,GPIO.OUT) GPIO.setup(Motor1B,GPIO.OUT) logging.info("Turning motor on") GPIO.output(Motor1A,GPIO.HIGH) GPIO.output(Motor1B,GPIO.LOW) sleep(secs) logging.info("Stopping motor") GPIO.output(Motor1A,GPIO.LOW) GPIO.cleanup()
Copy both program.py and motor_runner.py file into your PI, we will run the program after we make the circuit.
Make the Circuit
First you need to understand the L298N motor driver that we are working with, since I myself understood it by reading this article, it is fitting that I don’t repeat that.
Now, let’s make the circuit.
1. Connect your power to the breadboard, make any power line positive
and the other negative, I would advice to use red for positive and
black for ground (negative) power connections.
2. Connect the ground of the Raspberry Pi to the ground in the breadboard.
3. Connect the positive terminal to the chip input, if the power is < 12V you will also need to add a 5V power to the power regulator enable pin.
4. Connect the motor driver’s ground to the ground in the breadboard.
5. Connect one of output’s of the motor, positive and negative to the motor input terminals, it doesn’t matter which goes where, it will simply control the direction which can be controlled via the PI anyway.
6. Connect GPIO Pins #12 and #36 to the enable pins, make sure you choose the two pins on the same side as the output of the motor driver from where the motor connections are made, read this article for finding out the numbering. The ordering doesn’t matter, this is where you can control the direction of the motor.
That’s it! Make sure the PI python program is running and push the button on the app to run the motor.
Conclusion & Notes
We just learned how to build our first IOT device, use an app to send a signal to the cloud which a device listens to in turn actuating a machine (motor in this case) to interact with the physical world.
If you are thinking of building a network of devices, I recommend using Raspberry PI as the hub and general computing device and smaller and cheaper chips like the popular Adruino for handling individual tasks. When the PI acts as a hub, you should think about using AWS Greengrass which is essentially made for the exact same thing providing support for OTA updates, running Lambda functions on the device securely etc.
If you liked this article, you can choose to follow this blog/subscribe to email alerts (floating follow button {bottom-right} or below comments in mobile) so that you know when any future posts come about.
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Joshua has expressed interest in unification clash with Wilder Joshua has expressed interest in unification clash with Wilder
Deontay Wilder's promoter believes a unification clash with Anthony Joshua would be "massive" if the heavyweight rivals waited until all world titles were at stake.
Last week, IBF champion Joshua admitted a fight with WBC holder Wilder was inevitable, and his promoter Eddie Hearn is keen for the big-hitting champions to share the ring before the end of 2017.
Joshua battles Wladimir Klitschko at Wembley Stadium on April 29, live on Sky Sports Box Office, with the vacant WBA'super' title also on the line.
Joshua will hold two world titles if he defeats Wladimir Klitschko
Wilder defends his own WBC belt against Gerald Washington on February 25, but his promotional team could consider a future fight with WBO champion Joseph Parker, before attempting to unify the division against Joshua.
Lou DiBella, who promotes Wilder, exclusively told Sky Sports: "If down the line, you're looking at Joshua and Deontay, two good looking, well spoken, massive heavyweights with tremendous credentials were to meet for a total unification of the heavyweight division - that's a massive fight."
The IBF champion will battle Klitschko in front of the biggest post-war British boxing crowd
Joshua has been building his profile in America at a joint press conference with Klitschko in New York, after attracting a crowd of 90,000 to the national stadium in London.
DiBella is fully aware of Joshua's popularity in the UK and says he has the necessary qualities to make a big impact in the States.
He clearly has tremendous ability, power, he looks the part, he's got the amateur pedigree, the gold medal. He's got the package. Lou DiBella on Anthony Joshua
"Joshua is a massive star already in the UK," said DiBella. "He clearly has tremendous ability, power, he looks the part, he's got the amateur pedigree, the gold medal. He's got the package."
Washington was named as a replacement opponent for Wilder after original challenger Andrzej Wawrzyk tested positive for a banned substance.
Wilder is preparing for his first fight since recovering from serious injuries
DiBella expects the 6'6" tall unbeaten Californian to supply a tough physical test for Wilder, who has recovered from surgery on a broken hand and torn bicep.
"He was a star college football player," said DiBella. "He's a physical specimen and he's a great athlete.
"Deontay is familiar with Washington's style, he's seen him fight. I think it's a more testing fight than Wawrzyk would have been."Full Disclosure mailing list archives
By Date By Thread mobile.facebook.com is not on HSTS preload list or sending the Strict-Transport-Security header From: Ricardo Iramar dos Santos <riramar () gmail com>
Date: Wed, 20 Jan 2016 11:24:02 -0200
Hi All, I've noticed that mobile.facebook.com domain is not on HSTS preload list or sending the Strict-Transport-Security header. All the others domains like m.facebook.com is using HSTS properly. I reported this to Facebook on 12/3/15 through the whitehat program and got the answer below. I've checked again today and it still not using HSTS. Not sure why Facebook is not protecting this domain with HSTS. Hi Ricardo, Thank you for sharing this information with us. Although this issue does not qualify as a part of our bounty program we appreciate your report. We will follow up with you on any security bugs or with any further questions we may have. Thanks, Angelo Security Facebook _______________________________________________ Sent through the Full Disclosure mailing list https://nmap.org/mailman/listinfo/fulldisclosure Web Archives & RSS: http://seclists.org/fulldisclosure/ By Date By Thread Current thread: mobile.facebook.com is not on HSTS preload list or sending the Strict-Transport-Security header Ricardo Iramar dos Santos (Jan 20)The new program, dubbed UnitedHealthcare Motion, allows you to use a Samsung Gear Fit2 Pro, Gear Sport or Garmin Vivosmart 3 to track your steps and earn up to $4 per day (for a maximum of $1,000 per year) in HSA or HRA credits if you reach the company's specific fitness goals. These include completing 500 steps within seven minutes six times per day at least an hour apart, completing 3,000 steps within 30 minutes and racking up 10,000 total steps every day. The trackers will be available at a discount (or even free) to plan participants via a dedicated page of the UnitedHealthcare website. Qualcomm is involved in keeping the data secure as it is shared with the insurer via the Motion app, as well as integrating devices that people already own.
While a program like this definitely benefits consumers both monetarily and health-wise, it's probably more about the insurance company saving money in the long run. "Studies have shown walking can be an effective way to help improve well-being and reduce medical costs," said Qualcomm's Dr. James Mault in a statement, "and we are seeing how UnitedHealthcare Motion helps people take charge of their health."The World Economic Outlook (WEO) database contains selected macroeconomic data series from the statistical appendix of the World Economic Outlook report, which presents the IMF staff's analysis and projections of economic developments at the global level, in major country groups and in many individual countries. The WEO is released in April and September/October each year.
Use this database to find data on national accounts, inflation, unemployment rates, balance of payments, fiscal indicators, trade for countries and country groups (aggregates), and commodity prices whose data are reported by the IMF.
Data are available from 1980 to the present, and the medium-term projections are given for the next 5 years. For some countries, data are incomplete or unavailable for certain years, and the projections are only available for the next two years.
World Economic Outlook on Google Public Data Explorer offers select indicators from the latest online WEO database, such as GDP growth and inflation.Cable network OCN just aired the first episode of its second romantic comedy (Meloholic) this year on November 6 but today it already announced a new romance-themed Monday-Tuesday drama with a working title That Man Oh Soo. The new series will not follow Meloholic though right after it ends next month because it will not be broadcast until March 2018. The air date is about four months away but CNBLUE’s Lee Jong-hyun and Kim So-eun have already been confirmed to play the main characters.
That Man Oh Soo is a fantasy romantic comedy that will feature “realistic love stories of youth in their 20s.” The fantasy element of the upcoming drama involves the titular character Oh Soo, who will be played by Lee Jong-hyun, someone who acts as a “cupid” and possesses “mysterious pollen” that can make two young people fall in love. The actor previously played a hardworking, warm-hearted young man in KBS2’s Lingerie Girls’ Generation. In his new drama, which will mark his first leading role in a TV series, his character is a promising IT technician and a barista who owns a cafe.
Meanwhile, Kim So-eun will be playing Seo Yu-ri, a bright, affectionate, and optimistic police officer who assumes full responsibility for her family. She will end up falling in love with Oh Soo because of the magical and “mysterious pollen.” The actress last played a lead character in SBS’s 2016-2017 weekend drama Our Gab Soon. Her other most recent dramas include Scholar Who Walks The Night (2015) and Liar Game (2014).
The filming for That Man Oh Soo will start as early as December this year for the actors and production staff to have a better working environment according to IMTV, the production company of the drama. It is unclear, however, whether it will be pre-produced completely or not.
That Man Oh Soo will be helmed by Lee Chul-min and is written by rookie screenwriter Jung Yoo-sun. It is a work that has been in preparation since over a year ago and was originally planned and developed by Reunited Worlds executive producer Lee Young-suk. The Korea Creative Content Agency will support the production of the series in recognition of its “emotional but charming story and solid composition.”
Source: 1 | 2Adidas Adipure 11pro Women's White / Silver Metallic / Flash Green
The new White / Silver Metallic / Flash Green Next-Gen Adidas Adipure 2015 Women's Soccer Cleats was unveiled in early December 2014. Adidas revealed the next-gen Adidas Adipure 11pro 2015 Football Boots with a Black Launch Colorway, while the German brand also released a fresh White / Black / Flash Orange Adidas Adipure 2015 Soccer Shoe. This is the new white Women's Adidas Adipure Launch Colorway.Designed for a closer touch and comfort, the new Adidas Adipure 2015 Boots feature a thin and soft k-leather upper. The Kangaroo leather upper of the next-gen Adidas Adipure 11pro Football Shoes provides a snug, glove-like fit.The White Adidas Adipure 11pro 2015 Women's Cleat Colorway features Silver Metallic 3 stripes and the green lettering 11pro on the heel. The trademark element of the next-gen Adidas Adipure 2015 Boots is a Flash Green / Red stripe running from the heel to forefoot area of the boot, while the line is even continued on the outsole.Adidas managed to remove stitching in the forefoot area of the new Adidas Adipure 11pro with a revolutionary support skeleton in the upper, which provides stability.The mainly white outsole of the next-gen Adidas Adipure Boots is made for comfort with smaller and more studs. To provide more comfort, the new lining of the Adidas Adipure 11pro Boots is made for a comfort fit that lasts longer.The White / Silver Metallic / Flash Green Adidas Adipure Women's Soccer Cleat is available (sizes 3.5 to 9.5) at selected retailers from December 2014.Them and Us
VI.-The Gazes 2.
Election propaganda and grocery
gift cards.
Enrique Peña Nieto allegedly bought votes with grocery store gift cards with the full knowledge of the supermarket chain in question. Refers to the #YoSoy132 movement against Enrique Peña Nieto, sparked when 131 university students organized a protest against his visit to their campus. Refers to former President Felipe Calderón busting the Mexican Electrical Workers Union (SME). Calderón teaches at Harvard now. Many Spanish speakers have noted the sexism they argue is inherent in the need to feminize and masculinize nouns and adjectives. The Zapatistas in particular look for ways to use more inclusive language, and this exchanges makes reference to that. When the boyfriend says that the Zapatistas will teach us "That we're not alone" he says "Que no estamos solos," using the masculine form of alone (solos), which, according to the rules is what one does in mixed company. So his girlfriend responds, "Ni solas," saying that women are also not alone.
2.-Gaze and listen from/towards below.Can we still choose towards where and from where to look?Can we, for example, choose between looking at those who work at the supermarket chain store, ream out the workers for being complicit in the electoral fraud[1], and publicly ridicule the orange uniforms the employees are forced to wear, or look at the employee who, after cashing out…?"Half hour," they say, mentally calculating the budget-time-from-the-metro-bus-walk."Spot me some money, Roco, don't be a jerk," he says."Ok, but come by on payday, because if not, the owner will be all over me and you'll be the one who will be spotting me money.""Ok, but it'll be when you get a cell phone, dude, because I'm working at a car wash.""Well, wash it, dude," says Roco.The three of them laugh."7," says Roco |
there’s a massive change, I think that’s an embarrassment to Arsene Wenger because he’s thinking, why didn’t this happen before? There’s a lot of things happening at Arsenal and I think that people have got the right to know what’s going on.”
The club’s hierarchy remain adamant that Wenger is the right man to take them forward. The Frenchman’s current contract expires in 2014 and a new deal is understood not to be viewed as a priority on either side at this stage.
However, it is believed that majority shareholder Stan Kroenke and chief executive Ivan Gazidis continue to adopt the position that Wenger will determine the point at which he walks away from the club.
Wenger has always insisted he “honours every contract” he signs and so the prospect of him leaving before 2014 is remote. Last night, Gazidis held a reception with around 120 supporters in which he apologised for the club’s performance at Bradford but reiterated his belief in Wenger and the club’s direction.
They will have around £40million to invest in next month’s January transfer window and are actively pursuing a number of targets including Schalke striker Klaas-Jan Huntelaar and Liverpool goalkeeper Pepe Reina, while also negotiating a second loan spell for Thierry Henry.
Several players are expected to be offloaded — probably on loan — including Andrey Arshavin and Marouane Chamakh while Wenger is hopeful of a breakthrough in talks with winger Theo Walcott. There is yet to be a resumption in dialogue between Arsenal and Walcott’s representatives with the club unwilling to meet his £100,000-a-week wage demands and assurance he will be played as a centre-forward.
Manchester United reportedly joined Liverpool and Chelsea in the chase for the 23-year-old and Wright, now a presenter of Absolute Radio’s Rock ‘N’ Roll Football Saturday show, believes he will move to Old Trafford.
“If United are in that’s it, he’s gone,” he said. “He’s not improved too much [at Arsenal] and has got the opportunity to go so why would he stay?”NYC Officials Threaten Funding of Brooklyn College Over Israel Event
In defense of Israel, liberal officials are copying Giuliani's 1999 termination of funding for a museum exhibiting "offensive" art
By Glenn Greenwald
February 05, 2013 " The Guardian " -- February 04, 2013 - On Saturday, I wrote about the numerous New York City officials (including multiple members of the US House of Representatives) who have predictably signed onto the Alan-Derwshowitz-led attack on academic freedom at Brooklyn College. This group of Israel advocates and elected officials is demanding that the college's Political Science department rescind its sponsorship of an event featuring two advocates of the BDS movement aimed at stopping Israeli occupation and settlements.
The threat to academic freedom posed by this growing lynch mob is obvious: if universities are permitted to hold only those events which do not offend state officials and "pro-Israel" fanatics such as Alan Dershowitz, then "academic freedom" is illusory. But on Sunday, that threat significantly intensified, as a ranking member of the New York City Council explicitly threatened to cut off funding for the college if his extortionate demands regarding this event are not met. From a letter to BC President Karen Gould, issued by Council Assistant Majority Leader Lew Fidler and signed by nine other members of the City Council (the full letter is embedded below):
"Among this City's diversity - and the student body of Brooklyn College - there are a significant number of people who would, and do, find this event to be offensive.... "A significant portion of the funding for CUNY schools comes directly from the tax dollars of the people of the State and City of New York. Every year, we legislators are asked for additional funding to support programs and initiatives at these schools and we fight hard to secure those funds. Every one of those dollars given to CUNY, and Brooklyn College, means one less dollar going to some other worthy purpose. We do not believe this program is what the taxpayers of our City — many of who would feel targeted and demonized by this program — want their tax money to be spent on. "We believe in the principle of academic freedom. However, we also believe in the principle of not supporting schools whose programs we, and our constituents, find to be odious and wrong."
These officials are expressly stating that no college or university is permitted to hold events that contain views that are "offensive" or which these officials "find to be odious and wrong" without having their funding terminated. How can anyone not be seriously alarmed by this? These threats are infinitely more destructive than any single academic event could ever possibly be.
Few people in New York had trouble understanding this threat when it was posed by a loathed GOP Mayor. Indeed, this current controversy is a replica of the most extreme efforts by official authoritarians to suppress ideas they dislike. In particular, New York City liberals and others vehemently objected when conservative Mayor Rudy Giuliani threatened to cut off city funding for art museums that exhibited works of art which Giuliani found offensive.
Here is what then-Mayor Rudy Giuliani said back in 1999 when he threatened, as the New York Times put it, "to cut off all city subsidies to the Brooklyn Museum of Art unless it cancels next week's opening of a British art exhibition that features, among other works, a shark suspended in a tank of formaldehyde, a bust of a man made from his own frozen blood and a portrait of the Virgin Mary stained with a clump of elephant dung":
"You don't have a right to government subsidy for desecrating somebody else's religion. And therefore we will do everything that we can to remove funding for the Brooklyn Museum until the director comes to his senses and realizes that if you are a government-subsidized enterprise, then you can't do things that desecrate the most personal and deeply held views of people in society. I mean, this is an outrageous thing to do."
The modern-day successors to Giuliani are the New York City officials now threatening the funding of Brooklyn College for exactly the same reasons and based on exactly the same rationale. Back then, liberals were furious at the GOP Mayor's bullying tactics, correctly arguing that his threat to terminate funding was a serious threat to basic freedoms; as First Amendment lawyer Floyd Abrams put it at the time:
"Punishing the Brooklyn Museum by seeking to remove its funding because the Mayor disapproves of what he perceives is the message of its art is at war with the First Amendment. The Mayor has every right to denounce the exhibition. He should understand, however, that the First Amendment limits what he can do to retaliate against art of which he disapproves."
After the Museum refused to withdraw the "offensive" exhibits and Giuliani made good on his threats, a federal judge ultimately ruled that the New York mayor "violated the First Amendment when he cut city financing and began eviction proceedings against the Brooklyn Museum of Art for mounting an exhibition that the mayor deemed offensive and sacrilegious." The judge, Nina Gershon of the US District Court in Brooklyn, wrote in her ruling ordering Giuliani to end his official attacks on the museum [emphasis added]:
"There is no federal constitutional issue more grave than the effort by government officials to censor works of expression and to threaten the vitality of a major cultural institution as punishment for failing to abide by governmental demands for orthodoxy."
The applicability of that rationale to the current controversy is obvious. Regardless of your views of BDS or Israel, the last thing anyone should want is for state officials to be able to dictate what academic events can and cannot be held on campuses. It's odious and threatening for exactly the same reason Giuliani's bullying tactics were. Some academics, such as Scott Lemieux and Kieran Healy have spoken out in defense of BC's academic freedom, but nowhere near as many as should given the threats this campaign poses to their own academic freedom. As is so often the case, when the issue is Israel, many advocates fall strangely mute.
At least back then, Giuliani was honest: he wanted to cut off funds to museums exhibiting art that he personally found offensive to his religion. By contrast, what's so noxious about the campaign aimed at BC is the glaring pretense of it all. As corrupted and dangerous as the stated "principle" is - that colleges should have their public funding terminated if they sponsor events with offensive ideas - this would never be applied consistently. Indeed, it's inconceivable to imagine this level of official mobilization on any issue other than Israel. This is about using the power of the state to suppress criticisms of and activism against the Israeli government in academia - and nothing else.
To see how true that is, just imagine if the BC Political Science department had sponsored an equally one-sided event on the BDS movement, but invited only BDS opponents and hard-core Israel defenders. Does anyone think that even a single one of these cowardly, dishonest political officials would have uttered a peep of protest on the ground that colleges shouldn't sponsor one-sided events concerning controversial issues or which air views that people in the City and the student body find "offensive"? Please. To ask the question is to mock it.
Indeed, as I noted on Saturday, Alan Dershowitz himself - who offends large numbers of people - has spoken without opposition at this very same Brooklyn College at the invitation of the Political Science department and not one of these city officials spoke out against that or threatened the college's funding over it. Beyond that, when a controversy erupted last year at the University of Pennsylvania over a pro-BDS event sponsored by students, that university's Political Science department (which had pointedly refused to sponsor the pro-BDS event) formally sponsored an event for Dershowitz to speak without any opposition, and nobody raised these fabricated, disingenuous concerns over the need to only hold "balanced" events and for academic departments to avoid "controversial" stances. That includes Dershowitz, who claimed to me on Friday that he "would oppose a pro Israel event being sponsored by a department" but - needless to say - never objected, at least not publicly, when the UPenn Political Science department did exactly that by inviting him to speak about Israel without opposition.
Plainly, this entire controversy has only one "principle" and one purpose: to threaten, intimidate and bully professors, school administrators and academic institutions out of any involvement in criticisms of Israel. The claim that this is driven by the belief that colleges should avoid taking positions on controversial issues is a ridiculous joke. Yesterday, the besieged BC College President Gould wrote a letter to the school's Hillel organization about the controversy, and in it, she stated:
"You have asked that I state unequivocally the college's position on the BDS movement, and I have no hesitation in doing so. As president of Brooklyn College, I can assure you that our college does not endorse the BDS movement nor support its call for boycott, divestment, and sanctions against Israel, nor do I personally."
Do you think a single New York City official or Dershowitz or anyone else will object to her official opposition to BDS on behalf of herself and the college, by claiming that this makes BC students who support BDS feel unwelcome and that university officials shouldn't take sides in controversial political disputes? Of course not, because those "principles" are pure pretext. Nobody believes or cares about the notion that colleges and professors, in general, should avoid controversial issues or refrain from sponsoring one-sided academic events (which they do constantly: here's an article on a speech I gave last year at UPenn, speaking alone, expressing many controversial views, at an event formally sponsored by the school's Religious Studies Department; here's an article where I did the same at an event sponsored by the University of Missouri Law School last year). As Political Science Professor Scott Lemieux put it, this campaign poses "threats to academic freedom, based on 'principles' nobody believes."
This is about only one controversial issue (Israel) and about suppressing only one side of that issue (criticisms of and activism against Israeli occupation and settlements). Just as it is extraordinary that a nominated Defense Secretary in the US has to take repeated vows of fealty to Israel and spend most of his confirmation hearing discussing not the US but that foreign country, it is truly extraordinary to watch "liberal" officials in the largest city in the US expressly threaten the funding of a college for the crime of holding an event that is critical of Israel (MSNBC's Chris Hayes, who admires - and has previously had on his show - several of the New York members of Congress who have joined this Dershowitz-led campaign, yesterday lambasted their conduct aimed at BC as "outrageous and genuinely chilling").
BC students and groups are (and should be) free to host as many anti-BDS events as they want and invite all the speakers in the world who support Israeli occupations and settlement expansions, despite how uncomfortable that might make Palestinian and Muslim students (and the BC PoliSci Department has made clear they would likely sponsor such events if asked). That's what free speech and academic freedom are about: the right to freely air and advocate for any and all viewpoints, even ones that "offend" people. Few things threaten those critical values more than elected officials threatening to punish colleges for hosting such events. But that's exactly what is taking place right now in New York.
Letter from Lewis Fidler to BC President Karen GouldThis story was rebroadcast as part of our best-of 2015 series. It was originally reported in July 2015.
In the next couple of years, Kansas education will face some of its most unstable times ever.
The Legislature has cut classroom funding. There’s no school finance formula and the the whole system may be thrown into chaos depending on what the state Supreme Court does.
All of this is all taking a toll on recruiting and retaining teachers, and there's mounting evidence that Kansas teachers are becoming disenchanted. And out-of-state districts are taking advantage.
A billboard along the Kansas Turnpike eight miles east of Lawrence reads: Independence Missouri School District. Hiring teachers for 2015-2016.
"Yes, we do have two billboards in Kansas, along major areas where people drive," says Independence Superintendent Dr. Dale Herl. He also has another billboard near Wichita.
His district is growing by hundreds of students a year and for 2015-2016 he needed a lot of teachers fast.
Turns out, there seems to be plenty from Kansas looking for jobs elsewhere.
"I think teachers have done more with less for a number of years and it does wear on you," say Julie Wilson who coordinates teacher recruitment and retention in Kansas and maintains the website kansasteachingjobs.com.
Right now there are some 700 openings in the state for teachers and non-teaching staff. Wilson says that’s double the number of openings they usually have this time of year.
Kansas teachers, she says, just don’t feel supported.
"You know, the expectations have remained the same if not more and our funding hasn’t matched that," she says.
Wilson and other educators say it’s hard to fill teaching jobs in Kansas right now because not only has funding not kept up with needs, but how schools will be funded is up in the air.
The block grants passed by the legislature this year have been found unconstitutional and that funding scheme is now in the hands of the state Supreme Court.
Revenue continues to lag so the budget in Kansas next year will be challenging, at best.
But it’s not just the budget.
The legislature has stripped Kansas teachers of tenure protection and this session tried to severely limit their bargaining power.
That’s an ugly combination for many young teachers, like Morgan Rodecap who’s teaching math this summer at Pioneer Ridge Middle School in Independence, Missouri.
"But a lot of, like, my Missouri friends as we’re becoming new teachers and getting our degrees, we’re not looking in Kansas," he says.
Rodecap says her goal coming out of graduate school was to return to her hometown of Topeka to teach.
She was actually offered a job in Junction City, Kansas but because of an uncertain budget they couldn’t tell her how much she would be paid.
So she took a job in Missouri instead.
"It’s definitely sad that I can’t be where family is and it’s angering that this kind of thing is affecting kids," Rodecap says.
Data from the Missouri Department of Elementary and Secondary Education suggests there is indeed a migration of teachers from Kansas to Missouri.
In 2011, before huge tax cuts were enacted, only 85 applications for Missouri teaching licenses were filed with a Kansas address.
In the next three years, as school budgets were slashed, those applications doubled.
During that same period, applications for Missouri teaching licenses from Arkansas and Iowa remained steady.
"It’s hard to know how big an impact those issues are but they’re certainly things that come up," says Mark Tallman with the Kansas Association of School Boards. He just finished a cross-Kansas trip where he met with educators in dozens of school districts.
School leaders, he says, are worried about the long-term stability and support for education in the state.
"But certainly Kansas has gone through the last few years, I think, what many people see as an unusual amount of instability, or at least potential instability," Tallman says.
Even in the Shawnee Mission School District, among the most stable school districts anywhere, there seems to be concern among employees.
The district confirms that 250 teachers, staff and administrators have retired in the past 12 months.
That’s much higher then normal, the district says, because many took the district-offered early retirement.
Why? Many educators say they wanted out before changes were made to the Kansas retirement system, making it less generous and, says Independence Superintendent Dale Herl, making Missouri more attractive.
"Is there a correlation of the number of teachers leaving Kansas and the atmosphere? I would have to think so. If the same situation was happening in Missouri, I would think that the same thing would be happening," says Herl.
The real fear is the long-term effect on Kansas education. School districts now have to worry about a shrinking pool of young teachers at a time of massive baby boomer retirements. Meaning the true damage might not be felt for several years.
KCUR intern Julia Szabo contributed to this report.A trio of Apple patents are getting a lot of attention today, fueling speculation that attachable iPhone camera lenses and solar-powered MacBooks are in the company’s future.
While it’s fun to admire Apple’s inventions, Apple in all likelihood isn’t bringing these ideas to market. Apple applies for and is granted new patents on a regular basis–just skim through the posts on Patently Apple to get a sense of the volume–but any given filing is usually a poor predictor of what Apple’s doing next.
Here’s a sampling of crazy Apple patents over the years that haven’t become Apple products: an activity monitor for skis and snowboards, clothes that tell you when to buy new clothes, NFC-based workflow sharing, touch-sensitive gloves, iPhones and iPads with built-in projectors and touch screens that know which finger you’re using.
U.S. Patent and Trademark Office
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The patents that actually do foretell Apple products, such as this one from 2004 on a tablet-like computer, are buried among countless others that lead nowhere. And in some cases, patents that are tied to actual Apple products aren’t filed until around the same time as the actual product launch. That was the case with the Apple Remote, whose patent was filed five days after its 2005 debut, and with an iPhone interface patent filed months after the January 2007 reveal.
A New York Times story from a couple years ago describes how Apple started increasing its patent output in 2006 as a defensive tool. Apple had just been forced to pay $100 million to Singapore-based Creative Technology over a broad “portable music player” patent, prompting Steve Jobs to “patent it all” when it came to the iPhone. “His attitude was that if someone at Apple can dream it up, then we should apply for a patent, because even if we never build it, it’s a defensive tool,” Nancy R. Heinen, Apple’s general counsel until 2006, told the Times.
Perhaps that explains why an impractical idea like a solar-powered MacBook can find its way into an Apple patent application. It’s a frivolous add-on given that you’d need to keep the laptop outside or near a window just to build up a charge. Still, Apple has been covering its bases by filing solar-related patents since at least 2008, as MacRumors points out. As for attachable smartphone camera lenses, the idea is already being done by Sony and Olloclip, and it’s hard to picture Apple getting into that business instead of just trying to improve the iPhone camera itself.
Besides, we’re all better off with Apple leaving most of its dreamed-up ideas in the filing cabinet. The company’s tendency to avoid gimmicks and focus on a small product lineup is one of its greatest virtues–though I’d still line up for an Apple virtual reality headset.
Contact us at editors@time.com.Wish I did my Ph.D. in the U.S.
Published February 01 2017
By Biswapriya Misra
With an offer letter in my hand from one of the most prestigious education and research institutions in India, the Indian Institute of Technology Kharagpur, I was excited. But the prospect of getting a doctorate degree from India also gave me the feeling of settling for less. That feeling was bolstered further when I arrived in the U.S. as a postdoctoral researcher.
The offer from IIT Kharagpur was enviable, at least to my fellow botanists, friends and family. I had a master’s degree from a top-notch university, but as it was a state institution, it didn’t have the same clout as IIT Kharagpur. My admission interview went nearly perfectly. My written examination scores were nice and strong. I had secured fellowships to support my research in plant biotechnology for more than five years. But I had to work with limited laboratory resources. I now realize why I had the feeling of settling for less: I didn’t do my Ph.D. in the most perfect place!
I’m comparing my experiences to what I see American students go through. I am startled by the amount of resources and technologies available to them. I feel that I did not get any of the things American graduate students get, such as access to resources, acquisition of skills, development of scientific street-smarts, opportunities to attend quality workshops and symposia, teaching experiences, and so on.
I feel I arrived late to many things they take for granted. I feel I have a lot to learn and assimilate.
For example, during class lectures in the U.S., I saw research manuscripts from journals, like Nature, the Journal of Biological Chemistry and Science, in the hands of undergraduate students. I did not have any access to any of those journals back in India. I hadn’t even heard their names until toward the end of my master’s degree! All I had were textbooks and the Machiavellian system of Indian education. In that system, I had to memorize passages prescribed in the syllabus, write a final exam at the end of one or two years, and come out with flying colors. I was completely unaware of the journals in which the research on which these textbooks were based was first reported! Seeing these undergraduates reading research articles, understanding them, summarizing the findings and writing reports astonished me. The college system was geared toward learning about research firsthand.
Another incident drove home how different my education was. During a postdoctoral stint at the University of Florida, Gainesville, my principal investigator got many applications from undergraduate students to do research for a few months. Much to my bewilderment, I was offered an undergraduate research assistant. I mentioned my confusion to my PI. I couldn’t understand how an undergraduate could be allowed to work on a project funded by the National Science Foundation by my side. Back in India, I was not allowed to touch an autoclave until I started my master’s degree, and I definitely was not allowed to touch a mass spectrometer at a core facility during my Ph.D.! I was surprised that an undergraduate student was getting the same opportunity on a project as me, who already had a Ph.D.
I realized two things. The first thing was that in the American academic system everyone has a right to learn. The second thing was that a Ph.D. isn’t a prerequisite to do serious research. I looked at undergraduates and, for that matter, lab managers and technicians with fresh eyes. They were immensely talented, highly successful and contributing in significant ways to the progress of science.
I wish I had done my Ph.D. at a top-notch school in the U.S. or the European Union. I probably would have been way ahead of where I am now. But the one thing I don’t regret about my Ph.D. is the mental and emotional strength I received by doing it. I survived my Ph.D. “catastrophe” because my PI was immensely supportive. I was strong to endure that five-year period of pain and train myself to secure an academic career in genomics and metabolomics. A faculty member at the university where I did my master’s degree once suggested that I go for another “good” doctorate degree in Germany or the U.S. But I politely declined. A Ph.D. is not worth doing twice!Deia Schlosberg, the producer of my new climate change documentary, How to Let Go of the World and Love All the Things Climate Can't Change, was arrested Tuesday in Walhalla, North Dakota, for filming a protest action against a pipeline bringing Canadian tar sands oil into the U.S.
The action was conducted by Climate Direct Action, but Deia was not part of the group and did not participate in the action, only filmed it. Her film footage was confiscated and she is currently being held in jail.
According to Reuters:
A spokeswoman for the Pembina County Sheriff's Office confirmed that Schlosberg was being held at the jail but declined to release any further information, referring calls from a Reuters reporter to State's Attorney Ryan Bialas. Bialas could not immediately be reached for comment on Wednesday.
Deia Schlosberg accepting the award in the Documentary category for "Backyard" at the 35th College Television Awards in 2014. Emmys
Deia is an award-winning filmmaker in her own right, and How to Let Go of the World, which she produced, is the third film in the Oscar-nominated, Emmy-winning Gasland series.
Here's my Facebook live video from Tuesday after I learned about Deia's arrest:
Arrest of journalists, filmmakers and others witnessing and reporting on citizen protests against fossil fuel infrastructure amid climate change is part of a worrisome, growing pattern. Amy Goodman, host of Democracy Now, was arrested last month for covering Native American-led protests of the Dakota Access Pipeline. The actress Shailene Woodley was arrested and jailed this week while leaving a protest at a construction site for the Dakota Access Pipeline. She was singled out and was told by police that she was arrested because she was well known and has 40,000 people watching her Facebook page.
Journalism is not a crime, it is a responsibility. The actions of the North Dakota police force are not just a violation of the climate, but a violation of the constitution.Source: U.S. Energy Information Administration, U.S. Energy Information Administration, Drilling Productivity Report
Tight oil production in the United States increased from 2007 through April 2015, based on estimates in EIA's Drilling Productivity Report (DPR), and accounted for more than half of total U.S. oil production in 2015. Tight oil growth has been driven by increasing initial production rates from tight wells in regions analyzed in the DPR. As drilling techniques and technology improve, producers are able to extract more oil during the initial months of production from new wells.
The average new well in each of these regions produces more oil than previous wells drilled in the same region, a trend that has continued for nine consecutive years. The increasing prevalence of hydraulic fracturing and horizontal drilling, along with improvements in well completions and the ability to drill longer laterals, has greatly improved well productivity. This trend can be seen in the continued increase in initial production rates since 2007, and it has allowed production in major shale basins to be fairly resilient despite high decline rates common to drilling and producing in tight formations and, since 2014, the declining number of rigs drilling for oil.
As falling global oil prices led to significant reductions in rig counts and well completions in all DPR regions, remaining rigs are concentrated in high-producing areas. The total number of rigs in DPR regions has fallen from a high of 1,309 rigs in October 2014 to 475 in December 2015, a decrease of 64%, while the production levels in those months have declined by only 8% from their peak in March 2015. Production estimates in DPR regions represent a subset of total U.S. crude oil production. More comprehensive data are available in EIA's Petroleum Supply Monthly.
Source: U.S. Energy Information Administration, U.S. Energy Information Administration, Drilling Productivity Report
High decline rates over the first year or two of production from tight oil plays mean that more new wells are required than in nontight formations to offset production declines from legacy wells. As the rig count in these regions continues to decline because of low oil prices, there are not enough new wells to overcome the decline from legacy wells. Tight oil production in three of the four most productive regions (Eagle Ford, Bakken, and Niobrara) began to decline during 2015 as rig counts have fallen near or below the relatively low levels during 2009.
Only in the Permian region has the significant reduction in rig count not resulted in lower production. This outcome is because most of the rigs that left the region were vertical rigs, whereas the remaining active horizontal rigs continue to target low-permeability formations similar to those in the Bakken and Eagle Ford. Additionally, unlike the other regions discussed, the Permian has a large number of nontight (conventional) wells. Although these wells do not produce as much as horizontal wells, they have slower production decline rates and thus do not need as many new wells each month to compensate for legacy declines. However, the most recent DPR shows the total rig count in the Permian falling below 200 rigs for the first time since 2010, and production declines are likely to occur in the near future.
Principal contributors: Michael Mobilia, Jozef Lieskovsky, Richard YanStory highlights Families were told to leave their valuables and "go out with only the clothes on you"
ISIS had decreed that Christians had to convert, pay extra taxes or "face death by the sword"
On Friday, ISIS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi gave Christians in Mosul one day to leave
Just days after the militant group the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria said they killed hundreds of Syrians, dozens of Iraqi Christian families are now fleeing the ISIS-controlled city of Mosul, hoping to avoid a similar fate.
On Friday, the al Qaeda splinter group issued an ultimatum to Iraqi Christians living in Mosul -- by Saturday at noon (5 a.m. ET), they must convert to Islam, pay a fine or face "death by the sword."
A total of 52 Christian families left the city of Mosul early Saturday morning, with an armed group prohibiting some of them from taking anything but the clothes on their backs.
"They told us, 'You to leave all of your money, gold, jewelry and go out with only the clothes on you,'" Wadie Salim told CNN.
Images obtained exclusively by CNN show that the phrase "property of ISIS" scrawled in black paint on a number of the homes that were abandoned.
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Some of the families headed for Irbil -- which is currently controlled by Kurdish forces -- and others toward the Dohuk province. The majority went to Dohuk, which is 140 kilometers (87 miles) north of Mosul.
"We did not know how to act," said another Mosul resident, Um Nazik. "Are we going to get killed?"
ISIS was able to take over large swaths of land due to the lack of centralized authority in both Iraq and war-torn Syria. The Sunni militants hope to establish an Islamic state throughout the region it currently controls.
Salman al-Farisi, the ISIS-appointed governor of Mosul, declared that any family that planned to on staying in Mosul and not to converting to Islam would be required to pay 550,000 Iraqi dinar (about $470).
Letters distributed to Christians in Mosul in recent days said ISIS's leader, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, agreed to allow those who didn't embrace Islam or pay a special jizya tax to leave.
ISIS is notorious for its brutality -- the group is so violent that al Qaeda has attempted to distance itself from its former affiliate.
On Thursday in Syria's Homs province, the militant Sunni group killed 270 people after storming and seizing the Shaer gas field, the group said.What should one make of the proposed Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership or TTIP?
"Hurrah!" was my first reaction. What could be better than free trade between hundreds of millions of people on both sides of the Atlantic? Think how much better we might all be if that network of specialisation and exchange called the free market were to stretch from California to the Carpathians.
Alas, as so often where big government is concerned, things aren't quite what they seem. You see TTIP isn't really about free trade.
If it were, then there would be remarkably little to negotiate. If it was legal to sell something in Idaho, it would be legal to buy it in Essex. No regulation. No tariffs. Such a trade agreement could be done and dusted in a day.
Instead what TTIP does is extend the European Single Market model to transatlantic trade. This would mean that rather than freeing up trade, rules would be introduced whereby it is only possible to produce and sell things if they comply with a single standard.
Far from greater economic freedom, under such a system producers start to need permission to produce things. Note how every aspect of economic life the European Single Market touches gets swathed in red tape.
Worse, since permission is needed to produce and sell things, every vested interest begins to lobby to have the rules written to their advantage. Instead of big businesses trying to persuade willing customers to buy their products, they spend their marketing budgets paying lobbyists to rig the rules against the competition and the customer.
It is precisely because the various vested interests are trying to cut cozy deals behind closed doors through TTIP that the negotiations are taking ages.
TTIP is not about free trade. It is crony corporatism at its worst.
Of course, if Britain was to leave the EU, and the cozy corporatist cartel called Brussels, we could have genuine free trade agreements. Not only with the EU and the United States, but with China, India and much if the rest of the world.
"But we need to be in the EU to strike such deals", claim the various vested interests. Nonsense. Trade does not depend on the might of your public administration or the grandeur of your technocrats.
Trade happens when a person in one country produces something that someone in another wants to buy. That holds true weather you are in a country of over one billion people or under a million. And it explains why tiny Iceland now has a free trade deal with China.The Berlin interior senator has now asked German visa authorities to reconsider their decision to deny Simran Sodhi a visa extension at the start of May.
The 27-year-old, who moved to Germany in 2008, has worked as an integration guide helping immigrants find their feet in a deprived district of Berlin since January.
Yet after six years in the country, the German visa authorities (Ausländerbehörde) sent her a letter saying she must leave by the end of May.
In their final ruling, the authorities said that as Sodhi holds a Masters degree, she is overqualified for her current position, where she helps newly-arrived immigrants find accommodation and employment in the south-east Berlin district of Treptow-Köpenick.
Sodhi is also being underpaid in her state-funded job, the authorities found, adding that there existed no "public interest" in her continued employment.
Outraged at this treatment, Sodhi's colleagues at the "With Wings and Roots" film and education project launched a petition on Monday demanding she be allowed stay and continue her work.
"Simran's application... hinged on her having graduated from a German university," Sodhi's colleague at the project Christina Antonakos-Wallace told The Local.
"As such, the permit is tied to working in one's field of study. In the Ausländerbehörde's decision, they imply that working as a social worker with migrants and refugees is not an appropriate job for someone with a Masters in social sciences. This is something we find ridiculous," she added.
“We consider the actions of the authorities extremely contradictory,” reads the text accompanying the petition, which by Wednesday lunchtime had gathered over 33,000 signatures. “The Berlin Senate offers only limited financial resources for this [integration] work.
“Therefore, Simran's employer cannot pay her more. The order that Simran must leave Germany because of this contradiction is absurd."
At the same time, the Treptow-Köpenick district authority and the district's Centre for Democracy sent letters to Berlin's Senator for the Interior Frank Henkel appealing to him to step in on her behalf.
Pressure grew as opposition politicians flocked to the cause on Tuesday, when Henkel issued a statement calling for a review of the case.
Although the Ausländerbehorde had done an acceptable job, said Henkel, he did not support their assessment of whether or not Sodhi's work served the public interest.
"It would be in my view a false signal if the impression was given that Berlin is penalizing qualifications and public engagement,” he said.
"In my view there is a great interest in finding a solution for the party concerned. But that has to happen in accordance with the applicable law. If there's a way that she can continue her job we will try to facilitate this."
Sodhi also speaks Hindi, Urdu, English and German in her work and also leads workshops for young people and adults facing discrimination and racism problems.
With all parties hoping for a solution, Green politician Ramona Pop told regional broadcaster rbb that forcing Sodhi to leave Germany was a ridiculous idea.
"It gets even better when the expulsion is justified by a too-low income which is paid by the Berlin state as an employer,” she said sarcastically. “Then it just becomes Absurdistan."
"We have been incredibly happy about the support the petition has received," petition author Antonakos-Wallace told |
2013.
Microsoft’s mobile platform Windows Phone is still massively outperformed by both Android and iOS in terms of global market share, though recent figures suggest that the OS’s fortunes are on the rise.
Reaction from shareholders to the possible ousting of Gates have been mixed. Todd Lowenstein, a portfolio manager at HighMark Capital Management, which owns Microsoft shares, described it as “long overdue”, whilst Kim Caughey Forrest, a senior analyst at Fort Pitt Capital Group suggested that Gates should in fact be returned to a large role.
"I've thought that the company has been missing a technology visionary," Forrest said. "Bill (Gates) would fit the bill." This sentiment has been echoed by others including tech writer Farhad Manjoo.
Writing for The Independent and Slate, Manjoo argues that Gates should be re-appointed as CEO, saying: “Only he has the institutional authority to liberate Microsoft from the Windows/Office golden noose. Only he could outline some new plan for the firm and command the troops to get in line.”
(additional reporting by agencies)The perils of opening impossible packaging: FOUR IN TEN of us have suffered an injury while opening everyday goods
Two in three consumers have been frustrated by difficult packaging
One in 50 were forced to fetch a hammer to get to their goods
Hard clean: Oral B's Vitality electric toothbrush was one of the products which proved most difficult to open
It's difficult to hurt yourself with a toothbrush – and almost impossible with a crumpet.
But try tackling the stubborn packaging they come in and you could end up as one of the four in ten who have suffered injuries while opening everyday products.
Consumer champion Which? recorded the number of shoppers who have ended up maimed by plastic packs, cans or jars in the last two years.
The watchdog now wants manufacturers to ensure their items are simpler to open.
A survey of 2,000 people suggests two in three – 67 per cent – have been frustrated by difficult packaging.
Nine in ten found it necessary to use scissors, two in three resorted to knives and about one in 50 fetched a hammer to bash their way into a pack.
Some elderly people even waited to ask the postman to open jars, while around one in four said they had changed what they eat to avoid certain products.
Hard plastic moulded packs presented the greatest problem, while bottles of bleach and mouthwash, packs of crumpets and Brillo pads also created difficulties.
Perhaps most ironic of all was a pack of scissors sold by WH Smith.
A Which? spokesman said: ‘They’re held in place under the moulded plastic by a cable tie, which means you will actually need to use scissors to cut your scissors free.’
The moulded plastic clamshell holding an Oral B Vitality White & Clean electric toothbrush was described as ‘hellish’ to open.
Which? said it took ‘muscle and ingenuity’ to get at packs of Brillo Mr Muscle soap pads, which come with a peel off top.
And prising off the tamper proof cap on Listerine mouthwash while trying to break the plastic seal was difficult.
But Which? said its entire testing panel was ‘red faced with exertion’ trying to grip and pull apart a pack of Warburtons crumpets.
One shopper complained: ‘I’m a 30-year-old male who goes to the gym a lot... but trying to open the plastic wrapping on these just ends up in frustration.’
Key-opened corned beef cans, New Covent Garden soup cartons, bottles of bleach from Morrisons, Hartleys jam jars and razor packs were also difficult to get to grips with.Yemeni rebels killed their erstwhile ally Ali Abdullah Saleh, the country's former president and strongman, as their forces battled for control of the capital, Sanaa, officials said. The collapse of their alliance throws Yemen's nearly 3-year-old civil war into unpredictable new chaos.
The circumstances of Saleh's death were unclear but Houthi officials said their forces caught up with him as he tried to flee Sanaa.
A video circulating online purported to show Saleh's body, his eyes open but glassy, motionless with a gaping head wound, as he was being carried in a blanket by rebel fighters chanting "God is great" who then dump him into a pickup truck. Blood stained his shirt under a dark suit.
It was a grisly end for a figure who was able to rule the impoverished and unstable country for more than three decades and remained a powerhouse even after he was ousted in a 2011 Arab Spring uprising. His death recalled another Arab leader killed in the midst of his own country's uprising, Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi, whose body was shown in a video being abused by rebels who killed in him 2011.
Saleh's death was announced by the rebels, known as Houthis, who have been fighting Saleh's forces for the past week. Two of Saleh's associates have confirmed and a third official from the government of Yemen's internationally recongnized president, Abed Rabbo Mansour Hadi, has also confirmed.
"The leader of treason has been killed," Houthis' TV network al-Masriah said.
Saleh allied with the Houthis, and the support of his loyalist military units was key to helping the Houthis overrun the capital, Sanaa, in 2014, driving out Hadi's government. But in recent months, the alliance frayed amid Houthi suspicions Saleh was leaning toward the Saudi-led coalition backing Hadi.
Hani Mohammed / AP In this Sept. 3, 2012, photo, former Yemeni President Ali Abdullah Saleh speaks during a ceremony marking the 30th anniversary of his General People's Congress party in Sanaa, Yemen. In this Sept. 3, 2012, photo, former Yemeni President Ali Abdullah Saleh speaks during a ceremony marking the 30th anniversary of his General People's Congress party in Sanaa, Yemen. (Hani Mohammed / AP) (Hani Mohammed / AP)
Hadi's forces, trying to take advantage of the collapse of the alliance, announced they would march on Sanaa.
But even without Saleh's loyalists, the rebels remain a powerful force and it is unclear how much the break with Saleh weakens them. Over the past year, the Houthis had steadily undermined Saleh and reduced their need for him, winning military commanders over to their side and boosting their own forces.
A major question now will be whether Saleh's loyalists — and tribes that support him — can rally to fight the Houthis after his death.
Several Houthi military officials said Saleh was killed as he headed along with top party leaders from Sanaa to his hometown of Sanhan, nearby. Houthi fighters followed him in 20 armored vehicles, attacked and killed him and almost all those with him, the officials said, speaking on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to talk to the press. A Houthi media official, Abdel-Rahman al-Ahnomi told the Associated Press that Houthi fighters killed Saleh as he tried to flee to Saudi Arabia though the province of Marib, to the east of the capital.
The Saudi-led coalition had hoped that Saleh's break with the Houthis would be a turning point, isolating the rebels. Over the past days, fighter jets from the Saudi-led coalition pounded Houthis positions, throwing support behind Saleh and fueling divisions with Houthis. Hadi's government had expressed willingness to turn "a new page" with whoever stands against the rebels.
The fighting left Sanaa divided. The Houthis dominate the northern part of the city, while Saleh's forces hold the southern part, with much of the current fighting concentrated around the Political District, home to ministries and foreign embassies. The Houthis appeared to be targeting the homes of Saleh's family, political allies and commanders.
Civilians living in the area are largely cut off from the outside world.
Yemenis huddled in basements across Sanaa overnight as airstrikes echoed across the city. Suze van Meegen, Sanaa-based protection and advocacy adviser for the Norwegian Refugee Council, said the violence left aid workers trapped inside their homes and was "completely paralyzing humanitarian operations."
"No one is safe in Sana'a at the moment. I can hear heavy shelling outside now and know it is too imprecise and too pervasive to guarantee that any of us are safe," she said.
"The night was tough," Robert Mardini, the regional director of the International Committee of the Red Cross, posted on his Twitter account. "Massive urban clashes with heavy artillery and airstrikes. Yemenis stuck in their homes, too scared to go out. Reduced access to water, health care, food and fuel."
In southern Sanaa's Fag Attan neighborhood, the Houthis used tanks, artillery, and anti-aircraft guns to try to take out snipers loyal to Saleh, damaging or destroying several buildings.
Residents said the night was shattered by the sounds of gunfire and children screaming.
"It's like horror movies," said Bushra, a local woman who asked that her last name not be published for fear of retribution. "I have lived through many wars but nothing like this."
Witnesses said the bodies of slain civilians and fighters littered the streets, as no ambulances were able to reach the area. The ICRC says at least 125 people have been killed and some 240 wounded in Sanaa since the fighting began Wednesday.
Jamie McGoldrick, of the U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, described the fighting in Sanaa as "another dark chapter of life here." Speaking from Sanaa, McGoldrick said that humanitarian agencies are close to the front lines and that aid workers are also sheltering in basements. He called for a humanitarian pause to the fighting to allow civilians to escape.
During his more than 30 years in power, Saleh was known as the man who "dances on the heads of snakes" for his mastery of shifting alliances, playing both sides or flipping sides in the multiple conflicts tearing apart Yemen.
In the 2000s, he was a key ally of the U.S. in the fight against al-Qaida, taking millions of dollars in American aid to hunt down the group's branch — even as he was accused of striking alliances with the militants and using them against his own enemies. During his rule, he fought multiple wars against the Houthis in northern Yemen, only to side with them against his own former vice president-turned-successor, Hadi, after he lost power.1 SHARES Share Tweet
A New York Times article published on May 22nd reports on how the economic misery inflicted on Greeks has forced many into prostitution in order to survive. Here is an excerpt:
With the country heading into the fifth year of economic depression, and unemployment near 60 percent for young people, greater numbers of women and men are offering their bodies for next to nothing to get any scrap of money. According to the National Center for Social Research, the number of people selling sex has surged 150 percent in the last two years.Many prostitutes have been selling their services for as little as 10 to 15 euros, a price that has shrunk along with the income of clients afflicted by the crisis. Many more prostitutes are taking greater health risks by having unprotected sex, which sells for a premium. Still more are subject to violence and rape.
There are two ways to respond to what is happening in Greece and reported in the above article. One way, the way I respond, is to cite the fact that people are being driven into prostitution by economic hardship as evidence that we need to abolish the economic inequality that leads to this economic hardship, because being forced into prostitution is a terrible social injustice akin to slavery.
Abolishing this economic hardship does not entail making prostitution illegal or supporting the terrible working conditions of prostitutes. Nor does it entail stigmatizing people who are driven into prostitution. In fact, I propose that we refer to prostitutes as “People Unjustly Driven by Economic Hardship into Prostitution” or, for short, “PUDEPs” in a manner analogous to the way academics refer to categories of people such as Men Who Have Sex With Men (MSM) or People With AIDS (PWA). Keep this in mind in what follows.
The other way to respond is the way that Hillary Clinton and Oprah Winfrey and George Soros (who founded the “Open Society Foundations” mentioned in the article cited below) respond. It is the way that the liberal ideologues of the ruling class respond. It is the way that the people who are causing the economic hardship in Greece and elsewhere and who are imposing savage austerity that drives people into prostitution, respond. This response is discussed here in “Sex Workers, Oprah, and Hillary: Women Who Deliver.” The ruling class response to women being forced into prostitution is to say essentially this:
There is nothing wrong with being a prostitute. We should stop stigmatizing prostitutes by calling them prostitutes. We should call them ‘sex workers’ in the ‘sex worker industry’ and we should view occupation in this industry as no less legitimate and respectable than occupation in any other industry and we should view sex workers the same way we view teachers and electricians and hairdressers and autoworkers etc.The only problem in society in this regard is that sex workers don’t have good enough working conditions and they are wrongly oppressed by police who arrest them for prostitution when prostitution should not be a crime in the first place. Aside from these problems, there is, with respect to the rise of prostitution in Greece, nothing bad happening at all. In fact, it is fortunate for the Greeks that the new and growing sex worker industry is thriving and offering employment to so many people who need jobs. This shows that the economic system we have is wonderful because it creates new industries to provide employment when necessary.
The liberal ruling class response is designed to deflect attention away from the wrongness of the economic inequality that causes the economic hardship that drives people into prostitution. The liberal elite hope that their support for better working conditions for prostitutes and their opposition to making prostitutes criminals under the law and their concern for not stigmatizing prostitutes will make people forget about the wrongness of the economic hardship that drives people into prostitution. They hope it will make people forget that the vast majority of prostitutes in the world do it only to survive, that they would otherwise never offer their bodies to be used for sex by strangers, and that they feel humiliated by having been forced into prostitution and don’t want their children to ever know what they do for a living.
The ruling elite are making an alliance with “sex worker activists” with an implicit deal: The elite will support making prostitution legal and improving working conditions for a minority of prostitutes, and in exchange the “sex worker activists” will never talk about the wrongness of the economic inequality of our society that drives most prostitutes involuntarily into prostitution.
What the ruling elite is doing is as if slave owners in the time of slavery in the United States had insisted that people call slaves “agricultural workers” in order not to stigmatize them, and insisted that there was nothing wrong with slavery, now called “agricultural work,” insisted that it should not be made illegal, and asserted that the only thing that needed to be done was to ensure that working conditions of “agricultural workers” be improved. How would the abolitionist movement have responded to THAT? The same way we should respond to the ruling elite’s “just call them ‘sex workers'” ploy.
Like the abolitionists during slavery, we should focus on abolishing the fundamental wrongness, which today is class inequality including its economic inequality. We should respond, in other words, as revolutionaries. This is precisely what the likes of Hillary Clinton want to prevent. They want us to think that the only choice in this context is between a) making prostitution illegal and keeping economic inequality or b) making prostitution a legal “respectable” occupation and keeping economic inequality. The revolutionary approach is to reject both of these ruling-class endorsed terrible alternatives.
What would “sex with strangers” be like in a genuine egalitarian society as described in Thinking about Revolution? Here’s what I think. People, first of all, would enjoy equally, according to need, all of the fruits of the economy–a “sharing economy not based on money”–if they contributed reasonably to it. What is a “reasonable contribution” is determined by their local assembly at which all who support equality and mutual aid are encouraged to attend and, as equals, make policy decisions such as what is a reasonable contribution. Some local assemblies might (who knows?) decide that offering sex to strangers, so many times a day, is a “reasonable contribution to the economy” and approve a certain number of people doing that. In such a community people who wanted to contribute this way could do so, and thereby share in the economy equally to all others. In a community that did not consider “sex for strangers on demand” to be a reasonable contribution to the economy but did not make it illegal, people could offer sex to strangers if they wished, but it wouldn’t be for money (there is no money in a sharing economy) but only because they wanted to do it, for free, as a “hobby” or whatever; their membership in the sharing economy (and right to take what they need from it) would be based on making some other reasonable contribution to it. In communities where people made sex with strangers on demand illegal it would be illegal. We may disagree about which kind of community we’d like to live in, but I hope we agree we wouldn’t want to live in one in which, like today, the powers-that-be tell certain people, “You must provide sex for strangers on demand or else you will starve.”
For more discussion of this issue, please go here and here.
This article was originally published at newdemocracyworld.org and was cross-posted with permission from the author.
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Meghan Murphy Founder & Editor Meghan Murphy is a freelance writer and journalist. She has been podcasting and writing about feminism since 2010 and has published work in numerous national and international publications, including New Statesman, Vice, Al Jazeera, The Globe and Mail, I-D, Truthdig, and more. Meghan completed a Masters degree in the department of Gender, Sexuality and Women’s Studies at Simon Fraser University in 2012 and lives in Vancouver, B.C. with her dog.The rest of the world is catching up to the Top 10 Players to Watch in Women’s World Cup 2015. With the tournament in Canada, here, we come up with a list of Top 10 Players to Watch. Alongside proven stars such as Alex Morgan, Marta and Homare Sawa, young talents such as Asisat Oshoala and Vivianne Miedema are poised to make their mark in Canada.
Women’s World Cup 2015: Top 10 Players to Watch
10. Nilla Fischer – Sweden
According to England’s Casey Stoney, Fischer is one of the best defenders in the world. A Champion League winner with Wolfsburg, Fischer hold thee tenth place in the list of Top 10 Players to Watch in Women’s World Cup 2015. Her ability to read the game makes her one of the stand out stars in the game. Originally a central midfielder, she now looks a natural at the back.
9. Louisa Necib – France
At No.9 in the list is French women’s international footballer who plays for French club Olympique Lyon of the Division 1 Féminine. She has been labeled by the French media as “the female Zidane” – like Zinedine Zidane, she has Algerian ancestry, grew up in Marseille and possesses immense skill, especially as a playmaker with an eye for goal. She plays as a central attacking midfielder and is described as a “gifted playmaker” who “possesses superb technique”. Nécib is also known for her “elegant possession, sublime passing skills, and cultured touch on the ball”.Bee safe: Unusual contraception and HIV protection Use of nanoparticles to carry bee venom wins grant
A proposal to develop a vaginal gel that affords both contraception and HIV protection using nanoparticles that carry bee venom has won a 2010 Grand Challenges Explorations grant from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.
Samuel A. Wickline, MD, professor of medicine, of cell biology and physiology, and of physics and biomedical engineering, leads the effort and has assembled a multidisciplinary team of collaborators to carry out proof-of-concept activities for the grant.
“Sperm and HIV are remarkably similar in their natural mechanism of genetic transmission,” Wickline says. “Both need to fuse with their target cell in order to deliver their genetic payloads — DNA in the case of sperm, and RNA in the case of HIV.”
Wickline’s plan is to use the very means by which sperm and HIV operate to destroy them. “The idea is to trick each to fuse with a synthetic Trojan Horse — a nanoparticle that will overwhelm sperm and HIV in numbers and in destructive power.”
The Trojan Horse, or decoy, that will be used to attract the sperm and HIV is a lipid nanoparticle created by Wickline and colleague Gregory M. Lanza, MD, PhD, professor of medicine, that has already been proven safe for clinical use.
Wickline’s plan is to use the very means by which sperm and HIV operate to destroy them.
The nanoparticles will carry a synthetic version of bee toxin, called melittin, to the targets. Since melittin can annihilate almost any cell, the trick is to target the melittin to the specific cells intended for destruction without causing collateral damage.
Wickline and Paul H. Schlesinger, MD, PhD, associate professor of cell biology and physiology, attacked that problem two years ago when they developed “nanobees,” nanoparticles that sequester melittin so that it neither harms healthy tissue nor is degraded before reaching its target.
To destroy the sperm, Wickline intends to target a well-known “docking site” on the sperm cap. Sperm cells, which are roughly 160 times bigger than the 250-nanometer particles, will be swarmed with nanobees.
HIV virions, which are less than half the size of the nanoparticle, will be captured and destroyed with special molecules attached to the nanobees that bind to complementary molecules on the virion that play a role in initiating HIV fusion to cells.
The nanoparticles will remain on site inside the vaginal vault until washed out by the body’s natural fluids.Media playback is unsupported on your device Media caption Theresa May: ''The IPCC statement makes troubling reading''
The police watchdog has questioned the "honesty and integrity" of police officers who met Andrew Mitchell MP over the "plebgate" row that led to his quitting the government.
The Independent Police Complaints Commission said West Mercia Police were wrong to conclude the three officers had no case to answer for misconduct.
It follows concerns the officers gave a false account of the meeting.
The Police Federation said it was "shocked" by the IPCC statement.
Mr Mitchell welcomed the IPCC's findings, and said he and his family had "waited in vain" for the officers to be held to account over the meeting they held with him in their capacity as Police Federation representatives.
Home Secretary Theresa May said it would be "quite wrong" for West Mercia Police not to take disciplinary action against the officers in light of the IPCC report, which "made troubling reading".
What brings those politicians together is the anger at what they see as a conspiracy orchestrated by the coppers' union - the Police Federation
Home Affairs Select Committee chairman Keith Vaz said David Shaw, chief constable of West Mercia Police, would be summoned before MPs next week to explain why misconduct hearings were not held.
In a statement, Mr Shaw, along with the chief constables of Warwickshire and West Midlands Police, said they welcomed the opportunity to appear before the committee.
They said the decisions following the investigation had been "carefully considered".
West Mercia police and crime commissioner Bill Longmore said he is seeking meeting with the Home Secretary to discuss the IPCC's "critical" statement.
Eight people, including five police officers, have been arrested and bailed over the September 2012 row at the security gates to Downing Street. The Crown Prosecution Service is currently considering charges.
The row occurred when Mr Mitchell was told by police not to take his bike through the main gates on 19 September. The former Tory chief whip has apologised for an outburst, but has always disputed claims he described policemen as "plebs".
As the row between the then cabinet minister and the police intensified after the original allegation, Mr Mitchell met Inspector Ken MacKaill, of West Mercia Police, Detective Sergeant Stuart Hinton, of Warwickshire Police, and Sergeant Chris Jones, of West Midlands Police - acting on behalf of the Police Federation which represents rank-and-file officers - at his constituency office in Sutton Coldfield.
The IPCC said Mr Mitchell met the officers to "clear the air". A transcript of the meeting shows he apologised for swearing at the police officers but denied using the word "plebs".
Media playback is unsupported on your device Media caption Deborah Glass: ''In my opinion the evidence indicates an issue of honesty and integrity''
In comments made after the meeting, one of the officers, Inspector MacKaill claimed the former chief whip would not provide an account of the incident, and called for his resignation.
The transcript also shows that during that meeting, representatives from the three forces acknowledged that the integrity of their Metropolitan Police colleagues was no longer intact. One of the representatives stated the London officers had "put words in your mouth that are untrue".
West Mercia Police conducted an internal investigation into claims the three officers were trying to discredit Mr Mitchell and concluded that there was no case to answer for misconduct or gross misconduct.
It said that there was no deliberate intention to lie to journalists. But on Wednesday the IPCC - which oversaw the West Mercia investigation - said it disagreed.
Ms Glass said: "In my opinion the evidence indicates an issue of honesty and integrity, not merely naive or poor professional judgement."
'Bolster integrity'
She said a misconduct panel should be held to determine whether the three officers gave a false account in a deliberate attempt to discredit Mr Mitchell in pursuit of a wider agenda.
Analysis The IPCC is not an organisation known to have a Rottweiler side to it. In fact, some of its critics would say its reports may have been written by a poodle that's lost its false teeth. But this robust attack on West Mercia Police's conclusions on Plebgate shows how the affair is less about whether the fallen minister used the P-Word, and more about the integrity of the police. The row occurred while the relationship between ministers and rank-and-file officers was at an all time low over cuts and modernisation. Mitchell's resignation was a political scalp amid the rancour. But amid the point-scoring, the more important issue is this: The police need public trust. If their actions are doubted, then that trust is diminished. That's why the facts behind plebgate, and other allegations of police malpractice such as Hillsborough, matter so much.
But, she added, that because Mr Mitchell had chosen not to make a formal complaint, she was powerless to direct misconduct proceedings.
However, a statement from Warwickshire, West Mercia and West Midlands Police disagreed. It said the IPCC had chosen not to exercise powers that would have allowed it to order the three forces to hold misconduct proceedings.
"Despite a thorough investigation under the supervision of the IPCC, we do not believe that there is sufficient evidence to support the view that the officers concerned should face misconduct proceedings."
A statement from the Police Federation of England and Wales hit out at the IPCC deputy chair for making a "personal outburst".
"Either the IPCC are capable of supervising investigations or they are not. If they feel that they are capable of doing so, having had the opportunity to monitor and provide input into the process, the proper and responsible course must be to accept the investigation findings," it said.
In his statement, Mr Mitchell said the officers had been able to secure a meeting with him after the original allegation "under false pretences, openly misrepresent the contents of that meeting, and on the back of that misrepresentation call for his resignation at a press conference they had assembled for the purpose".
He said it was a matter of "deep concern" that the police forces employing the three officers had concluded their conduct had not brought the police service into disrepute, adding that most people would disagree.
Media playback is unsupported on your device Media caption Police Federation's Ken Mackaill said after the October 2012 meeting Mr Mitchell had to resign
"It is a decision which will undermine confidence in the ability of the police to investigate misconduct when the reputation of the police service as a whole is at stake," he said.
Mrs May said the government was taking measures to "bolster integrity" in the police and the new College of Policing would be publishing a new code of ethics.
"These sorts of incident will strike at the heart of that issue of trust," she said.
Meanwhile former police minister Nick Herbert told the BBC a "grave injustice" had been done to Mr Mitchell. There was a real danger "the public had lost confidence in the police," he added.At least seven groups of applicants with ties to failed or floundering charter schools are seeking second chances and public money to open 18 more.
Odds are, most will prevail.
School districts say that they can't deny applicants solely because of past problems running charter schools. State laws tell them to evaluate what they see on paper — academic plans, budget proposals, student services — not previous school collapses or controversial professional histories.
District officials are currently reviewing applications for next year.
Among those vying to open new charter schools, which are privately operated but publicly funded:
• A group that managed three new charter schools in Broward and Palm Beach counties that opened this year — and then shut down on the first day of school.
• The founder of two charter schools that failed in 2007 amid accusations of stolen money, shoddy record keeping and parent complaints, according to state and local records. A state investigation later chastised school directors for "virtually nonexistent" oversight, though prosecutors filed no criminal charges.
• An educator who was banned from New Jersey public schools, then consulted for two schools in Broward and Palm Beach counties that shuttered in 2013. The Palm Beach County school district closed one of the schools because of poor academics and financial difficulties; the Broward school chose to cease operations amid dwindling enrollment, according to school district reports.
The Sun Sentinel also found three applications from leaders at two charter schools that were ordered to close this year for poor academics. Another three proposals came from a director at an existing charter school chided for its deteriorating financial condition. An entrepreneur who has consulted for a handful of failed schools is also listed on an application.
"We're asking ourselves, 'How do we follow the law, yet make professional decisions in the best interests of students?'" said Jim Pegg, director of the charter school department for the Palm Beach County School district.
A Sun Sentinel investigation in June found state law allows virtually anyone who can fill out a lengthy application to open a charter school. If school districts veer too far outside the guidelines to reject applications, they risk having their decisions overturned by the state.
Broward Schools Superintendent Robert Runcie said he might be willing to take that risk given the range of applicants.
"If we have to, we'll deny some applications and bring them to the state and still fight," Runcie said. "We can't continue to go with the bad actors that are out there and have them to continue to operate."
Broward, Palm Beach and Miami-Dade counties have received 90 applications to open charter schools in 2015-16. Applicants include charter-school operators with established records, small startups and those who have struggled in the past.
The number of charter schools in Florida has more than doubled in the last decade; there are now more than 620.
Charter schools are publicly funded but can be operated by individuals, companies or cities. State law gives local school districts responsibility for approving and overseeing charter schools, but limited ability to intervene when problems arise. The idea behind charter schools is to spur educational innovation; many offer successful and specialized alternatives for public school students. But the Sun Sentinel found those intentionally loose rules also can foster problems.
Approved schools begin receiving taxpayer dollars — about $6,000 per enrolled student — in the summer before their scheduled openings. A school with 250 students would receive about $1.5 million by the end of its first year.
In the coming weeks, school districts will review the applications — some running more than 1,000 pages — and, in some cases, interview candidates. District officials will make recommendations to their school boards by November.
Starting up, shutting down
Eight hours before students were to report for classes at the new Broward County Charter High on the first day of school this year, Richard E. Durr emailed a Broward school district official saying the school would not open "due to circumstances beyond our control." Durr is a director at the school's management company, American Charter Schools, Inc.
By day's end, two more schools managed by that same company had shut down. One school in Riviera Beach failed to attract students; the other in Delray Beach enrolled only a few, a district official said. The applications for the two Palm Beach County schools were rejected by the school district in 2012, but those decisions were reversed by the state.
The Palm Beach County schools did not receive any taxpayer dollars; the Broward school received nearly $8,000, district officials said. Durr said the money would be returned.
He said school directors had difficulty securing buildings, resulting in less time to recruit new students.
Yet Durr's company, American Charter Schools, Inc., is listed as the education service provider on applications for four proposed charter schools in Palm Beach County. An education service provider is often referred to as a school's management company.
Durr said he and his business partner were assessing whether to move forward with the applications.
"As you know, a lot of new charter schools are opening," Durr said. "A lot of them are competing for the same students."
American Charter Schools provides a range of services to nearly a dozen South Florida charter schools, according to the applications.
Troubled history
Steve Gallon III is listed as a consultant and point of contact on applications for four new schools in Miami-Dade County and one in Broward. One of the Miami-Dade schools says it will contract with Gallon's company, Tri-Star Leadership, an educational services and support provider.
Gallon was arrested in Plainfield, N.J., in 2010 for allegedly lying about the residences of colleagues so their children could attend school outside their districts. Prosecutors dropped the charges in 2011 after Gallon agreed never to work again in New Jersey's public schools. He had been school superintendent in Plainfield for two years.Finance Minister Joe Oliver says the government is confident it can balance the next federal budget without scaling back on new tax measures and still turn up a small surplus, despite falling oil prices.
"I'm proud that our government is on track to achieve a balanced budget in 2015 with an expected surplus of $1.6 billion," Oliver said in Vancouver on Wednesday.
"That projection takes into account falling oil prices."
Oliver's comments come after TD Economics updated its forecast on Tuesday to project a $2.3-billion deficit in 2015-16 followed by a $600-million deficit for 2016-17. Under the new forecast, the government would return to surplus for the fiscal year 2017-18 rather than post a $1.6-billion surplus in 2015-16.
The TD forecast assumes oil prices will average $67.50 US per barrel in 2015 and $80.25 in 2016. The government's projections assume oil prices will average $81 US per barrel for the fiscal year 2015-16.
While Oliver was more optimistic, at least two other ministers said today that falling oil prices will reduce the government's room to manoeuvre.
In an interview airing Wednesday on CBC News Network's Power & Politics, Treasury President Tony Clement said, "I'm not saying things are going to be the same, there is going to be an impact.
"It does reduce our flexibility on certain fronts, but we do have a plan and part of that plan is a balanced budget."
Natural Resources Minister Greg Rickford was in Washington, D.C., on Wednesday where he made similar comments.
"Declining oil prices will impact the government's flexibility, but we will balance the budget in 2015."
Oliver did acknowledge that plunging oil prices will "adversely affect" the government's corporate tax revenue.
Asked if the government would have to scale back on any of its tax promises such as doubling the contribution limit for the tax free savings account, Oliver said the government would deliver on all of its promises.
"The commitments we have made, we will honour," he said.
TD's new outlook concluded that deficits over the next two years will make it difficult for the government to deliver on promises such as the tax free savings account or the introduction of the adult fitness tax credit.
"In the absence of new measures to raise revenues or cut spending," the report said, "introducing significant new policy measures … in the current fiscal environment will be a challenge."
Oliver said the government would not raise taxes or engage in "reckless new spending."
The TD report noted the government could tap into its $3-billion a year contingency fund to post a slim surplus.
"These expected deficits are less than the federal government’s annual $3 billion set aside for contingencies. As such, surpluses over the next couple of years cannot be ruled out."
Alberta Premier Jim Prentice acknowledged on Tuesday that falling oil prices will have an effect on the province's budget for the next three fiscal years.
While he did disagree with the Conference Board of Canada's assessment that Alberta could slip into a recession, Prentice said he was prepared to discuss the need for a sales tax.Subscribe to Pocket Gamer on
Rayman Adventures will follow on from the success of Jungle Run and Fiesta Run when it launches on mobile later this year.
It features a similar visual stye as the previous two titles - being made in the same UbiArt Framework engine - but manages to somehow look even more impressive.
It seems to be based on the latest console and PC entry of the franchise, Rayman Legends, as it features Barbara, his Viking companion from that game.
This time you'll be freely running and jumping through a variety of different environments like haunted castles, Olympus, and the enchanted forest to gather up the scattered stolen eggs that sustain the sacred tree.
Did we mention that these were Incrediball eggs, no less? Well, they are - whatever that is.
And yes, we did say freely - this is the first mobile entry in the series not to feature autorunning. You can explore the beautiful environments at your leisure.
Rayman Adventures will launch this Autumn. We'll keep you posted about the planned platforms.The Humble Vitamin C – Informed Opinion
Written by Patrick Massey, MD, PhD. This article stresses the health benefits and importance of adequate Vitamin C.
Almost all of God’s creatures make vitamin C…and make it in robust amounts |
oli and boasted his father was still in control.[296] Later the same day, rebels blasted open the Bab al-Azizia compound in Tripoli through its north gates and stormed inside. Despite previous reports suggesting that Muammar Gaddafi may be inside, no members of the Gaddafi family were found.[297]
Early the following day, 24 August, Gaddafi broadcast an address from a Tripoli local radio station in which he said the withdrawal from Bab al-Azizia had been a "tactical" move. The New York Times reported rebel leaders as saying they believed the only areas still under Gaddafi's control, other than the immediate neighbourhood of Bab al-Azizia, were al-Hadhba and Abu Salim, the latter including the Rixos Hotel where a group of foreign journalists had been trapped for days. However, the report noted the rebels lacked a unified command and that Gaddafi loyalists and snipers remained at large in many areas of Tripoli. Local hospitals and clinics, even in areas considered under rebel control, were reporting hundreds of cases of gunshot wounds and the death toll was impossible to estimate.[298] By late afternoon the journalists trapped at the Rixos Hotel had been released while heavy fighting continued in the Abu Salim region close to Bab al-Azizia and elsewhere.[299] The rebels were reported as estimating 400 people had been killed and a further 2,000 injured in the battle.[49]
After Tripoli and NTC victory [ edit ]
A rebel tank near Ajdabiya
Efforts to mop up pro-Gaddafi forces in northwestern Libya and toward Sirte began even before the rebels fully consolidated control of Tripoli. Rebels took the city of Ghadames near the borders of Tunisia and Algeria on 29 August. Members of the Gaddafi family took flight to Algeria. In September, the Gaddafi stronghold of Bani Walid was besieged by rebels, who reported that Gaddafi's son Saif al-Islam was hiding in the city.[300] On 22 September, the NTC captured the southern city of Sabha, and claimed to have found a large cache of chemical weapons.[301] Concerns were raised over the danger of Gaddafi mounting an insurgency against the new authorities.[302]
By mid-October 2011, much of the city of Sirte had been taken by NTC forces, although fierce fighting continued around the city center, where many pro-Gaddafi fighters were encamped.[303] The NTC captured the whole of Sirte on 20 October 2011, and reported that Gaddafi himself had been killed in the city.[304][305] Some civilian Gaddafi supporters remaining in the city reported that women and children had been killed in crossfire or fired upon by rebel forces. There were also reports of harassment and theft by rebels, however the rebel army indicated it would leave unarmed civilians "to their own devices", and had allowed families in the city access to supplies and medical assistance.[306]
On 1 September, when Gaddafi lost his capital Tripoli but continued fighting, the Russian government under President Vladimir Putin and Dmitri Medvedev recognized the Libyan NTC as the only legal regime in Libya.[307] On 12 September, Hu Jintao and Wen Jiabao's People's Republic of China government also recognized the NTC of Libya as the only Legal regime in Libya.[308] When China and Russia had abandoned their support of Gaddafi, a spokesman of the NTC of Libya said because of their long time support of Gaddafi, it will be very hard for a Chinese, Russian or Indian oil companies to acquire new exploration contracts.[309]
Aftermath [ edit ]
Libyan rebels have entered the town of Bani Walid
Despite the defeat of Gaddafi's loyalists, the capture of last loyalist cities and Gaddafi's death, Saif al-Islam, Gaddafi's son and successor, remained hiding in the southern region of Libya until his capture in mid-November. In addition, some loyalist forces crossed into Niger, though the escape attempts exploded into violence when detected by Nigerien troops.
Sporadic clashes between NTC and former loyalists also continued across Libya with low intensity. On 23 November 2011, seven people were killed in clashes at Bani Walid, five of them among the revolutionary forces and one Gaddafi loyalist.[310]
Fighting broke out on 3 January 2012, at a building used as intelligence headquarters by the Gaddafi government.[311] Abdul Jalil, the chairman of NTC, warned Libyans that the country could descend into another civil war if they resort to force to settle their differences.[311] It was reported that five people were killed and at least five injured in the events.[312]
Also on 3 January, Libya's government named a retired general from Misrata, Yousel al-Manquosh, as head of the country's armed forces.[313]
Bani Walid was captured by local tribal fighters on 23 January, due to the NTC's perceived inability to cooperate with them.[21][53] The local forces were said to have used heavy weapons and numbered 100–150 men.[53] Eight NTC fighters were killed and at least 25 wounded, with the rest fleeing the city.[21] Clashes were also reported in Benghazi and Tripoli.[53]
The NTC has functioned as an interim legislature during the transitional period. In early May 2012, it passed its most sweeping measures to date, granting immunity to former rebel fighters for acts committed during the civil war and ordering that all detainees accused of fighting for Gaddafi should be tried or released by 12 July 2012. It also adopted Law 37, prohibiting the publication of "propaganda" criticising the revolution, questioning the authority of Libya's governing organs, or praising Muammar Gaddafi, his family, his government, or the ideas of the Green Book.[314]
A September 2013 report by The Independent shows that Libya had plunged into its worst political and economic crisis since the defeat of Gaddafi. The production of oil had almost completely stopped and the government had lost control of large areas of the country to the militias, while violence increased throughout the country.[315] By May 2014, conflicts between several factions in Libya had descended into a second civil war.
Impact [ edit ]
Casualties [ edit ]
People in Dublin, Ireland, protesting against Gaddafi (March 2011).
Independent numbers of dead and injured in the conflict have still not been made available. Estimates have been widely varied.
On 24 February, Libya's ambassador to Malta said that Gaddafi's government believed the number of dead to be about 300, including civilians, police officers, and soldiers.[164] The exact same day, the Islamic Republic of Iran Broadcasting reported that the International Criminal Court estimated 10,000 had been killed.[316] The numbers of injured were estimated to be around 4,000 by 22 February.[317]
On 2 March, the World Health Organization estimated approximately 2,000 killed. At the same time, the opposition said that 6,500 people had died.[318] Later, rebel spokesman Abdul Hafiz Ghoga reported that the death toll reached 8,000.[319]
In June 2011, Amnesty International stated that earlier estimates of the initial clashes in February were exaggerated. It estimated that during the first few days of the conflict, 100 to 110 people were killed in Benghazi and 59 to 64 were killed in Bayda.[41]
On 8 September, Naji Barakat, the Health Minister of the National Transitional Council, stated that about half of an estimated 30,000 dead were believed to have been pro-Gaddafi fighters. War wounded were estimated as at least 50,000, of which about 20,000 were serious injuries, but this estimate was expected to rise.[33] However, there was no independent verification of the Health Minister's statement and, one month later, the NTC reduced the estimated number of killed to 25,000.[320]
In January 2013, the new Libyan government, based on figures still being checked, estimated the number of killed to be actually far lower than previous estimates, with 4,700 rebel supporters and a similar number of Gaddafi supporters killed during the conflict. An estimated 2,100 people on both sides were missing.[32]
Armed Conflict Location and Event Data Project, which compiles a database of all reported fatalities due to political violence on the African continent, listed 6,109 fatalities from 15 February to 23 October 2011, of which 1,319 prior to NATO intervention.[321]
The Uppsala Conflict Data Program, a public data resource that includes information on different types of organized violence (e.g. actors involved, casualties, date, location, etc.), reported that between 1,914 and 3,466 people were killed during the 2011 fighting.[322] In addition their data shows that between 152 and 168 civilians were deliberately killed by the pro-Gaddafi forces in 2011.[323]
There were no combat casualties amongst the coalition forces, although one RAF airman was killed in an accident in Italy.
Legal qualification [ edit ]
President Barack Obama speaking on the military intervention in Libya at the National Defense University.
Legal qualification of an armed conflict determines which rules of international humanitarian law apply to the conduct of the parties during that conflict. In general, the normative framework applicable to international conflicts is broader and more detailed than the sum of rules that apply in conflicts not of an international character.[324]
The qualification of the Libyan conflict is the subject of some academic controversy. While most agree that the intensity of the fighting and the organization of the insurgents quickly rose to the level required for the existence of a non-international armed conflict under Common Article 3 of the 1949 Geneva Conventions,[325][326] the exact date when these conditions were considered fulfilled ranges from late February[327] to 10 March 2011.[275]
It is generally accepted that the military intervention by a multi-state coalition acting under the Security Council mandate since 19 March 2011 occasioned an international armed conflict between Libya and the intervening states.[328][329] Some academics believe that this intervention transformed the legal nature of the conflict as a whole, with the result that even the rebels should have been considered as one of the parties to an overarching international conflict spanning the whole Libyan territory.[329] Others doubt this on account of both legal and factual considerations.[330]
Finally, it remains unsettled whether or not the rebels' overthrow of Gaddafi's government following the fall of Tripoli in August 2011 changed the nature of the conflict again. Some academics believe that as the rebels were now the legitimate and effective government of the state of Libya, the conflict was "deinternationalised" and thus non-international in nature again.[331][332] Others maintain the opposite position, arguing that the available legal tests for "deinternationalisation" are unpersuasive and introduce vague and politicized criteria that cannot be satisfactorily considered in the heat of the battle. Consequently, these authors would consider that the international nature of the conflict remained unchanged until the end of hostilities.[333]
The ongoing conflict (or conflicts) ended for the purposes of legal qualification with the conclusion of hostilities in Libya in the end of October 2011.[334][335]
Humanitarian situation [ edit ]
US forces transport displaced Egyptian workers, March 2011
By the end of February 2011, supplies of medicine, fuel and food were dangerously low in Libya's urban centres.[336] On 25 February, the International Committee of the Red Cross launched an emergency appeal for US$6,400,000 to meet the emergency needs of people affected by the violent unrest in Libya.[337] In early March, the fighting across Libya meant that more than a million people fleeing or inside the country needed humanitarian aid.[338][339] The Islamic Relief and the WFP also coordinated a shipment of humanitarian supplies to Misrata.[340] In March, the Swedish government donated medical supplies and other humanitarian aid and the UN World Food Programme provided food. Turkey sent a hospital ship to Misrata and a Turkish cargo ship brought 141 tons of humanitarian aid.[340][341]
Another humanitarian issue was refugees fleeing the crisis. A humanitarian ship docked in harbour of Misrata in April to begin the evacuation of stranded migrants.[342] By 10 July, over 150,000 migrants were evacuated.[343] Migrants were also stranded elsewhere in Libya, such as in the southern towns of Sebha and Gatroum. Fleeing the violence of Tripoli by road, as many as 4,000 refugees were crossing the Libya–Tunisia border daily during the first days of the uprising. Among those escaping the violence were native Libyans as well as foreign nationals including Egyptians, Tunisians and Turks.[344]
While the UN sanctioned military intervention has been implemented on humanitarian grounds, UN agencies seeking to ease the humanitarian crisis repeatedly rejected offers of support from the military to carry out the agencies' humanitarian operations.[345] The conditions under which such support may be accepted are outlined in the Guidelines on the Use of Military and Civil Defence Assets to Support United Nations Humanitarian Activities in Complex Emergencies (MCDA), whereby military support can be used but only temporarily and as a last resort.[345] Yet, there remains the concern that aid agencies' neutrality will be brought into question by accepting military support, putting aid staff at risk of being attacked and causing some parties to prevent the agencies accessing all the areas they need to.[345] Furthermore, the military may not always have the technical skills required to assess the need for aid and to ensure its effective distribution.[345] Despite this, offers continue for the creation of an aid corridor and aid agencies have accepted military logistical support in the past, for instance in the 2010 Pakistan floods response.[345]
Ethnic targeting [ edit ]
In August 2011, the UNHCR issued a strong call for the rights and lives of sub-Saharan Africans living in Libya to be protected due to reports that black Africans were being targeted[clarification needed] by the rebel forces as cities fell.[346] Other news sources including The Independent and CNN have reported on the targeting[clarification needed] of black people in rebel held areas.[347][348][349]
An Amnesty International statement, released on 30 August 2011, stated that on visits to detention centres in Zawiya and Tripoli, Amnesty International was informed that between one third and half of those detained were from Sub-Saharan Africa. A New York Times online article also comments that "it seems that plenty of the black Africans captured as mercenaries were never actually involved in the fight".[350][351] "Hundreds of thousands of sub-Saharan Africans worked in Gaddafi's Libya, doing everything from managing hotels to sweeping floors. But some also fought as pro-Gaddafi mercenaries, and many migrant workers [-] fled ahead of the rebels, fearing they would be mistaken for mercenaries."[352]
It was also reported that some African women had said rebels were raping them in refugee camps, with additional reports of forced labour. Foreign aid workers were also claiming to be prohibited from officially talking about the allegations.[353]
The town of Tawergha, which supported Gaddafi prior to its capture by anti-Gaddafi fighters in August, has been emptied of its mostly black inhabitants in what appeared to be a "major reprisal against supporters of the Gaddafi regime", according to an 11 September report from The Sunday Telegraph, and commanders of the Misrata Brigade are refusing to allow the displaced townspeople to return. One commander was quoted as saying, "Tawergha no longer exists."[354]
Libyan refugees [ edit ]
Libyan children at a refugee camp, April 2011
Fleeing the violence of Tripoli by road, as many as 4,000 refugees were crossing the Libya–Tunisia border daily during the first days of the uprising. Among those, escaping the violence, were native Libyans as well as foreign nationals including Egyptians, Tunisians and Turks.[355] In February, Italian Foreign Minister Frattini expressed his concerns that the amount of Libyan refugees trying to reach Italy might reach between 200,000 and 300,000 people.[356] By 1 March, officials from the UN High Commissioner for Refugees had confirmed allegations of discrimination against sub-Saharan Africans who were held in dangerous conditions in the no-man's-land between Tunisia and Libya.[357] By 3 March, an estimated 200,000 refugees had fled Libya to either Tunisia or Egypt. A provisional refugee camp set up at Ras Ajdir with a capacity for 10,000 was overflowing with an estimated 20,000 to 30,000 refugees. Many tens of thousands were still trapped on the Libyan side of the frontier. By 3 March, the situation was described as a logistical nightmare, with the World Health Organization warning of the risk of epidemics.[358]
To continue responding to the needs of people staying at the Ras Ajdir crossing point in Tunisia, the WFP and Secours Islamique-France were upgrading a kitchen that would provide breakfast for families. Separately, the ICRC advised it was handing over its operations at the Choucha Camp to the Tunisian Red Crescent.[359] Since 24 March, the WFP supplied over 42,500 cooked meals for TCNs at the Saloum border. A total of 1,650 cartons of fortified date bars (equivalent of 13.2 metric tons) had also been provided to supplement these meals.[340]
The Sunday Telegraph reported on 11 September that almost the entire population of Tawergha, a town of about 10,000 people, had been forced to flee their homes by anti-Gaddafi fighters after their takeover of the settlement. The report suggested that Tawergha, which was dominated by black Libyans, may have been the subject of ethnic cleansing provoked by a combination of racism and bitterness on the part of Misratan fighters over the town's support for Gaddafi during the siege of Misrata.[354]
Economic, religious and tribal [ edit ]
Oil prices around the world increased during the Libyan conflict, due to the country's significant oil reserves. The Arabian Gulf Oil Company, the second-largest state-owned oil company in Libya, announced plans to use oil funds to support anti-Gaddafi forces.[360] Islamic leaders and clerics in Libya, notably the Network of Free Ulema – Libya urged all Muslims to rebel against Gaddafi.[361] The Tuareg and Magarha tribes announced their support of the protesters.[271][362] The Zuwayya tribe, based in eastern Libya, threatened to cut off oil exports from fields in its part of Libya if Libyan security forces continued attacking demonstrators.[362]
International reactions [ edit ]
Many states and supranational bodies condemned Gaddafi's government over disputed allegations of air attacks on civilian targets within the country. Virtually all Western countries cut off diplomatic relations with Gaddafi's government over disputed reports of an aerial bombing campaign in February and March, and a number of other countries led by Peru and Botswana did likewise. United Nations Security Council Resolution 1970 was adopted on 26 February, freezing the assets of Gaddafi and ten members of his inner circle and restricting their travel. The resolution also referred the actions of the government to the International Criminal Court for investigation,[43] and an arrest warrant for Gaddafi was issued on 27 June.[364] This was followed by an arrest warrant issued by Interpol on 8 September.[365]
The disputed allegations about the Libyan government's use of the Libyan Air Force to strike civilians led to the adoption of United Nations Security Council Resolution 1973 to create a Libyan no-fly zone on 17 March, though several countries involved in the resolution's enforcement have also carried out regular strike missions to degrade the offensive capacity of the Libyan Army and destroy the government's command and control capabilities, effectively acting in de facto support of anti-Gaddafi forces on the ground. The later British parliament's Foreign Affairs Select Committee inquiry concluded that by summer 2011 British policy had become one of regime change.[366][367]
China and Russia, originally abstaining on United Nations Security Council Resolution 1973 due to the influence of the Arab League, pointed out that the implemented "no-fly-zone" had gone much further out of the originally agreed aims.[368]
100 countries recognized the anti-Gaddafi National Transitional Council as Libya's legitimate representative, with many of those countries explicitly describing it as the legal interim government of the country due to the perceived loss of legitimacy on the part of Gaddafi's government, though the National Transitional Council never obtained authority and security across all of Libya.[367]
Many states also either issued travel advisories or attempted evacuations. Some evacuations were successful to Malta or via land borders to Egypt or Tunisia; other attempts were hindered by tarmac damage at Benghazi's airport or refusals of permission to land in Tripoli. There were also several solidarity protests in other countries that were mostly composed of Libyan expatriates. Financial markets around the world had adverse reactions to the instability with oil prices rising to a two-and-a-half year high.[369]
See also [ edit ]
References [ edit ]
Further reading [ edit ]In his State of the Union address, President Bush pressed Congress to quickly pass legislation to make permanent the sweeping spying powers that Congress granted last August. Those powers, which include the ability to eavesdrop on foreign-to-domestic communications without meaningful judicial oversight, were due to expire last week. Congress has passed a two-week extension of the law, but that barely gives Congress time to catch its breath before the White House resumes its campaign to make it permanent.
Bush’s predecessor was also an ardent supporter of increased wiretapping authority. For example, on July 29, 1996, Bill Clinton unveiled a proposal to expand government surveillance by permitting the use of “roving wiretaps.” The nation was still reeling from terrorist attacks on the Atlanta Olympics and American barracks in Saudi Arabia, and many suspected that the explosion of TWA Flight 800 was also the work of terrorists. Clinton argued that these tragedies highlighted the need for legislative changes, and he pressed Congress to act before its August recess.
But Congress had a bipartisan tradition of its own to defend. As they had done since Watergate, Congressional leaders raised concerns about civil liberties. Then-Speaker Newt Gingrich said he was willing to consider changes to the law, but vowed to do so “in a methodical way that preserves our freedoms.” Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott vowed that Congress would not “rush to a final judgment” before going on vacation. In the end, the 104th Congress finished its term without giving President Clinton the wiretapping authority he sought.
Why are today’s Democrats less concerned with civil liberties than Republicans were a decade ago?
Today’s Democratic Congress has been far less protective of Americans’ privacy rights. Last August, in a virtual repeat of the events of 1996, Bush demanded that Congress approve expanded wiretapping powers before going on vacation. This time, Congressional leaders showed few qualms about “rushing to judgment.” Indeed, both houses of Congress approved the White House’s preferred legislation with minimal changes within three days of its introduction.
Why are today’s Democrats less concerned with civil liberties than Republicans were a decade ago? Democratic leaders would doubtless point to the 9/11 attacks. Those attacks have certainly contributed to a changed political climate, but they don’t justify Congress’s panicky reaction to the president’s demands. Congress had already expanded eavesdropping powers several times since 9/11. Congress approved new wiretapping authority with the Patriot Act in 2001, and approved further expansions later in 2001 and in 2002, 2004, and 2006. If the new powers the president was seeking weren’t urgent enough to include in those revisions to the law, it’s hard to believe they were an emergency in August 2007.
Moreover, the powers Congress granted last summer are far broader those sought by the Clinton administration in 1996. The “roving wiretaps” Clinton requested in 1996 and finally received in 1998 merely allowed investigators to obtain a single warrant to bug multiple phones used by a specific individual. In contrast, the Protect America Act completely eliminates the warrant requirement for surveillance “concerning persons reasonably believed to be outside of the United States” - even if one party to a call is an American citizen and the wiretap occurs on American soil. The attorney general is required to disclose to a secret court the general procedures used to choose wiretapping targets, but no judge reviews the list of specific targets to verify that the law is being followed. This evisceration of judicial review is an invitation to future abuses.
The lone virtue of the Protect America Act is that the powers it granted are now set to expire in mid-February. As this revised deadline approaches, Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Majority Leader Harry Reid will once again face pressure to rush the White House’s preferred legislation out the door. The president will claim that failure to act before the Protect America Act sunsets will undermine the government’s ability to eavesdrop on terrorists.
It’s an ominous claim, but it’s not true. The Protect America Act allows the administration to “authorize” eavesdropping programs for a year at a time. That means that the government’s various warrantless surveillance activities will continue to operate at least through August. And of course, if the need for new wiretaps arises after the act sunsets, the administration still has the opportunity to file for warrants under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA). FISA even allows the government to begin surveillance first and apply for an emergency warrant after the fact.
In short, the administration will have ample authority to intercept terrorist communications for at least the next six months. As they shepherd FISA reform through Congress, Pelosi and Reid would do well to heed the advice of one of Pelosi’s predecessors: “The goal here is not to allow the terrorists to pressure us into suspending the very freedoms that make America precious.” Those words are as true today as when Newt Gingrich said them in 1996.If the thought of travelling for months or years in the confinement of a tiny spacecraft is making you give up on the idea of interplanetary exploration, then Thursday's arrival of an unusual cargo at the International Space Station could maybe make you change your mind.
Designed to unfold once in space, the Bigelow Expandable Activity Module, or BEAM, could provide space missions with larger and more robust living quarters - if proven successful.
The 1400kg craft will be attached to a port on the station during a resupply run by private US space company SpaceX.
"It will expand out to be a fully deployed structure, and at that point the astronauts will actually enter the BEAM, and that will be a historic moment," Mike Gold, from Bigelow Aerospace, told Al Jazeera.
'Game changer'
Spacecraft are normally made from sealed aluminum shells, packed with insulation and shielding.
Their size is usually limited by the type of rocket they are launched on.
To get around this, Bigelow Aerospace developed an expandable craft that provides a habitat four times its packed-down size.
"This type of technology can be a complete game changer," Space Systems Expert at MIT Sydney Do told Al Jazeera.
"[It will make] deep space missions to asteroids, the Moon or Mars, a lot more economical and the reason why that's the case is inflatable technologies in general allow you to have more room for a smaller amount of mass."
Protection in a hostile environment
The walls of the habitat are made out of 16 layers of high-tech materials.
These include pressure seals, radiation and heat protection, as well as a layer of material that is similar to the one used in bulletproof vests, in an effort to protect the habitat against the impact of micro-meteoroids or space debris.
"If you were going to get shot would you rather have aluminum in front of you or a Kevlar-like weave, which is a similar technology to which we use in our habitats?" asks Gold.
"I would vote for the Kevlar. It's actually a much safer system when it comes to both radiation and the physical debris."
The 4m-long experimental habitat has no windows, nor internal power, and will not be lived in by astronauts on the space station.
Crew members will enter the module every few months to collect sensor data and inspect its general condition.
Larger habitat planned
The expandable space habitat will spend the next two years attached to the space station, undergoing tests, but Bigelow Aerospace has plans for a much bigger model.
It says its B330, which can be expanded to provide 330 cubic metres of internal space, is big enough to house up to six crew memebers, and will make long-duration space travel to the Moon or Mars cheaper and more comfortable.
"As you spend more time in an extremely remote environment, psychologically it is more comforting for you if you have more volume," says Do.
"It's the difference between staying in a youth hostel and staying in the penthouse suite of a five-star hotel. If you are going to stay somewhere for many months to years, you want to live in that penthouse suite."In the growing world of container technology for application virtualization, Docker isn't the only game in town. CoreOS today announced an expansion of its application container specification (appc) effort to include the support of Apcera, Google, Red Hat and VMware.
The appc effort first began back in December 2014, when CoreOS announced its Rocket container technology as an alternative to Docker. CoreOS builds its own container-optimized operating system that uses Docker, though CoreOS developers have not been entirely happy with the way Docker has been progressing. With appc, the basic idea is to build an open-source specification for containers that isn't tied to any one vendor or technology.
Apcera, Google, Red Hat and VMware are supporting appc in different ways, said Alex Polvi, CoreOS CEO. "Google has furthered its support of appc by implementing rkt [Rocket] into Kubernetes and joining as a maintainer of appc," Polvi told eWEEK. " VMware recently announced how they will contribute to appc and shipped rkt in Project Photon."
While Apcera has announced an additional appc implementation called Kurma, Red Hat has assigned an engineer to participate as a maintainer of appc.
As an open effort, there are now five maintainers for the appc initiative:
Vincent Batts, Red Hat senior software engineer; Tim Hockins, Google senior staff software engineer; Charles Aylward, Twitter software engineer; Brandon Philips, CoreOS CTO; and Jonathan Boulle, CoreOS senior engineer.
The governance model for appc has also been publicly posted in Github to provide full transparency into how appc is being developed.
While Docker is perhaps the best-known example of application container virtualization, there is no overlap between the appc effort and Docker today, Polvi said. "Also, Docker, at any version, does not support appc," he said.
The key promise of appc, according to Polvi, is to define an interchangeable image that can be run on multiple container implementations.
"So, the compatibility that we are aiming for is someone who packages up an image to run on top, or rkt should run another compatible runtime such as Kurma," Polvi explained. "This promise of having portability was something that the industry didn't quite achieve with virtual machines and cloud.
Both rkt and Kurma will support Application Container Images (ACIs); that's where the compatibility will reside, Polvi said. Both Kurma and rkt support the ACI discovery methods as defined by the appc spec.
"Anyone who invests in creating ACIs will benefit from the fact that rkt and Kurma can discover and run them," Polvi said.
The next major step is to continue to work together on a standard on which all supporting companies can agree, Polvi said. He noted that the next major milestone is creating a 1.0 version of appc that remains stable for implementations to use.
Quay
In addition to the expanded support for appc, CoreOS today announced new features for its Quay container repository platform. Among the features is a simplified user interface and support for the Bitbucket and Gitlab code repositories.
Quay, which CoreOS acquired in August 2014, is now an important part of the cmpany, according to Polvi.
Docker also has its own container repository effort known as Docker Registry.
"Quay is a full-service solution to building, storing and managing container images while the open-source Docker registry project provides only the most basic ability to push and pull images," Polvi said. "We see Quay as an integral part of the continuous deployment of containerized applications now and in the future."
Sean Michael Kerner is a senior editor at eWEEK and InternetNews.com. Follow him on Twitter @TechJournalist.There is still a lot of mystery surrounding the upcoming ARROW/FLASH spin-off show but new set pics have come out showing the members of the show's team assembling - possibly for the first time. Check them out but beware of SPOILERS!
Many people questioned how and why an odd mix of heroes and villains would team up - including a dead Canary and a villainous Captain Cold, but it seems like the finale of The Flash (or Arrow?) will set up that team.
Instagram user punkd_images posted this....
Featured here are most (but not all) the team including Atom, Captain Cold, Hawkgirl, Proffessor Stein, and a very much alive Sara Lance aka Canary.
The currently untitled spin-off show is set to air in 2016 on the CW and stars Brandon Routh, Caity Lotz, Wentworth Miller, Victor Garber, Dominic Purcell, Arthur Darvill, and Ciara Renee.It's back to the 1983 team of the Fifth Doctor, Tegan, Nyssa and Turlough for Doctor Who - Equilibrium, as a trailer is released today...
Our February release - Doctor Who - Equilibirum - is a second story with popular TARDIS crew of the Doctor, Tegan, Turlough and Nyssa, finding them eager to escape an all too familiar region:
Still looking for a way out of E-Space, the TARDIS crashes to Isenfel - a realm of snow and ice. Snarling beasts stalk the frozen plains, a feisty princess leads the hunt, and a queen in an ice palace rules over her loyal subjects.
But this is no fairytale kingdom, and everyone in Isenfel knows the price of survival. While Nyssa and Tegan uncover deadly secrets hidden in the palace, Turlough flees for his life across the tundra.
And as for the Doctor... he only ever wants to change things for the better. But in a world such as Isenfel, such a hope may not even be possible.
Click on the story links to hear the brand new trailer.
Doctor Who - Equilibrium is released in February, preceded by Doctor Who - Mistfall in January, and followed-up by Doctor Who - The Entropy Plague in March. All titles can be pre-ordered now, or come as part of a subscription to the main range of either six or twelve stories, accompanied with PDF scripts, exclusive downloadable behind-the-scenes extras, and brand new Doctor Who short story readings...February 19 is the Day of Remembrance for those who wish to recall that on February 19, 1942, President Franklin Roosevelt issued Executive Order 9066 authorizing military personnel to lock American of Japanese descent in concentration camps that are often euphemistically called “internment camps.”
The internment of the Japanese Americans is one of our greatest examples of how majority rule functions in a democracy. Fueled by the usual war hysteria so often and enthusiastically propagated by the American voter, Roosevelt’s government was virtually unrestrained in its wartime powers, and it’s drive to jail innocent Japanese civilians was not just national, but international in scope.
As Rothbard noted in an article on Peru, the American government wasn’t content with merely jailing Americans. No, it was important to actually import people destined for the concentration camps:
The first Japanese were imported into Peru at the end of the 19th century to work as slaves on the coastal sugar plantations. The Japanese, however, rebelled within weeks, and moved to Lima, where they are now located. Fujimori’s parents emigrated to Lima in the mid-1930s where his father, along with other Japanese, created hundreds of successful small businesses. After Pearl Harbor, the U.S. government pressured Peru to go to war with Japan, to confiscate Japanese-owned businesses, including the elder Fujimori’s tire repair shop, and to ship almost 1,500 Japanese to internment in the U.S. Hence, the Peruvian Indians’ embrace of Fujimori as a fellow non-white rising up against the Criollos. The fact that Fujimori’s immigrant mother does not speak Spanish works in his favor with the Inca masses, who don’t speak Spanish either; Spanish is the language of Vargas Llosa and the Criollo conquerors.
In California, where the Japanese Americans, like the Japanese Peruvians, were treated like dirt, they set up a large number of highly-successful small business (most notably in small-scale agriculture and plant nurseries). In both cases, the success of the Japanese merely made the whites jealous, and the middle-class Anglos in California decided to wage class warfare on the Japanese immigrants in the early 20th century and passed a series of laws designed to outlaw Japanese-owned businesses. Fortunately, many of their plans failed. But when the opportunity came to ship the competition off to concentration camps, who would complain?
Camps helped cripple Japanese business well beyond the end of the war, since as Douglas Carey noted: “Over 110,000 Japanese civilians were detained in this way. Not one of them had been accused of any crime. After the war was over, the majority of those detained went home to find their property looted and destroyed.”
In a democracy, this is of course a win-win situation for the majority. The democratic system ensured that the Japanese, as a small minority, possessed virtually no political power either on the West coast or nationally, and were therefore at the mercy of the state. The few politicians who provided even mild resistance to stripping the Japanese of all rights, such as Colorado governor Ralph Carr, were promptly voted out of office.
The U.S. Government has never repudiated the legal principle behind concentration camps, and maintains the legal right to use them again. Often, when libertarians or others point out that the United States is not a free country, the defenders of the status quo point to the fact that people can vote. This magical talisman held out by government apologists, known as “the vote” doesn’t seem to have worked out very well for the Japanese Americans during World War II, who also had “the vote.”North Dakota Supreme Court Chief Justice Gearld VandeWalle (right) and Justice Dale Sandstrom (left) listen to oral arguemennts Tuesday Oct. 30, 2012 in the Baker Courtroom at the Unicersity of North Dakota Law School.
North Dakota Supreme Court Chief Justice Gearld VandeWalle (right) and Justice Dale Sandstrom (left) listen to oral arguemennts Tuesday Oct. 30, |
incoming Portland Mayor Ted Wheeler contacted the group. Raiford said the mayor elect supports their efforts.
In an earlier press release, McKelvey said protesters last Friday "were assaulted, hit, pepper sprayed and/or had some form of bullets fired at their feet. Video evidence of these events exists and has been reviewed by Don't Shoot Portland."
On Friday, Hales heard reports of what he called inappropriate reactions from members of the police during the protest and encouraged anyone who experienced excessive force from police to file a complaint. On Tuesday, he said Marshman would be able to report back about those complaints.
But McKelvey said "general meetings will not change anything if not prefaced by reasonable demands." Some of those demands include:
Stopping the new Portland Police Association contract until Ted Wheeler takes over as mayor
Making all bargaining sessions with PPA public
Changing the binding arbitration clause so those who are fired stay fired
Moving deadly force incidents to a civil service board so a judge, not an arbitrator will make the decision
Stopping sending PPB gang officers to protests
The protest last Friday was in direct response to recent police shootings in Tulsa and Charlotte. The Portland march began in Northeast Portland, weaved its way through streets and bridges and eventually wound up inside City Hall.We all know that at the holiday time it really is the thought that counts. However ask any craft lover and they’ll tell you that presentation is pretty important too! Adding a hand-crafted bow or ribbon to your packaging can be the perfect way to show someone you really care this season. That’s why HairBow Center has put together an easy guide for making picture-perfect holiday gift bows!
For best results we recommend using organza, satin or grosgrain ribbon – though don’t be afraid to think outside the box! Try your hand at these simple designs and share your results in the comments below.
Happy Holidays!
Click to enlarge!
To share on your blog or website, please copy and paste the embed code below:
<a href=”http://www.hairbowcenter.com/blog/how-to-tie-the-perfect-holiday-bow-infographic” target=”_blank”><img src=”https://www.hairbowcenter.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2014/12/HairBow_Center_A_Holiday_How-To_12-03-2014-190×1024.jpg” alt=”How To Tie the Perfect Holiday Bow (Infographic)” width=”190″ height=”1024″ border=”0″ /></a>
How to Tie the Perfect Holiday Bow Infographic Presented By HairBow Center
Visit the rest of our blog for more Crafting Tutorials and DIY Instructions!Hello everyone! This third Sunday of 2012 we're giving the welcome to moobelle and depression76 to our translation group (thanks for joining guys, you're great), and bringing to our visitors two new scanlations.
Today's double release consists of "The Proof of Love I Dedicate to You" and "Lyrical Nano!", both art short doujins. The first one takes place during StrikerS, and is a fun and sweet NanoFate doujin with a story centered in Teana and Hayate's point of view. The second doujin shows us two little stories about young Nanoha and Fate cooking, and about how dangerous baby-Nanoha can be.
We hope you enjoy this double release! More doujins next week.
Lyrical Nano! credits:
Raws:???
Translator: prime_time
Proofreading: Divine Vengeance
Editor: prime_time
The Proof of Love I Dedicate to You credits:
Raws: 闪光家族大家长
Translator: moobelle
Proofreading: Divine Vengeance
Editor: depression76
Quality Check: ShiroAka
Preview:
Download:
Torrent: NyaaTorrents
Direct Download: SendSpace - FileFactory - NanoFate.usIf Lewis Carroll were alive today, he wouldn’t bother with a looking glass. His book would be called Alice Through the Wormhole.
Being the mathematician that he was, Carroll (aka Charles Dodgson) would have kept current with the latest developments in quantum physics. He would no doubt be intrigued by a new paper describing an idea for the creation (or at least the simulation) of a wormhole in the laboratory to test the latest ideas linking black holes with quantum weirdness.
Carroll would be particularly happy to see that little Alice had grown up to be a quantum physicist, collaborating with somebody named Bob (whose fictional precursor has yet to be identified). Alice and Bob are the (hypothetical) primary investigators of such mysteries as quantum cryptography and quantum entanglement. They are especially skilled at quantum teleportation, in which information needed to reconstruct a quantum particle can be transported from one lab (Alice’s) to another (Bob’s).
Teleporting a quantum particle (typically a photon, a particle of light) is a few centuries of science short of teleporting Captain Kirk from the Enterprise to the surface of some planet where danger is lurking. But the conceptual groundwork is now being put in place. The new paper, posted in the physics online archive, in fact, proposes a scheme allowing Alice to teleport a person (named Tom, for some reason) to Bob — through a wormhole.
Ordinarily, wormholes (if they exist) would connect distant regions of spacetime. They wouldn’t be useful for intergalactic Hyperloop travel, as anything entering a wormhole would cause it to collapse. But much work in recent years suggests that such spacetime tunnels might link two black holes, in which case travel through them becomes thinkable, even if not physically, emotionally or economically feasible.
Wormhole travel between black holes is thinkable because of quantum entanglement, one of Alice and Bob’s specialties. In a quantum universe (like the one you are living in), particles that interact can become “entangled” in such a way that they exist in a single “quantum state.” In such a state, a measurement performed on one of the particles can reveal information about the other particle, no matter how far away the second particle is. This spooky connection is hard to explain. Some theories seem to moderate the mystery by proposing that entangled particles are connected by wormholes.
In technical terms, this connection is designated by the “equation” ER=EPR. ER stands for Einstein and Rosen, the two physicists who wrote the seminal paper describing wormholes (otherwise known as Einstein-Rosen bridges). EPR stands for Einstein, Podolsky and Rosen (yes, the same Rosen — and the same Einstein, for that matter), the three physicists who wrote an early paper describing quantum entanglement (mainly in order to complain about it).
If the basic idea of ER=EPR is correct, then it might very well be possible for people to travel through wormholes, as Stanford physicist Leonard Susskind (among others) has discussed in a series of intriguing papers. In fact, Susskind contends, Alice and Bob could prove ER=EPR simply by jumping into two entangled black holes, linked by a wormhole. Alice and Bob would meet in the middle of the wormhole, thereby verifying the ER=EPR theory and winning themselves Nobel Prizes. Except for the slight snag that they could not get out of the wormhole (or even send a message), so nobody would ever know how things went once Alice and Bob finally met in person (or that they had met at all). They would be forever concealed behind the black holes’ event horizons, the surface through which no signal from the interior can escape.
In his latest paper, though, Susskind and Ying Zhao, also of Stanford, offer hope. It seems possible, Susskind and Zhao say, to mimic entangled black holes in the lab. Alice and Bob would not have to risk their futures — they could send Tom through the lab-created wormhole to see if he survived. “Combining quantum teleportation with the idea that entangled black holes are connected by Einstein-Rosen bridges implies that ER=EPR could in-principle be tested by observers who themselves never cross the horizon,” Susskind and Zhao assert.
OK, Tom is not really a person in this plan; he’s just a symbol for teleportee. A teleportee can simply be a photon, a particle containing quantum information that Alice would like to send to Bob. (Such a photon might, for instance, contain important information for a computation that Bob is performing.) Alice cannot simply measure the photon’s information, write it down and e-mail it to Bob. Looking at the photon reduces the multiple possible measurement outcomes to a single definite state (say, spin pointing up). Bob needs a particle that retains the multiple possible outcomes that make quantum information so rich.
All a particle’s quantum information can be teleported, though, if Bob and Alice share a pair of previously entangled photons. Alice allows her entangled photon to interact with Tom (the teleportee photon) and records the result. (This process DESTROYS the teleportee!) Alice then calls Bob up or texts him with the result. Bob then can perform an operation on his entangled photon, which has the effect of restoring Tom in his original state, bringing him BACK TO LIFE! (Metaphorically.)
If ER=EPR is right, Tom has in fact not died, but actually traveled through the wormhole connecting Bob and Alice’s entangled photons. In a thoroughly elaborate mathematical demonstration, Susskind and Zhao describe how this works. A key point is that the process of teleporting quantum information requires the communication of ordinary information through standard channels: To teleport one quantum bit (or qubit) of information, Alice must send Bob at least two ordinary bits of information by slower-than-light signaling of some sort. So there is no “instantaneous” spooky action at a distance going on, as some common misinterpretations suggest.
Susskind and Zhao admit that it is not very likely that Alice and Bob will ever venture into space to find two suitably connected black holes, let alone persuade somebody named Tom to come along. But it is possible to imagine a laboratory facsimile of such a paired black hole arrangement. Perhaps some clever condensed matter physicists could devise two “large shells of matter” that would mimic the properly weird gravitational spacetime geometry needed for the job. These shells would be connected by a wormhole, so Alice and Bob could jump in (they would have to “merge themselves with the matter forming the shells”) and meet “in some place outside ordinary spacetime.” But they still would not be able to inform anyone in the outer world of their success. Alice would have to induce Tom to merge with one of the shells so she could teleport him to Bob.
“When Tom emerges out of … Bob’s shell, he will recall everything he encountered, and can confirm that he really did traverse the wormhole,” Susskind and Zhao contend.
On the other hand (and this seems more promising), two quantum computers could be entangled to simulate wormhole travel. Simulating a real person would require quantum computers of unimaginably huge memory storage capacity. But with a 100-qubit quantum computer (much larger than anything available in labs today, but thinkable), a teleportee of 10 qubits could be sent through the wormhole. Small variations in the initial state of the teleportee would enable the computers to detect how it reacted to conditions in the wormhole, thereby providing the evidence needed to verify the wormhole’s existence, confirming that ER=EPR.
“There does not seem to be an in-principle obstruction to laboratory teleportation through the wormhole,” Susskind and Zhao say. “On the face of it this seems somewhat fantastical, but given that the lab is part of a quantum-gravitational world in which ER=EPR, the conclusion seems inevitable.”
As would be the subsequent book about the adventure. Forget Alice. It would be called Tom Through the Wormhole. Feed your head with that, White Rabbit.
Follow me on Twitter: @tom_siegfried"We welcome non-paying customers, but rather than putting a door charge on they can give something to the community." - Sprig & Fern owner Lee Fern.
The practice of filling up on cheap drinks at home before going out to local bars has been a long-standing problem for the hospitality industry, but one Nelson bar owner is more concerned with freeloaders than pre-loaders.
Sprig & Fern owner Lee Fern's decision to ask patrons who don't purchase food or drinks for a charity donation has been supported by Hospitality New Zealand and New Zealanders on the street..
Fern wants non-paying customers to donate to Big Brothers, Big Sisters and Hospitality NZ president Adam Cunningham was in favour of the idea, saying people should be aware of the cost of live entertainment.
1 of 4 MARION VAN DIJK "It sounds good, otherwise paying customers might not get a seat." - Judy Painter, Auckland. 2 of 4 MARION VAN DIJK "Yeah I think it's fair, he has some expenses so people can't expect a communal space - it needs to be funded." - Krystin Unverzagt, 24, Germany. 3 of 4 MARION VAN DIJK "I think it's reasonable - if you're coming and using their facilities it makes sense to ask people to contribute." - Steve Wilson, Nelson. 4 of 4 MARION VAN DIJK "I think it's a good idea because you're going into his bar and he's paid for it." - Morgan Higgins, 16, Nelson.
"It's always been a real challenge to put on live entertainment for patrons' enjoyment but also to ensure that you're not doing that as a community giveback," he said.
"What [Fern] has done in Nelson is a great thing to make people realise the costs of live entertainment".
He said giving musicians the opportunity to perform at bars was also important for to keep the live entertainment industry alive.
Pay up if you're not drinking - fair or not? Share your stories, photos and videos. Contribute
"They can't get good at their profession if we can't afford to have them."
Fern's decision to implement the rule was prompted by a run-in with a long-standing customer who complained about smokers in the outdoor area where she was watching a band, despite her not paying for any drinks.
"People like that who don't put anything into the bar are really frustrating, we're a business and we pay for the bands. That's where I'm coming from," he said.
"We welcome non-paying customers, but rather than putting a door charge on they can give something to the community."
He said the woman who complained was a regular who came to listen to the live music but did not buy any drinks there.
The Hardy St bar's live music is played in an outdoor area where smokers are allowed. The woman had complained to the Fern three months ago about the smokers and recently returned with her partner who became verbally abusive to smoking customers, Fern said.
He had since trespassed him from the bar.
"It was creating problems for everyone else," said Fern.
The donation, the amount of which would be up to the individual, would be given to local charity Big Brothers Big Sisters in Nelson.
"We just want people to have a conscience," he said.
While monitoring all non-paying patrons might be difficult, he would leave payments to the honesty of people.
Hiring a band each week could cost the bar up to $800 per performance, said Fern.
"We don't just pluck that out of thin air."
He hoped to give Big Brothers Big Sisters more exposure by donating to them.
"They're someone struggling to get the recognition and need support."
Nelson's Vic Mac's Brewbar owner Zoe Williams said non-paying customers were always welcome at the bar, but it could be a "bit rude" to take up room there without buying anything.
She said Fern's requirement for a donation was not a bad idea.
"Off the bat it's probably a good idea. They'd know their money is gong to something worthwhile," she said.
Hospitality New Zealand Nelson branch president Ron Taylor said given the high costs for live music it was unsurprising that bar owners would look at alternative ways of dealing with non-paying patrons.
"You have to pay for anything that's entertainment these days and it's hard for a publican if you're having to rely on the bar to make money if there is no return from it."
The cost of hosting a live band meant the bar would need to make around three times that cost to gain a profit as a rule of thumb, Taylor said.
Fern's idea to ask for a donation from non-paying bar patrons was a good idea.
"It's always been a real challenge to put on live entertainment for patrons enjoyment but also to ensure that you're not doing that as a community giveback."
Bar owners hope that patrons know their live entertainment is a cost and the bar is not a public space.
"They can only remain open if the owner can afford to keep the doors open.
"What [Fern] has done in Nelson is a great thing to make people realise the costs of live entertainment".
*comments are closedColumbus police have illegally withheld some public records by refusing to release files on closed criminal cases, the Ohio Supreme Court ruled this morning. The ruling overturns the police division's practice since 2010 to refuse to release records in homicide and other high-profile cases to private investigators, reporters at The Dispatch and others.
Columbus police have illegally withheld some public records by refusing to release files on closed criminal cases, the Ohio Supreme Court ruled this morning.
The ruling overturns the police division�s practice since 2010 to refuse to release records in homicide and other high-profile cases to private investigators, reporters at The Dispatch and others.
The justices found that the city improperly relied on prior court rulings, with city officials arguing records could not be released as long as defendants still had potential appeals, which generally can be filed at any time. Such a practice, critics said, meant records were secret until defendants died or were freed from prison.
A lawyer for an Ohio Innocence Project attorney who filed the lawsuit against the city had argued that Columbus� stance could keep the innocent in prison and true killers walking the streets since police case files could not be examined by third parties.
The justices split 4-1 on the ruling, with two concurring in part and dissenting in part. Most police investigatory records become public once a suspect�s trial concludes, the court said. Exceptions for records protecting confidential informants and specific law-enforcement investigative techniques remain in place.
�How long must a convicted defendant or a member of the public wait?� senior Justice Paul E. Pfefier wrote in the majority opinion. �We also should be concerned about the interests of justice."
�A defendant or member of the public can access potentially exonerating material concerning a defendant only after the defendant is dead. How did we get to this point?� he wrote.
The city had a clear legal obligation to provide records and, by ignoring the request, must pay attorney fees, court costs and $1,000 in damages, the court ruled.
Columbus lawyer Fred Gittes had argued that the past court decisions that Columbus police relied on to deny records were legally inoperative because a 2010 change in criminal discovery rules gave defendants expanded access to records held by police and prosecutors. They were concerned public records laws were being improperly used to obtain police records for convicted defendants.
"The court�s decision will help prevent innocent people from spending years in jail and get the actual criminals off the street and into prison where they belong," Gittes said. " The court made Ohio�s justice system better today. Ohioans owe a debt to the Ohio Innocence Project..."
Gittes represented Donald Caster, an Ohio Innocence Project lawyer who said that police illegally refused to release records in the case of Adam Saleh, who was convicted of the 2005 murder of Julie Popovich, 20, of Reynoldsburg.
The Innocence Project does not represent Saleh, who is 29 and serving 38 years in prison, but wanted to review his police case file to assess his claim that he was wrongly convicted in 2007 on the basis of false testimony by jailhouse informants who said he indicated that he had killed Popovich.
Four inmates testified that Saleh said he strangled Popovich while trying to rape her. The body of the waitress and part-time model was found near Hoover Reservoir three weeks after she left a Short North bar with Saleh.
rludlow@dispatch.com
@RandyLudlowSevilla’s dynamic attacking overcomes Atlético defence
1:0
The most tactically-enticing game of the weekend-just-gone came from Spain as the best defensive system in the world travelled to stop Sampaoli’s fluid Sevilla team.Simeone’s men had started the season unbeaten away from home while no side had yet taken three points from the Ramón Sánchez Pizjuán. Every element suggested a tight and exciting match.
Atletico’s Defensive Approach
When possible, Simeone wanted his side to press high into Sevilla’s third to challenge and disrupt their build-up of possession. Whenever Sevilla’s possession started with the goalkeeper, or a trigger such as a pass backwards was made, Griezmann and Gamiero took the initiative to advance their defensive position, followed closely by the four midfielders.
In their usual manner, Atléti pressed with a clear man-to-man approach when defending within Sevilla’s own third. The two strikers would generally occupy the two relevant players of the Sevilla three-chain, whilst the ball-far winger would occupy the ball-far centre-back to try and challenge any switches.
Koke would often move slightly higher to sustain defensive access on N’Zonzi, whilst the more flexible positioning of Nasri was tracked by different players depending on the Frenchman’s activity. If the Frenchman dropped to the left side of his team’s defensive line, it would be Correa who picked him up. Whereas in the case he took on a central position, it would often be Gabi, or Atleti would simply cover the spaces around him instead.
However, such is the variability of Sevilla’s shape that there were few consistent patterns to Atlético’s pressing structure too. The tasks and orientations of the forwards often varied between possessions as Simeone’s side constantly reacted to the organisation of the opponents. The man-orientations largely ceased when Atléti dropped back into their 4-4-2(-0) mid-block, emphasising instead on their position-oriented scheme with intense shifts to maintain compactness and access.
Sevilla Possession Game feat. Nasri’s Dynamic Role
Against Atletico’s mid-block, Sevilla took a patient approach to their build-up. They were rather selective in deciding when to progress the ball into the midfield, which they did with some verticality in their fast combinations. Before this was possible however, they had to find the passing lanes to use. Across a wide back three they would quickly circulate the ball side-to-side, forcing Atléti to shift with the small possibility that a lane will be left open in doing so.
Samir Nasri and Steven N’Zonzi were key midfielders during this phase of play. The French pivot took on a fairly static positioning (in comparison to his teammates) and stayed fairly central on the second line of players. He was generally the deepest midfielder and could offer as a passing option behind Atlético’s two strikers in their first line of pressing but otherwise could fill-in any gaps within Sevilla’s three-chain at the back. Towards the left, Nasri was far more dynamic in his role and could appear in a number of different positions. A common pattern though was for him to drop into the left-back position when Escudero moved up.
Sevilla’s overall structure resembled an extremely fluid and variable 3-4-3 structure with a number of permutations. Nasri was a common instigator of these shape-changes through his movements, whilst Vitolo was another who was rather active in his positioning off of the ball. When applied in the manner of Sampaoli, such a shape is adherent to creating a large number of triangles, an important facilitator of their fast combinations and vertical play.
With Nasri being the central figure of Sevilla’s system, it was unsurprising to see a large number of their attacks take place down the left side of their shape. Vietto often moved across into the left half-space while Vitolo vacated the area by dropping deeper or further towards the touchline. Escudero’s movement was variable for a wing-back and could sometimes come inside (usually rotating with Vitolo). With each player being rather fluid and active in their movements, Sevilla were able to generate a number of harmoniously-dynamic triangles which could serve as the structure through which the passes were combined.
Considering the at-times seemingly random nature of Nasri’s positioning and movements, his role in Sevilla’s game model was particularly interesting. As they were constructing their possession, the Frenchman was rather ball-oriented and would drop frequently to engage in their deep ball circulation. In doing so, it was sometimes to overload Atlético’s first line of pressing, but mainly just to keep Nasri an active force in their movement of the ball. He saw the most touches out of the XI and could use his playmaking qualities to advance the ball, often initiating the fast combinations involving Vitolo and co.
While he was largely moving towards the ball, there were some instances where Nasri would in fact do the opposite. Primarily during deeper possession, he would drift away to the ball-far side of the pitch, disengaged from the play. In such moments, he was still influential but instead as an option to switch the play, where he could then create an attack in space with usually the ball-far wing-back. A technically-strong player such as Nasri is useful in these situations to cleanly control the difficult pass, which helps to start the attack at a high pace and better exploit any spaces opened by the stretching pass.
When Sevilla had possession of the ball in higher areas, Nasri’s role was more based around the retention of the ball and penetration through their fast combinations. He complemented the structure well through the left-hand side of the pitch, forming important connections between players which were necessary for Sevilla’s attacking style and for breaking through Atléti’s tight midfield.
His movement often seemed improvised to suit the structure best according to the scene which would, to some extent, explain the variability of his movements. The enhanced number of passing options lead to Atléti having a greater challenge in establishing effective defensive access both in their midfield pressing as well as both deeper and higher. Such collective pressing-resistance was important in the moments where Sevilla looked to play through an Atléti block which is known for it’s great intensity when pressing to stop the opponents from reaching behind the midfield.
From more of an attacking point-of-view, Nasri combined well in these moments to play teammates through into open space. He often played discrete and clever touches which would escape pressure and find open gaps as opposed to more extravagant, yet less effective long through-balls. Nasri’s free positioning gave him the capacity to surprise the visitors at times, too, as he would suddenly appear in unusual positions for some attacks, often on the other side of the pitch or closer to the left touchline, which would help to disorient any midfield pressing.
Perhaps the best example of this came early in the second half, where he received the ball on the turn to beat his man, engaged in a 4-pass combination diagonally through the middle of Atléti’s block before faking a shot to create space on his right for the real shot which hit the outside of the post.
Atlético Struggle against Pressure
Atlético’s possession game has continuously developed under Simeone’s reign and this season it seems to be taking it’s biggest leap yet. Carrasco and Correa have been integrated into key members of the side and they’re no longer just a world class defensive team, highlighted in the seven they put past Granada last weekend. Yet against Sevilla, their attacking threat was much less evident despite Sampaoli’s side not being perfect out of possession.
When Sevilla didn’t have the ball, they looked to get it back as soon as possible in typical Sampaoli style. Staying true to his Bielsa-influenced ideology, they were extremely man-oriented in doing so, going man-for-man in many situations of Atlético build-up. This created some weak moments for Atléti in the early stages of the game. The pressure on both Gabi and Koke often isolated them during their construction of possession, and Godin turned the ball over through indirect long balls in reply. Space did open up behind N’Zonzi, but Atletico’s centre-backs were rarely able to access these areas accurately due to the pressure of Sevilla and their own personal limitations.
The main bulk of dangerous situations created by Atlético were mainly from their defensive pressure forcing turnovers or creating through counterpressing moments on long balls, and they didn’t create much from developed attacks of their own accord. Pressing in Sevilla’s build-up forced a number of turnovers within the hosts’ half yet didn’t amount to many dangerous shots (usually through an underloaded attack given the circumstances). This began to change slightly around the 20th minute as Atléti were able to break through the pressure, mainly by exploiting the man-to-man focus of their opponents.
It seemed as though Simeone had instructed Griezmann to start making more dropping movements deeper into the midfield, and in doing so he’d create central overloads whilst Nasri and N’Zonzi were oriented more towards Gabi and Koke. This allowed Atlético to generate a couple of vertical attacks in the first half, wherein Griezmann would directly receive the ball to then drive the attack forward between their four forwards. Counter-attacking was also an option to create threatening moments, and the French striker was once again influential as he commonly received the ball early (with a deep starting position due to his defensive work) as he drove the ball forward at the centre of these fast breaks.
Whilst their attack wasn’t completely devoid of hope, these opportunities didn’t create a very strong threat on Rico’s goal and it got worse after the half-time break.
Sevilla Seize Upper-Hand after Half-Time
Sampaoli’s side started the game stronger after the interval, and were able to create a couple of dangerous chances within the first 10 minutes. Their fast combinations, and the brilliance of Nasri, worked to open up the visitors’ midfield and seemingly inspired Simeone to quickly make a change which saw Tiago replace Carrasco, moving Koke into a wider position.
This change in profile could’ve hypothetically strengthened the midfield, with a more defensive-minded player in central midfield and on the right – where their hosts had targeted in the opening 45.. Yet Sevilla’s impressive play continued to threaten, and it resulted in a yellow for Koke after he pulled back on Vitolo who was advancing through the left half-space. Nasri continued to be impressive and the key figure in this area of the match, and he contributed to the increasingly-dynamic structure down the left side of the pitch.
Despite their left-sided focus and intricate possession game, the goal came in completely unrelated circumstances. It was in fact Steven N’Zonzi who was the one to beat Oblak, after receiving the ball from a throw-in within his own half to then burst through the best defence in the world and run onto the end of a Luciano Vietto chipped through-ball. Okay then. Their problems were then added to by Koke’s dismissal just minutes after. The work-rate of Atléti and Simeone’s adjustments were not enough to give them a way back into the game, and the home side became the first team to topple Atléti on the road.
Conclusion
While a draw may have been a fair result for either side, Sevilla were the ones deserving of all three points if anything. Samir Nasri was the centre-piece of an impressive attacking game which showed strong dynamism and flexibility in its structure. Their pressing stunted an Atléti attack which has otherwise been excellent this season though Simeone will be disappointed with the overall performance of his side regardless of the opposition.Spring Classic- rain and all!
You are the 2018 Heroic!
Man did it bucket down. Every rider, camper and volunteer got some water in their eyes this weekend. But it made every ray of sunshine brighter.
It was a true Spring Classic.
This year we grew again with camping and a Night ride. Saturday the town was alive with riders and that carried on all weekend. The Avon Valley is tourism hotpot and for bike riding it is magic.
The Heroic behind the Heroic- the volunteers deserve a big round of applause. They provided safety for all riders and let you push your selves. Kudos to South Perth Cycle Club for bringing together a smiling team.
Please go and tell people,about Beverley, brag how cool your weekend was.
A parting gift from the Back Alley Pedallers- Brothers on bikes:
"As i ride through the valley in shadow of Beverley, I shall fear no Headwind"
And i hope to see you again on October 12 and 13 October, 2019
Toby Hodgson
Event Director
Facebook albums and photo links:
Road Race
Retro Bike Show
Cyclocross
Beverley Heroic Town Ride
50 and 100 mile rides
Photos from all riders welcome, please submit to jedi at mrvesparazzi.com
All photos available for digital download from Daniela Tommasi Photography
Click here to see her galleries
Results
Road Race results- 121 years of Road racing, 2018 edition here
Cyclocross Novice- CX Curious results
Cyclocross - CX Heroic results here
Hero points - read about the bicycles that carried these Heroic over rough miles. Database link here
"Spirit not speed" Awards:
Retro Bike Show Peoples choice award:
1. Clive Andrews: Holdsworth resplendent in Team colour and first class restoration
2. Frank West: Ascot and story of this Beverley winner with the Swansea frame won by the rider.
3. equal 3rd: C Andrews Green Legano, Vic Cull';s Dawes Galaxy tourer and Frank Wests Swansea frame ( mentioned above)
The Most Heroic Bike
pre 1930
C Clements: 1925 single speed Ascot on the 50 Miler
1931-1949
J Clements: Estimated early 30's AG Healing track bike, bought over from NSW. Is a friends dads bike who is now 82 and it was his fathers bike originally.
1950-1969
B. Cleaver: Ascot - chrome track frame, cyclo 3 speed, gb stem, nervex lugs, Williams cranks etc
1970-1987
T. Andrews: Original 1974 Holdsworth team bike. Purchased new from Putney England Dec 1974. Raced it, sold it, recovered it circa 2010. Restored. Campag running gear. Used L'Eroica Tuscany in 2016.
Heroic Rider awards
The Most Heroic Rider- Matt Sheriff
Wearing Peugeot bike to match his Peugeot Jersey this guy was 1970's team rider perfection.
The Most Heroic Hair- Byron Cleaver
Making the mutton chops meet Byrons fur was like a bear on his face.
The Most Heroic Act- A Williams
nominated by his wife who said he put up with her nagging for 60km and complaints and dummy spit - he was true gentleman and a Hero in her eyes.
The Heroine- L Beeck
Excited at getting 007 rider number this Bond girl was shaken not stirred when she discovered that her brakes were stuck on and everyone had pushed her up that Ashworh Hill.Accelerationism and Insurrection: Sleeping with the Enemy
Disclaimer, July 16, 2014 : This note is a corrective to this article, which was written sometime in the summer of 2011, and is long overdue for a response. At the time of the writing of this article, I had just discovered the amphetamine laced drug that is Nick Land, and was trying to come to my own terms with his writing. In researching his writings online, I also came across the then nascent discussion around what was to become Accelerationism. Since that time, I have had the great pleasure of speaking and working with many of the people who have contributed to the developing discussion around Accelerationism, including #Accelerate authors Nick Srnicek and Alex Williams (who were kind enough to let me publish the first print version of the manifesto in Dark Trajectories in 2013). I no longer think the manner in which I characterized Accelerationism in this article is a good, or even useful, explanation of the term. Someday soon I hope to write a full corrective, but absent that article, I would direct you to Peter Wolfendale’s recent post, “So, Accelerationism, what’s all that about?”. Pete gets at the heart of the problem with the description I used for Accelerationism — “Accelerationism is the notion that rather than halting the onslaught of capital, it is best to exacerbate its processes to bring forth its inner contradictions and thereby hasten its destruction.”– as Pete says:
D[eleuze]&G[uattari]’s insistence that nothing was ever killed by contradictions is a truly formative insight. For many, this has precipitated a turn away from a dialectical materialist analysis of the contradictions inherent within the functional structure of social systems to one grounded in cybernetics and complexity theory, which can account for both constitutive and disruptive tensions between intra-systemic tendencies in more intricate ways that are equally less susceptible to common misunderstandings.
Capitalism cannot be undone by “exacerbating its processes”, and as I have also come to believe, ‘left-Accelerationism’ does not seek to further ‘contradictions’, but to develop a means of understanding the systematic complexity of our world, so as to offer better solutions than capitalism’s logic can. Even the Landian forumalation of ‘right-Acceleration’, which is referred to in this article is more focused on the release of a libidinal capitalism, rather than an exhaustion of its energies by contradiction. As for the role of Art in relation to Accelerationism, I have a very different story to say about that today — another project which is yet to come. So, while it may seem to be for the best to simply remove this article from the internet, it has been referred to and critiqued by a few people in its short existence, and for that I will leave it as a record. I do, however, recommend that people seeking to find out about Accelerationism read the article linked above, check out the #Accelerate manifesto, or even pick up #Accelerate: The Accelerationist Reader from Urbanomic — all of which would be much better intros to this developing movement.
___
Accelerationism is the notion that rather than halting the onslaught of capital, it is best to exacerbate its processes to bring forth its inner contradictions and thereby hasten its destruction. As a radical act, the genesis of this idea stretches back to Marx [1] and continues through Lyotard’s Libidinal Economy, Deleuze and Guattari’s Anti-Oedipus, and Nick Land’s cybertechnics. I will be |
and adopting more environmentally friendly public transportation technologies and infrastructure.
Public transportation can help support the Paris Accord — right now.
We know that making the switch to public transportation can reduce greenhouse gas emissions by providing a low-emissions alternative to driving. The average passenger vehicle produces about 1 lb. of carbon dioxide per mile traveled whereas bus transit only produces.18 lbs. of CO2 at full capacity. By the year 2020, when the first round of long-term plans are due from countries participating on the Paris Agreement, it’s estimated that more than 50 percent of carbon emissions could be abated by “the combined impact of second-generation biofuel, traffic flow, shifts to public transportation, and eco-driving measures.”
Yet, each day, millions of Americans reverse out of their driveways in concert and begin their commute to work. The majority of them — 77 percent — do it alone, despite that their neighbors are often traveling to a similar location. While these empty passenger seats represent a substantial waste in resources, they also represent an easy and available opportunity to combat climate change. As the Deputy Commissioner for Transportation Policy in New York argued, “The Paris Agreement is a wake-up call for more urgent action.”
A report from Deloitte estimates that a simple switch to “car sharing” could reduce nationwide car ownership by nearly 2.1 million. That switch alone could save $185 million in wasted fuel and result in almost 1 million metric ton of reduced carbon dioxide emissions. If simply increasing the passenger load factor in a four-person vehicle can reduce such a significant amount of emissions and wasted fuel, imagine the impact of switching to public transportation.
An added bonus to taking public transit is, of course, the reduction of teeth-grinding gridlock — especially if you’re an urbanite. City dwellers assume that buses and trains take longer, but the truth is that driving is most often the transportation mode that causes delays.
So how can public transportation support the Paris Agreement in the future?
While public transit represents an immediate action that individuals and organizations can take toward combating climate change, it also represents the beginning of a more sustainable future. In the last century, cities were designed with personal automobiles in mind. Now, these same cities — with the support of their mayors and other elected officials — have the opportunity to become key actors in the transition to sustainable practices. In particular, by enacting policies that favor alternative transit modes built around public transportation at the center.
According to the American Public Transportation Association, public transportation could play a larger role in saving the environment but “only 54 percent of households in the U.S. have access to public transportation.” As such, the critical first step is for the U.S. to expand coverage so more Americans can “take full advantage of transit’s environmental and economic benefits.”
As CityLab points out, it’s also imperative that cities and transit authorities provide residents with transportation options they like and will use. This doesn’t mean relying on Uber and Lyft or introducing autonomous vehicles (it’s uncertain that AVs will have an immediate impact on congestion or emissions problems). What it does mean is providing the public with mobility options that fit their needs.
Transit agencies’ essential first step to providing residents with desirable transportation options is incorporating on-demand transit. Ride-sharing companies like Lyft and Uber have reshaped the public’s expectations of transportation. Purely demand-driven, these ride services appear when you need them, at the click of button.
It’s possible for municipal transit agencies to supplement their current services with a demand-driven, micro-transit option that addresses the needs (and newfound expectations) of riders while leveraging the existing infrastructure of fixed-route services. As an added benefit, micro-transit is flexible enough to address today’s coverage issues while being inherently flexible enough to adjust as demand does in the future.
The combination of mobile phones, sensors and GPS tracking, traffic data feeds, data analytics and mapping software can put all the options at commuter’s fingertips – whether walking or biking, using a bus, train, ferries or shared rides – including the multi-modal combinations that are quickest and cheapest.
It’s estimated that if demand-driven transit could facilitate 30 percent of New York City’s trips, the total number of vehicle miles travelled would be reduced by 52 million trips per year, resulting in 431.2 million vehicles miles eliminated. A reduction of that size signifies congestion savings to commuters of $495 million per year and 14 million hours in delay saved.
For the city of New York, the same reduction in vehicle miles travelled would save the city $959 million on road construction over 25 years and result in a 139 thousand-metric-ton annual reduction in carbon dioxide emissions.
Imagine these same results applied in your city and cities all over the United States. Imagine the time, money, and frustration that public transportation could save you and your community. Now, imagine how significant the impact could be across the globe. From Paris to Washington, and throughout the rest of the world, transit is the key to making good on our pledge to support the Paris Agreement today and to building tomorrow’s sustainable future.
Dave Kirkpatrick is managing director and co-founder of SJF Ventures, a positive impact venture fund with offices in Durham, New York, San Francisco and Seattle. SJF has 57 portfolio companies and focuses on high growth companies creating a healthier, smarter and cleaner future. Kirkpatrick is also the board chair of TransLoc, a technology provider of flexible agency-owned micro-transit solutions with a mission to empower transit agencies to remain central to the future of modern transportation.
The views expressed by contributors are their own and are not the views of The Hill.back to news News Attention! This news was published on the old version of the website. There may be some problems with news display in specific browser versions. War Thunder Dev blog launched Dear pilots and tankers! We always want you to enjoy the changes we introduce to War Thunder with new updates, as well as understand why we are introducing these changes. Do you want to know why the game economy is being adjusted? What are the daily duties of our flight models team? How is shell penetration calculated? When will your favourite bomber get a shiny new cockpit? There is so much cool stuff we work on here in Gaijin and we can’t wait to tell you about it!
That is why we are launching War Thunder Dev Blog. Read it to learn what features we are working on right now and what you should expect to appear in the future. We are also moving the “Dev diaries” and “Tank diaries” to the blog.
So add it to your favorites and stay tuned!
The first entry is about the progression system changes in Update 1.39 (read now) War Thunder teamA condominium and retail-store developer named by the Liberal government to the board of directors of the Halifax Port Authority appears to have breached Prime Minister Justin Trudeau's ethics rules by attending a $1,500-a-ticket fundraiser for the governing party.
Jim Spatz, chairman and chief executive officer of Southwest Properties, was one of about 15 corporate executives who gathered on Oct. 13 at an exclusive Halifax fundraiser where Finance Minister Bill Morneau was the star attraction. He was the only person at the event who serves on a federal Crown corporation.
Mr. Trudeau's Open and Accountable Government ethics rules announced last Nov. 27 state that a public office holder should not "participate in a political activity that is, or that may reasonably be seen to be, incompatible with the public office holder's duty, or otherwise be seen to impair his or her ability to discharge … public duties in a politically impartial fashion, or would cast doubt on the integrity or impartiality" of the office.
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Analysis:Liberals shrug off their own ethical guidelines with fundraiser
Related: Morneau fundraiser one in list of Liberal cash-for-access events
Globe editorial: For Justin Trudeau, avoiding conflict of interest is more of a suggestion than a rule
Lisa Raitt, a former Conservative transport minister in charge of ports and a former senior executive at the Toronto Port Authority, said Mr. Spatz violated the rules by going to the Morneau fundraiser at the mansion of mining magnate Fred George, who is a business partner in a hotel complex in Halifax.
"They are supposed to be non-partisan. How does the public have the confidence that it can deal with the Halifax Port Authority board in a non-partisan manner if [Mr. Spatz] is going to these super-exclusive partisan events?" asked Ms. Raitt, now MP for the Southern Ontario riding of Milton.
Since The Globe and Mail reported on the Halifax event and other cash-for-access fundraisers across the country at which senior cabinet ministers are prize guests, the government has ducked all questions in Parliament about the Open and Accountable Government rules. Instead, Mr. Trudeau and his ministers have argued that they are not breaking election financing laws.
Mr. Spatz was appointed to the Halifax Port Authority as a federal director last May on the recommendation of Treasury Board President Scott Brison, the Liberal political power broker for Nova Scotia.
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Sources have also told The Globe that questions have been raised within the port authority about the "self-evident" potential conflict of interest of having Mr. Spatz sit on the board. "The [Conflict of Interest] Act is a very instructive piece of legislation," one port authority source said. "You don't have to read very far into the act."
The code of conduct for the Halifax Port Authority says directors should "shall discharge their duties and arrange their private affairs in such a manner as to preserve and promote public confidence and trust in the integrity and impartiality of the authority."
The rules also say the "authority may be as equally compromised by the appearance of conflict as with the existence of an actual conflict."
Mr. Spatz is a major land developer in Halifax. He owns Bishops Landing, which includes shops, restaurants and condominiums, on the waterfront adjacent to the Halifax port.
The Halifax Port Authority hired outside consultants in September to examine the potential of moving one of the terminals as part of a master plan for a so-called big ships strategy that could open up 175 acres to property developers on prime waterfront lands.
Soil and slate from another major Southwest condo development is being dumped in the Fairview Cove terminal. The terminal is a short drive from Mr. Spatz's $140-million Pavilion in South Park condo complex, now under construction.
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"We are able to help the developers by providing them with a reasonable disposal option, use that material to infill one of our water lots, and there is a development handling fee so essentially it's become a revenue stream as well," Halifax Port Authority spokesperson Lane Farguson told The Globe and Mail.
In an e-mail to The Globe, Mr. Spatz said there is no conflict of interest because his company is not directly doing the dumping.
"A third-party contractor has been engaged by Southwest, under a fixed price contract, to perform the South Park excavation, which includes disposing of the fill," he wrote. "Southwest has no involvement or benefit, financial or otherwise, in how or where the contractor disposes of the fill."
Mr. Brison defended the appointment of his friend, who donated $5,400 to his 2006 leadership campaign. "Mr. Spatz is a person of strong character [with] extremely strong governance experience and an understanding of business and good governance that can only strengthen the Halifax Port Authority," he told The Globe.
Halifax Port Authority board chairman Hector Jacques would not discuss how the board would handle any potential conflict of interest with Mr. Spatz. "I only only comment on board issues and only after a final decision or determination has been made on any matter before us," he said. "We have a strict confidentiality requirement."
A government official, who spoke on background, said Mr. Spatz would recuse himself from any board decisions affecting his business interests.
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The Liberals promised during the election campaign to remove patronage and partisanship from the appointment process.
Mr. Brison played down the Halifax developer's assistance to him and the Liberal Party, saying that "Mr. Spatz has donated and supported members from various political parties over the years."
Mr. Spatz gave $1,100 to former provincial New Democratic Party leader Robert Chisholm when he briefly ran for the federal NDP helm in 2011 and has contributed to local NDP, Liberal and Conservative candidates in past elections.
Transport Minister Marc Garneau made the appointment on the advice of Mr. Brison and with the approval of Mary Ng, the Prime Minister's director of appointments.
His office issued a statement saying Mr. Spatz was thoroughly vetted. "The government always conducts an analysis of any real or perceived conflicts of interest prior to the appointment of candidates to governor-in-council positions, including the solicitation of such potential conflicts by self-identification of candidates," the office said. "As one of the region's leading real estate developers, Mr. Spatz brings a depth of experience and judgment to a board that manages 260 acres of land in the Halifax region."
The Liberals also noted that the former Conservative government appointed five Conservatives between 2006 and 2015.
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The Halifax Port Authority has been working on a comprehensive plan to allow the berthing of the world's largest-class cargo and cruise ships in two terminals. The study comes as the city's two terminal operators are in merger talks to create one terminal.
As part of the port study, one option is to build a second new terminal in Shearwater on the Dartmouth side of the Halifax Harbour, with the federal government paying $1.2-billion for construction and dredging.
This would open up large tracts of prime waterfront land in Halifax for condo and retail development."The influx of unaccompanied children across the southwest border has resulted in an urgent humanitarian situation," a Department of Homeland Security official emailed on background. "The President has directed Secretary Johnson to establish an interagency Unified Coordination Group to ensure unity of effort across the Administration in responding effectively to this humanitarian situation. This effort, lead and coordinated by FEMA, is quickly marshalling resources across the government to provide humanitarian relief to affected children. Addressing the rising flow of unaccompanied children crossing our southwest border is an important priority of this Administration and the Department of Homeland Security."
"I am terribly concerned about the deplorable conditions in which these children are being held. I am troubled by the fact that the photos show children's faces, especially since many of these children may be victims of trafficking or other serious crimes. Still, these are important photos, and they tell a tragic story: our country is facing a child migration crisis," she said. "Tens of thousands of Central American children are arriving at our southwest border having fled life-threatening conditions in their home countries. On their way to the United States, many of these vulnerable young people are being physically abused or sexually assaulted. When they reach our border, our government has a moral responsibility to treat them with care and compassion. That is why I'm pleased President Obama and Homeland Security Secretary Johnson have made this crisis a top priority. However, as these photos show, our current border resources are entirely insufficient. It's up to Congress to provide the Departments of Homeland Security and Health and Human Services with the financial capacity to meet the needs of these children. It's also time to pass my bill, the Child Trafficking Victims Protection Act, which would place trained child welfare professionals at the border to identify trafficking victims and ensure all children at our border are treated with the kindness and basic human dignity they deserve."Bob Michel, who died today, with his vanquisher and successor Newt Gingrich back in the day.
It somehow seems appropriate that just as Washington descends to new depths of partisan polarization after Donald Trump’s strange press conference yesterday, we learn that former House GOP Leader Bob Michel has died, at the age of 93, in a suburb of the capital. Let’s hope Michel was too sick to watch a spectacle that might have confirmed the downward trend in civility — especially in his own party — so many identified as occurring when he was pushed aside just prior to the Republican Revolution of 1994.
Michel spent 38 years in Congress representing a central Illinois district. His House career covered all but two years of the four-decade wilderness period when Republicans remained in the minority. While a consistent conservative, Michel learned how to exert influence without real power, in part by respecting ancient traditions of comity and compromise. But by the end of his career, the ideological conquest of the GOP by movement conservatives who viewed comity and compromise as craven terms of surrender had advanced just far enough to make Michel’s continuation as party leader impossible. And so he retired on the cusp of a House Republican majority — like Moses, given a glimpse of the promised land he could not enter.
It was obvious at the time that Michel’s retirement represented a turning point for his party. Former colleague Mickey Edwards summarized it well even before Michel announced he was giving up his leadership post and his House seat:
Congress is not a very pleasant place these days, and one could easily understand why a man of Michel’s abilities, always in the minority, always on the periphery, never chairman of anything, might decide that he’d finally had enough of the Democrats’ tyranny. Ironically, however, if he hangs it up, it will not be the Democrats who drove him to it; it will be his fellow Republicans, the young and angry ones, the ones who see being in Congress as part of a ceaseless political campaign and have little stomach for the serious legislative work they were elected to do.
Michel is often referred to these days as a moderate (or, worse, a compromising) Republican. He is accused of seeking consensus when his troops are seeking blood. Which shows that all things are relative, for Michel, often stubborn, often combative, has been consistently ranked among the most conservative members of Congress. Yet, measured against the majority of today’s House Republicans, who judge not by philosophy but by belligerence, Michel, a wartime combat veteran who still slugs it out for a strong defense, less government, reduced spending, is “not one of us.”
No, he wasn’t, but Newt Gingrich was, and even though Gingrich himself was purged from the House leadership and Congress just a few years after engineering Michel’s political eclipse, the GOP remains in many respects Newt’s party, thanks to his relationship with the elephant’s new master, Donald Trump. Had Michel been younger and stayed around after 1994, he would have eventually gone along with the new extremist style or been purged as a RINO. By all accounts, he was temperamentally incapable of the kind of opposition-demonizing tactics that have long become normal in both parties, but especially in Michel’s party.
There will be many pleasant words of praise for Michel today. House Speaker Paul Ryan paused from his intense efforts to engineer a right-wing agenda through Congress without a single Democratic vote to call the former leader a “great and gracious man.” While there is no reason to attribute insincerity to Ryan in this instance, he could have no more thrived in the atmosphere of Michel’s House GOP than Michel could have thrived in Ryan’s. And now it’s Ryan who must watch his own back in case the latest breed of angry Republicans decide he is too old-school to lead them.Watching Barack Obama's speech yesterday, I thought of a young W.E.B. Du Bois who in 1897 authored the original Poundcake Speech:
We believe that the first and greatest step toward the settlement of the present friction between the races—commonly called the Negro Problem—lies in the correction of the immorality, crime and laziness among the Negroes themselves, which still remains as a heritage from slavery. We believe that only earnest and long continued efforts on our own part can cure these social ills.
Du Bois styled himself as a speaker of bold truths, arguing that black people "must be honest" and fearless in "criticizing their own faults." Those faults included a disturbing number of black boys succumbing to "loafing, gambling and crime," and a "vast army of black prostitutes that is today marching to hell."
Du Bois was writing at a time in which such views were current in the world of white sociology. The way to defeat them was not to attack them at their root, but to be better, to be twice as good—"There is no power under God's high heaven," asserted Du Bois. "That can stop the advance of eight thousand thousand honest, earnest, inspired and united people."
Much like Du Bois more than a century ago, Obama positioned himself as an airer of laundry and speaker of bold, necessary truths:
And then, if we're honest with ourselves, we'll admit that during the course of 50 years, there were times when some of us claiming to push for change lost our way. The anguish of assassinations set off self-defeating riots. Legitimate grievances against police brutality tipped into excuse-making for criminal behavior. Racial politics could cut both ways, as the transformative message of unity and brotherhood was drowned out by the language of recrimination. And what had once been a call for equality of opportunity, the chance for all Americans to work hard and get ahead was too often framed as a mere desire for government support—as if we had no agency in our own liberation, as if poverty was an excuse for not raising your child, and the bigotry of others was reason to give up on yourself.
It goes without saying that the president is using a tank to bravely plow through an army of straw men. George Will could not have done better. I have met a lot of trifling human beings who happened to be black, and from them, I have heard a lot of trifling excuses for not parenting. I have never met one who cited racism as an excuse for not parenting or for giving up on oneself. I doubt that Barack Obama has either.*
The president's comments regarding the riots are particularly illuminating. The black community in 1968 had born the brunt of roughly a hundred years of lynchings, beatings, rapes, firebombs and racist policy. The American state which Barack Obama represents regarded Apartheid not as an unfortunate side-effect but as one of its necessary premises. Nothing was immune—not postbellum reunion, not Prohibition, not the New Deal, not the G.I. Bill, nothing. In the main, the black community responded to this campaign of white terrorism and racist policy with stoic protests, hypermorality and nonviolence. Bloody Sunday was not original. It just happened to be televised.
There is the rub: In the 1960s, black men and women who carried the pain of living in a white terrorist state, who carried the pain of redlining, of job discrimination, of being cheated out of land, put on the television and saw black women and children getting the shit kicked out of them. No one was being punished. Sometimes the police were doing the kicking. They saw this, and they stewed. They'd seen it before. And as they had in the face of racial pogroms, and in the face of slavery itself, they closed their mouths, swallowed the daggers, and got dressed for work.
Martin Luther King turned this stoic tradition into high art. It was a kind of jujitsu by which our pain could be made redemptive. The price was high. If that imagery cut black folks to the core, one wonders how far it went in normalizing the idea of the black body as the rightful field for violence. If you accept that being twice as good is the price of the ticket, then you accept a double standard, and thus necessarily accept the precepts of racism.
The response to this bargain was to bug King's phones, to send lewd tapes of his affairs to his wife, to plant informants in his inner circle. The heads of the American state signed off on this bugging. Jackie Kennedy held him in contempt. John F. Kennedy liked to demean him as "Martin Luther Queen." The response of the white public was considerably more vicious. And so for daring to oppose Vietnam, for challenging Apartheid, for claiming that garbage workers are people, they murdered him.
None of us in this generation can truly know how it must have felt to be black, to have come out of the long night of slavery, into the clutches of revanchists, to have survived only to see your great ambassador slaughtered like a dog. Barack Obama doesn't know anything about this. None of us know anything about this. None of us can really know how deep that pain must have cut. Anger is human. It is fantastic to see the head of the same American state that created the ghettos (which predictably exploded) attack the people imprisoned there for being self-defeating.
Like Du Bois, Barack Obama has taken the stage at a moment when it is popular to assert that black people are the agents of their own doom. The response to Trayvon Martin, indeed the response to Barack Obama himself, has been to attack black morality, to highlight black criminality and thus change the conversation from what the American state has done to black people to what black people have done to themselves. Like Du Bois, Barack Obama believes that these people have a point. Du Bois's biographer, David Levering Lewis, says that Du Bois came to look back back on that speech with some embarrassment. I don't know that Barack Obama will ever reach such a conclusion.
Indeed, if we are—as the president asks us to be—honest with ourselves, we will see that we have elected a president who claims to oppose racial profiling one minute, and then flirts with inaugurating the country's greatest racial profiler the next. If we are honest with ourselves we will see that we have a president who can condemn the riots as "self-defeating," but can't see his way clear to enforce the fair housing law that came out of them. If we are honest with ourselves we will see a president who believes in particular black morality, but eschews particular black policy.
It is heartbreaking to see this. But it is also clarifying.
*This sentence was changed and clarified in response to this comment.Residents in Park Lane, Woofferton, near Ludlow, have complained over the smell coming coming from the Marches Biogas digester in recent weeks, to the extent that Vivienne Parry, Shropshire Councillor for Ludlow South, said she had "no alternative" but to report the firm to the public health department of Shropshire Council.
She said she had been there as recently as Saturday.
"Several residents in the Park Lane area of Wooferton have complained to me of the smell and flies emanating from this plant over the last few weeks. I have visited the area several times and the smell is truly awful," she said.
"I feel particularly sorry or the residents of the old peoples home only some 200 yards from the site."
However, Phil Dobson, director at Marches Biogas, said the firm had already been in touch with Shropshire Council's public health department over the matter, which was now resolved.
He said: "We do two checks every day and have spoken with residents about it.
"The source of the odour did need dealing with, it was down to a new employee who wasn't aware of the correct procedures. They are now very aware of the procedures.
"It has all been dealt with," he added.BEIJING/NEW DELHI: A controversy was kicked up on Thursday with China's state-owned television CCTV showing India's map without Jammu & Kashmir and Arunachal Pradesh while reporting on Prime Minister Narendra Modi's visit.The wrong map was displayed during a bulletin when Modi was in Xi'an city where he held talks with Chinese President Xi Jinping in his hometown.China has been laying territorial claim over Arunachal Pradesh and parts of Jammu & Kashmir but India has been strongly resisting it.The unresolved boundary issue has been a sticking point in the relations between the two major Asian countries and both are making efforts to settle it through special representatives' talks. The special representatives have held 18 rounds of discussions so far.China says the border dispute is confined only to 2,000 kms mostly in Arunachal Pradesh whereas India asserts that the dispute covered the western side of the border spanning to about 4,000km, especially the Aksai Chin area ceded to China by Pakistan.Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., second from left, the lead author of the Violence Against Women Reauthorization Act, joined by, from left, Sens. Amy Klobuchar, D-Minn., Maria Cantwell, D-Wash., and Christopher Coons, D-Del., speaks during a news conference on Capitol Hill in Washington, following the Senate's passage of the Violence Against Women Reauthorization Act, Tuesday, Feb. 12, 2013. Photo by Associated Press /Times Free Press. Photo by Associated Press /Times Free Press.
WASHINGTON - Tennessee and Georgia senators last week joined 74 colleagues in voting to reauthorize the Violence Against Women Act, but some local House Republicans aren't sold on doing the same.
As the latest budget fight rages between President Barack Obama and House Republicans, the measure's $600 million cost and new protections for homosexuals are prompting questions that never surfaced in the bill's first three approvals.
U.S. Rep. John "Jimmy" Duncan Jr., a Knoxville Republican, said most constituents wouldn't be unreasonable in expecting him to cast a supporting vote.
"Every bill is given a motherhood-and-apple-pie title," Duncan said outside the House chamber. "But if you voted [based] on the title, you'd vote for every bill up here. If we'd all done that, the country would have crashed a long time ago.
"So this is another bill with a motherhood-and-apple-pie title," he added.
Passed in 1994 and renewed twice without controversy, the Violence Against Women Act reauthorizes funding for pro bono legal assistance and training programs to help victims of violent sex crimes, stalking and other forms of dating and domestic abuse. Despite the bill's title, the benefits apply to female and male victims.
"Like most men, I'm more opposed to violence against women than even violence against men," Duncan said. "Because most men can handle it a little better than a lot of women can."
But the longtime fiscal conservative added that he'll have to examine the Senate bill and its costs before he commits.
"Last time my main concern was the money," said Duncan, who voted for the most recent renewal in 2005.
The new bill allots $659 million over five years for various initiatives, including college counseling programs, HIV/AIDS awareness and specialized training for law enforcement officials handling sexual assault cases. Records show the $659 million represents a drop in funding from the 2005 measure.
The Senate on Tuesday passed the bill 78-22. Republican Sens. Lamar Alexander and Bob Corker of Tennessee and Saxby Chambliss and Johnny Isakson of Georgia cast supporting votes.
Isakson said in a statement: "As a husband, a father of a daughter and a grandfather of five granddaughters, I voted to reauthorize... to ensure that local law enforcement and shelters that assist victims of domestic violence continue to receive the support they need."
House negotiators are drafting a companion measure, and 17 Republicans last week signed a letter to Speaker John Boehner urging speedy action. None of the 17 calls Tennessee, Georgia or Alabama home. The lone Southern signer hails from West Virginia.
Spokesmen for U.S. Reps. Chuck Fleischman, of Ooltewah, and Scott DesJarlais, of Jasper, did not respond to requests for comment. Neither did U.S. Rep. Tom Graves, a North Georgia Republican.
There are hurdles beyond cost. One is a small but crucial new provision in the 286-page-bill: that abuse victims cannot be excluded from federal assistance because they are lesbian, gay, bisexual or transgender.
Among the hesitant is U.S. Rep. Marsha Blackburn, a Republican who represents the Nashville suburbs.
"It used to be women, and we wanted to keep it focused on women," Blackburn said when asked about the same-sex provision. "Many of those that we've talked to in law enforcement have encouraged us to do that."
Annually, 1.3 million women and 835,000 men are physically assaulted by an intimate partner in the United States, according to a 2000 Justice Department study.
"Violence is bad against anyone," said U.S. Rep. Diane Black, another Republican based near Nashville. "Anyone, period."
U.S. Rep. Phil Roe, a physician and Johnson City Republican, said he'd have to read the Senate version before making up his mind.
"Our senators probably for good reason supported it," Roe said, "and I suspect it'll pass out of the House."
Explaining his support Thursday outside the Senate chamber, Corker recalled a "close relationship" with Chattanooga's police force when he was the city's mayor.
"I was very aware of a lot of domestic violence in our community," he said. "I want to do those things I can at the federal level to put an end to it."
Alexander agreed.
"Tennessee's district attorneys met with me last week to say that this law is one of their top priorities," he said in a statement. "I am confident that after a successful conference with the House, the law will be further improved."
The Senate bill provides new authority to tribal courts to prosecute non-native abusers accused of assaulting Native Americans on Indian reservations. Several Republicans say that infringes on non-natives' constitutional rights. Compromise efforts are under way in the House to allow for non-natives to appeal to federal court.
"Up here," Corker said, "you can't vote for part of a bill."
Alabama's Republican pair split itself down the middle, with Sen. Richard Shelby supporting the bill and Sen. Jeff Sessions opposing it.
President Obama and Vice President Joe Biden have urged speedy approval in the House.
"Delay isn't an option when three women are still killed by their husbands or boyfriends every day," Biden said in a statement. "Delay isn't an option when countless women still live in fear of abuse, and when one in five have been victims of rape. This issue should be beyond debate."A scheduled event on MILO’s “Dangerous Faggot” tour at the University of Maryland was cancelled after university administrators hit students with a massive increase in security fees just days before the event.
After a bomb threat, which occurred during the tour’s stop at Florida Atlantic University, administrators at the University of Maryland increased security fees from $4,500 to $6,500. In response, the student group responsible for organizing the event created a GoFundMe page to raise the remaining funds.
We at Terps for Trump regret to inform that we have run into some bumps regarding funding for this event. Due to incidents bomb threats made at other schools that Milo had agreed to perform at and the general tensions with unruly students, the security team has increased our rate for their coverage to around 2000 dollars as they need extra officers/K9 units along with the forced change to a more expensive, venue (i.e Richie Coliseum) bringing the total cost of the event to 6500 dollars. We all love and appreciate Milo’s work and wholeheartedly want him to give his talk at our University, however we simply cannot afford to pay for this more or less enormous last minute bill by ourselves. At the end of the day, we’re simply a group of college students with a limited pool of income. If we are to make the event happen by ourselves, we would have to take out a large loan that would be extremely strenuous to pay back, adding to the financial burden of our members. After much deliberation with the rest of the group, we’ve come to the conclusion that it’s not in the best interests of our group to do that.
Unfortunately, the campaign finished short of its $2,000 fundraising goal. As a result, the “Terps for Trump” were forced to cancel the event.
This event has been cancelled by Terps For Trump due to the school rasing costs for the venue and security at the second. Our organization cannot the $6,500 it will now cost to put on the event (Milo was coming for $0, these are 100% costs the school wants to run the event).
This event’s cancellation is yet another causality in the new censorship war that university administrators have begun to wage on conservative and libertarian students. Both the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education (FIRE) and Breitbart Tech have addressed the increasing concerns regarding “security fee censorship” or the willingness of university administrators to allow excessive security fees alter or cancel events.
Covering a series of incidents in early October, I argued that security fee censorship is a deceptive new tactic that administrations are beginning to utilize so that they can censor ideas under the guise of prioritizing the physical safety of their students.
It seems that university administrators have failed to realize that the precautions they must take when faced with a controversial guest lecturer are a result of the inability of their students to behave rationally in the face of opposing viewpoints. In asking student groups to pay for extra security for controversial speakers, administrators are asking groups to compensate for the university’s failures in preparing their students to engage with ideas that conflict with their own.
By imposing excessive fees on student groups, administrators at the University of Maryland are likely violating a 1992 Supreme Court ruling, which decided that public universities can not impose security fees based upon their perception of how attendees may react to the event.
In Forsyth County v. Nationalist Movement (1992), the Supreme Court determined that government actors—like public college or university administrators—may not lawfully impose security fees based on their own subjective judgments about “the amount of hostility likely to be created by the speech based on its content.” Such fees amount to a tax on speech an administrator subjectively dislikes, or subjectively believes is likely to cause disruption or violence.
Tom Ciccotta is a libertarian who writes about Free Speech and Intellectual Diversity for Breitbart. You can follow him on Twitter @tciccotta or email him at tciccotta@breitbart.comBilly Donovan is down 0-1. (Getty Images)
To say James Harden and Patrick Beverley made Enes Kanter and Enes Kanter alone look foolish on Sunday would be a cruel form of nit-picking. The Houston backcourt made the whole of the Oklahoma City Thunder look foolish in Houston’s Game 1 win, and Kanter was similarly blistered.
[Sign up for Yahoo Fantasy Baseball: It’s not too late to get in the game]
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Still, the 6-11 Thunder big man’s place in the series was in question long before the Rockets hung 37 points and nine assists on Oklahoma City on Sunday. Kanter’s rebounding and scoring acumen has never been in doubt – he averaged 14.3 points and 6.7 rebounds in just 21.3 minutes off the OKC pine this year and added eight points and three rebounds in Sunday’s loss – but his defensive struggles have been a millstone since he entered the NBA back in 2011.
Nowhere was that more apparent than during one fourth quarter sequence that had Thunder coach Billy Donovan wondering if he should even leave his reserve big man be. Harden wasn’t even on the court when Clint Capela was able to throw in a backbreaking lob dunk off of a pass from Beverley, while Kanter came through with his usual Float Work:
P&R lob |
11 2013 Cleveland Indians AL 10 2012 New York Yankees AL 10 2009 Cleveland Indians AL 10 2006 Tampa Bay Devil Rays AL 10 2004 Texas Rangers AL 10 2000 Baltimore Orioles AL 10 2000 Cincinnati Reds NL 10 1999 Cincinnati Reds NL 10 1999 Detroit Tigers AL 10 1998 Baltimore Orioles AL 10 1998 New York Yankees AL 10
But you’ll notice that the ’04 Tigers — Rondell White! Dmitri Young! The somehow still-active Omar Infante! — are the only team to top 10, and that means that the NL record held by the ’99-’00 Reds of Barry Larkin, Sean Casey, and Young again is in play.
What about just in Dodgers history?
The 2015 Dodgers are already tied for second place all time, and need just a single Kendrick homer to tie for first. I’m not sure it’s likely they can top that 2004 club, but it’s certainly possible.
Overall, the Dodgers have 146 homers in 118 games, an average of 1.24 per game that puts them on pace for an even 200, which would be the most since 2004, but just sixth all-time for the franchise:
Most homers, Dodgers franchise
211 — 2000 208 — 1953 206 — 2001 203 — 2004 201 — 1955
Since three of those seasons came in the pinball era of the early 2000s, what that list ought to do is tell you just how great those legendary 1950s teams were.
Anyway, the Dodgers are 67-51, tied with the Cubs for the fourth-most wins in baseball. They’re doing that in part with home runs. I would like everyone to go back to the winter and get another round of good hearty laughs at the hand-wringing stories over the lack of “right-handed power” — note that just the righties, excluding Pederson & Gonzalez, have the sixth-best slugging percentage in baseball — and whether the Dodgers would have enough offense without Hanley Ramirez and Matt Kemp. Pretty sure the power has been just fine.Blast damages dozens of vehicles, brings down roof of a building
LAHORE: At least 45 people were injured in an explosion in a fruit truck stationed in a parking lot on Band Road on Monday night.
The blast occurred at around 8:50pm. Apart from the injuries, dozens of vehicles were damaged and the roof of a building caved in, while the windows of many buildings in a 500-metre radius of the blast had also shattered.
Incidentally, Nawaz Sharif’s cancelled Sunday rally was scheduled to pass through the same road.
Imtiaz Ahmad, who lives across the bridge from where the blast occurred, said he was at home with his family when the incident occurred. “Everything around me started shaking so forcefully that I thought it was an earthquake,” he said.
Right after the blast, high voltage lines on power poles a few metres from the truck fell over and a transformer was also damaged, and Saggian Grid Station tripped, plunging the area into darkness. People who ran towards the blast site initially assumed the transformer had blown up.
Locals at the scene quickly began shifting the injured to a nearby hospital. They also informed rescue workers as a Rescue 1122 station is situated just 300 metres up the road. Ambulances immediately rushed to the site and started rescue efforts. They shifted the victims to Mian Munshi Hospital and Mayo Hospital. A minor girl was also rescued from underneath the debris of the collapsed building.
The Bomb Disposal Squad, Crime Scene Unit, CTD, forensics experts and other police personnel also rushed to the scene.
Lahore in the crosshairs of terror
They cordoned off the area and started collecting crime scene evidence. Rangers joined in the efforts to maintain order.
An eyewitness said he was standing on the bridge when the blast occurred. He saw the vehicles parked in the stand tossing up into air many feet above the ground. This was followed by the screams of victims, many of whom he saw lying on the ground.
4 killed in blast near Pak-Iran border
Initial investigations suggest that explosives were involved in the blast. Operations Deputy Inspector General (DIG) Dr Haider Ashraf said the explosives may have triggered accidentally, adding that the truck had come from Swat and had been parked there for the last three days. He added that they have started investigations and would arrest the people who brought the truck into the city.
The blast also left a 10-foot crater where the truck was parked. Forensic experts and investigators said that between 80 and 100 kg of explosives were used. An investigator said that most of the injuries were due to shrapnel from the truck and glass from windows.
Although most of the victims were discharged after receiving treatment at hospitals. At least 10 injured persons were still under treatment at Mayo Hospital when this report was filed.
Chief Minister Mian Shahbaz Sharif took notice of the incident and asked for a report.
Last month, 26 people, including nine policemen, were martyred and 58 others were injured in a suicide hit on Ferozepur Road. In April, six people including army personnel were killed in a suicide attack on a census team on Bedian Road. On February 13, over two dozen people including two senior police officers were killed in a suicide blast on Mall Road.
Read full storyAccording to a new year-end report from Sensor Tower detailing the top apps of 2016, streaming services dominated when it came to which apps, outside of games, pulled in the most revenue over the past year. At the top of the list is Spotify, which not only scored the number one spot on the iTunes App Store, but also was the number one revenue earner across both platforms, including both the App Store and Google Play.
Meanwhile, thanks to chat app LINE’s traction on Android, it ranked as the number two app by revenue overall, followed by Netflix, Tinder, Pandora, then HBO NOW.
Hulu also made an appearance on the list, as the No. 9 app by revenue overall, and No. 7 on the App Store.
The list indicates that the trend toward cord cutting – shifting attention away from linear television to streaming services – is still going strong, as is the growth of subscription-based streaming of music.
That being said, ranking high on the App Store’s revenue charts is one thing, but translating that into a profitable business is still a challenge.
Case in point: earlier this week, Pandora announced it was laying off around 7 percent of its U.S. workforce, despite having grown its business to include over 4.3 million paid subscribers. But the older music streaming service is today facing new competition from the likes of Apple Music and Spotify.
And in the video streaming market, the newer over-the-top service HBO NOW is also still working to become profitable. With just over one million subscribers as of March, HBO NOW may have earned its No. 6 spot as one of the biggest apps by revenue, but the $15/month price point is still keeping many customers, including millennials, away.
To make the service more appealing, HBO said in December it would increase its original programming by 50 percent to 600 hours annually, and it has cut the cost of the service to just $5 on the newest TV streaming service, DirecTV Now.
Elsewhere on the top revenue charts, is the standout hit LINE Manga, LINE’s comic reader and storefront which launched in 2015. The app made an appearance on all three charts – No. 5 on Google Play, No. 8 on the App Store, and No. 7 Overall.
The fourth quarter is historically a big revenue driver, thanks to holiday sales of new devices. This remained true in 2016, where worldwide net revenue from both apps and games across both platforms reached $8.7 billion. That’s up 67 percent from the $5.2 billion seen in Q4 2015.
The report also examined the top non-game apps by downloads, which led to fewer surprises.
As others reported previously, apps like Facebook, Messenger, WhatsApp, YouTube, Snapchat and Instagram made the list of 2016’s top applications, and they did so again on Sensor Tower’s list.
The most notable entry here is Uber, which came in at No. 9 overall and No. 7 on the App Store, following a year of expansions both in the U.S. and in more locations around the globe.
Throughout the year, said the report, there were more than 80 billion new app downloads in total.
The lists were compiled were compiled by app store intelligence firm Sensor Tower. Its findings may ultimately differ from rivals, like App Annie, because of the way these firms generate their data. However, it will be a useful point of comparison going forward, as more year-end lists continue to emerge in the weeks ahead.Many people in the market for a telescope for the first time want to find a scope with the highest magnification. This is usually expressed as a number followed by an “x” such as 50x or 100x. What this generally means is that an object will appear 50 times larger (50x) or 100 times larger (100x).
Our tendency is to assume that more and bigger is better. But as we’ll discuss, magnification has its limits. These limits are defined by measures that few amateur astronomers understand at the outset. It involves focal length, focal ratio and practical magnification.
The focal length of a telescope is determined by a simple measurement. It’s the distance measured in millimeters from the primary lens or mirror to the point where the light comes into focus at the eyepiece. Think of it as a long and tall pyramid in the telescopes tube. The light is captured by the primary lens or mirror and focused at the eye piece. The actual length of this elongated pyramid is the focal length. The focal length is often printed on the scope or the box or in the instruction manual. Knowing your scopes focal length is important when it comes to buying additional eye pieces or a Barlow lens.
Why is Focal Length Important?
Understanding the focal length of your telescope will help you assess the practical limits of magnification for a particular scope. What many of us learn very soon as we drop eyepieces into our scope with higher levels of magnification is that two things occur. The object becomes dimmer as the magnification increases, and we begin to lose some detail in terms of focus sharpness. This is when you are reaching the limits of magnification with your scope.
How Does Focal Length Affect what I See?
There’s a phrase called “angular field of view.” This defines how much of the sky you see in your scope. Longer focal lengths tend to have a narrower field of view. Shorter focal lengths have a wider field of view. You might be looking at an object with two scopes with long and short focal lengths and see an object of the same size, but the amount of sky and other stars in a wide field will be greater with a short focal length than a long focal length.
It’s why catadioptric scopes or Cassegrains with their very short focal length present the widest field of view. Dobsonian scopes also offer a wider field of view due larger to the size of their mirrors even though they tend that have long tubes resulting in long focal lengths. This may seem confusing but the equations we’re working through will help you make sense of variations.
How do I determine the magnification of my scope and certain eyepieces?
Here’s an equation and it begins with knowing your focal length and the focal length of your eyepieces. The focal length of your eyepiece is often printed on the eye piece itself. If your telescope has a focal length of 800mm and you are using a 20mm eyepiece you divide the focal length of the scope by the focal length of the eyepiece: 800mm/20mm = 40. As a result you will get 40X as a your magnification. However, putting that same 20mm eyepiece in a scope with a focal length of 400 will give you a different magnification level of 20x.
400mm/20mm=20. This is another reason to know your focal length as you consider eyepieces for your scope.
What is Focal Ratio and Why is it Important?
The limitation related to the brightness and sharpness of an object is defined as the focal ratio. It’s the “speed” of your telescope’s optics. It’s actually measured in f.stops. If you’re familiar with photography you know that an f.stop is the size of the aperture on a camera that determines how much light enters the lens. It’s also one of the those curious situations where the bigger the number the smaller the aperture.
If your scope has a focal ratio of f.4, you have a larger aperture and can gather more light. This is good for deep space observing and photography but it will also mean a smaller magnification. It will also give you a wide field of view and capture light better.
A scope with a focal ration of f.11 is better suited for observing the moon and planets and high power photography. However, deep space objects will be both faint and dimmer.
A focal ratio of f.6 to f.10 is a good middle ground if you prefer to observe both near Earth and deep space. This is another determining factor when you’re choosing a scope. If your sole objective is to study the moon you’d probably want a scope with a focal ratio of f.11 or above up to f.15 or more. The converse is true for deep space. Most new astronomers are better served with a scope in the mid-range focal ratio from f.6 to f.10.
I Don’t Know my Scopes Focal Ratio. How Do I Figure it Out?
There are a couple of ways to do this. One way is to get on the Internet and see if the manufacturer or some other resource can tell you. There’s also an equation that is fairly simple if you know some other measurements related to your scope. You’ll need to know the focal length measured in millimeters and the size of the aperture also measured in millimeters. This is sometimes referred to as the “clear aperture.” This is a number you need to find either on the box, on the scope, in the instruction book or on the Internet. Many sites that sell scopes will give you the clear aperture in the “specifications” area for a specific scope. In order to determine the focal ratio you need to divide the focal length by the aperture.
For example. If your focal length is 100mm and your aperture is 25 millimeters 100/25 = f.4. That means you have a scope that is good for deep space viewing and a wide field of view although your magnification will be limited. Many people learn the hard way after purchasing a scope and struggling to observe a variety of objects that the focal ratio affects their ability to observe a wide variety of objects.
We’ve also all learned that the higher the magnification, the more difficult it is to track the object given the Earth’s rotation and the movement of some near Earth objects in the sky such as the moon and planets. A motor drive can compensate, but if you don’t have a motor drive you’ll probably find that your inability to consistently track an object is another limiting factor if your magnification is too high.
How Can I Find the Magnification Limit on my Scope?
There’s a simple equation that will help you determine the actual magnification when you combine an eyepiece of a certain size with your scope. It involves knowing the diameter or your primary lens or mirror in millimeters and the focal length of the eyepiece in millimeters. If your scope was made in North America it may be measured in inches so you’ll need to convert the inches to millimeters. It’s not hard to do if you remember that 1 inch equals 25.4 millimeters.
To determine your scope magnification limit multiply the diameter of your primary lens or mirror by 2. For example. If your scope has a primary lens that is 100mm then 100×2=200x. That means that a telescope with a 100mm primary lens or mirror has a practical magnification limit of 200x. As a result, you might not want to purchase additional eyepieces or Barlow lens (doubles magnification) that would exceed 200x or 200 power. This is where some manufacturers misdirect amateur astronomers. The box proudly touts 875x as the magnification but its practical limit may be 150x. Sure, combining eyepieces and a Barlow lens might take you to 875x but the most you’ll see is a faint, blurry object.
There’s also another limiting factor at high magnification regardless of the focal length or focal ratio of a telescope. The night sky is not always clear and any haze, smog or pollution will also be magnified further blurring the object and diluting its brightness. You will also find that a cheap mount that does not hold your scope rock-steady will cause any instability to be magnified making it difficult if not impossible to simply find and observe an object in space.
Hopefully, this hasn’t been too complex. It’s worth taking the time to think about these factors and do some of the simple math. Whether you’re in the market for a new scope or are trying to understand how to use your scope better, understanding the impact of focal length, focal ratio and practical magnification can make a difference not only in terms of how you use your scope now, but how and which accessories to buy.
Images credits: 1, 2, 3, 4E3 is almost here, so I wanted to let you know how you can watch the Xbox E3 2013 Media Briefing show
“Xbox: A new Generation of Games Revealed.”
Watch the main event live at 12:30p ET/9:30a PT/16:30 GMT via the live global stream that will be available on Xbox LIVE and Xbox.com. If you are in the US or Canada, you can also watch the broadcast on Spike TV.
The show will be 90-minutes and be presented without commercial interruptions.
The full show will be available later in the day for viewing via video on demand on Xbox.com and Xbox LIVE.
PLUS That Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday I’ll be hosting a live one-hour show from the show each day. During each hour we’ll take a closer look at some of the announcements, interviews with developers, gameplay and more.
Show Day Time Where watch Xbox: A new Generation of Games Revealed June 10 12:30p – 2p ET Xbox LIVE Xbox.com &
Spike TV (US/Canada) Xbox @ E3 – LIVE coverage from the show June 11 7p – 8p ET Xbox LIVE (Silver and Gold) Xbox @ E3 – LIVE coverage from the show June 12 7p – 8p ET Xbox LIVE (Silver and Gold) Xbox @ E3 – LIVE coverage from the show June 13 7p – 8p ET Xbox LIVE (Silver and Gold) Click for local time
Update: Here is a trailer showing some of the hosts I’ll be working with for the Xbox @ E3 shows
:Federal Reserve, Sam Ro The U.S. recovery from the Great Recession is still one of the worst recoveries in history (see red line at right).
Why is the recovery so slow and weak?
One of the main reasons is that average American consumers, who account for the vast majority of the spending in the economy, are still strapped.
Five years after the recovery began, unemployment remains high. And the Americans who are lucky enough to be working are getting paid less as a percent of the economy than they ever have in history.
Meanwhile, America's corporations and their owners have never had it better. Corporate profits just hit another all-time high, both in absolute dollars and as a percent of the economy. And U.S. stocks just hit yet another record.
Many people seem confused by this juxtaposition. If corporations and shareholders are making such gargantuan piles of money, why is the economy so crappy?
The answer is that one company's employees are other company's customers. Americans save almost nothing, so every dollar your employees earn in wages gets spent on other companies' products and services (including, in some cases, yours). The less American companies pay their workers, the less American consumers have to spend. And the less American consumers have to spend, the worse the economy is.
This isn't a complex concept. We're all in this together.
There's also no "law of capitalism" that says that companies have to pay their employees as little as possible or "maximize profits" to please their owners. That's just a story that the owners made up to justify taking as much of the company's wealth as possible for themselves.
And the longer American corporations and shareholders insist on taking an ever-greater share of the country's wealth for themselves, instead of sharing it with the people who create it (employees), the longer our economy will suffer.
Let's go to the charts...
1) Corporate profit margins just hit another all-time high. Companies are making more per dollar of sales than they ever have before. (Some people are still blaming economic weakness on "too much regulation" and "too many taxes." That's a bunch of crap. Maybe little companies are getting smothered by regulation and taxes, but big ones certainly aren't. What they're suffering from is a myopic obsession with short-term profits at the expense of long-term value creation.)
After-tax profits as a percent of GDP. Business Insider, St. Louis Fed 2) Wages as a percent of the economy just hit another all-time low. Why are corporate profits so high? One reason is that companies are paying employees less than they ever have as a share of GDP. And that, in turn, is one reason the economy is so weak: Those "wages" represent spending power for consumers. And consumer spending is "revenue" for other companies. So the profit obsession is actually starving the rest of the economy of revenue growth.
Wages and salaries as a percent of GDP. Business Insider, St. Louis Fed In short, the main reason our economy is still weak is that our obsession with "maximizing profits" is creating a country of a few million overlords and 300+ million serfs.
Don't believe it?Tomas Tatar clearly isn't interested in signing a one-year deal.
The Detroit Red Wings forward, who filed for salary arbitration earlier this week, says if it gets to that point, it would likely be the last contract he signs with the club.
Tatar provided some insight into his ongoing negotiations to Slovakian publication Novy Cas on Saturday. Here's an excerpt, as translated by Kukla's Korner, which later appeared in The Detroit News and The Athletic Detroit:
The Slovak forward, who had a shoulder operation in the middle of April, has been training for the new season for several weeks. "I'm already starting to work out the upper part of my body, but it's going to take a while until I'm 100 percent fit," Tatar said, and he and his agent, (Ritch) Winter, have been working on a new contract for some time now. "Detroit offered me a contract, and even with a few options - for a year, or four or five. We're still talking about the length, and of course, the financial amount of the contract. However, we aren't going anywhere, and there's been time enough," Tatar told (Novy) Cas, who may be headed to an arbitration court. "Arbitration is the last option, I have to sign off, it's just a mandatory contract. Unless I agree with Detroit, I'll go to the court, where they'll give me a year's contract. That would probably be my last season in Detroit. We'll see in a few days or weeks before it all comes together," said Tatar.
Red Wings general manager Ken Holland didn't want to add any fuel to the fire when asked about Tatar's comments Saturday.
"I don't have any comment other than I've talked to Ritch Winter a number of times," Holland told The Athletic Detroit's Craig Custance. "If that's the way Tats feels, that's the way Tats feels."
Tatar's hearing is scheduled for July 20, the first day of the NHL's arbitration proceedings.
The restricted free-agent winger was among 30 players to file before Wednesday's deadline.
He led the Red Wings with 25 goals in the final season of a three-year, $8.25-million contract he signed with Detroit in the summer of 2014.
Tatar has played parts of six NHL seasons with the Red Wings, who selected him in the second round of the 2009 draft.
Of the 25 players who filed for arbitration last year, Colorado Avalanche defenseman Tyson Barrie was the only one who required a hearing, and the two sides agreed to a four-year deal before the arbitrator announced the verdict.The Flatron 29EA93-P is LG’s first entry into the still nascent category of ultra-wide consumer displays. There remain few options to compete against the 29EA93’s expansive 21:9 aspect ratio (16:9 is typical). However, LG, Dell and a few others ostensibly believe there’s a market for ultra-wides and I’ll admit -- I think they’re right.
While the 29EA93 seems suitably equipped to watch movies, how does it fare against other types of computer use? Could it possibly be a worthy replacement for your trusty dual-monitor setup? Does the display’s quality, features and novelty justify its $699 street price? Those are some of the questions I’ll be exploring.
When 4:3 displays (e.g. 1600 x 1200) gave way to 16:10 screens (e.g. 1920 x 1200), the event was schismatic in terms of consumer preference. Professionals sometimes favored the aging 4:3 standard for its potentially superior vertical real estate -- a particularly useful thing for vertically organized content like word processing and websites. Meanwhile, gamers, videophiles and most other consumers were seduced by the benefits of wider displays, as they were perfect for watching movies and monitoring your periphery in FPS games.
When 16:9 (e.g. 1920 x 1080) hit the scene though, computer-savvy consumers were left scratching their collective noggins. The initial shift to wide screens had already limited vertical real-estate, so why narrow it even more? The fast-paced adoption of high-def standards (720p and 1080p) are mostly at fault as manufacturers built their displays around HD video standards. To the chagrin of some though, 16:9 is now by far the most ubiquitous widescreen format.
That understanding brings us back to the 29EA93. With its truly ultra-wide aspect ratio of 21:9, LG delivers 2560 x 1080 pixels in a 29-inch package. It’s an impressively wide display -- but obviously not wide enough to fully replace two side-by-side 1080p (16:9) monitors. Why then, should any company settle upon a seemingly arbitrary aspect ratio of 21:9? The short answer is: movies.
When it comes to films, 16:9 has been a very popular aspect ratio. Meanwhile, 720p-based and 1080p (16:9) displays have pushed their elder 4:3 progenitor into extinction. These days though, Panavision-inspired cinematographers are cranking out films with ARs north of 2.35:1 (i.e. 21.51:9). This makes 21:9 just about right for watching super-wide flicks without the necessity for visual tricks like cropping, letterboxing or anamorphics. In theory (and in practice, as it turns out), the 29EA93 is perfectly suited for watching HD movies.
Build-quality, aesthetics
While unboxing and setting up our 29EA93, I developed a positive opinion of its build quality. It’s clear LG spent time attending to physical details. The result is an attractive, solid feeling product with a comforting (but hopefully unnecessary) three-year warranty.
The chrome-like finish found on its base is actually plastic; however, the stand as a whole is solid and rigid. The stand doesn’t snap into but screws into the monitor’s frame; have your phillips screwdriver handy, by the way.
For anyone who prefers to mount their monitor to the wall or elsewhere though, the 29EA93’s got you covered. The display sports VESA MIS-D (100 mm) mounting holes.
The inclusion of a power brick may be unwelcome news for some, but I consider it a nice touch in terms of quality. Consider this: it’s far simpler to replace an external power supply than an internal one. If the power brick ever fails, it will be a quick and cheap fix. It shows LG is thinking. Alternatively, Dell, HP and Asus are all notable brands who’ve all opted for internal power supplies on their high-end monitor offerings. Just one more thing to consider.
Inside the box, we found one dual DVI-D cable, one MHL cable (for tablets, smartphones), one 3.5mm audio cable, and one A-B USB 3.0 cable. the aforementioned power supply and cord. Absent from the box are, most notably, HDMI and DisplayPort cables.
Ports
The 29EA93 boasts a thorough variety of ports sans VGA. Inputs found on the monitor include: 1 x DisplayPort, 1 x HDMI, 1 x HDMI/MHL, 1 x DVI-D, 3 x USB 3.0 inputs and a jack for 3.5 mm audio. For outputs, we have 1 x USB 3.0 and a single 3.5 mm audio (headphone jack). I’m unaccustomed to seeing high-end monitors without a VGA port, but it is certainly a forgivable omission these days.
Those three USB 3.0 inputs serve as a USB 3.0 hub, which is always a welcome addition.
Ports are recessed in the rear and allow for no-nonsense, 90-degree cable insertion. There’s no need to flip the monitor over or to remove concealment panels to access the ports
Controls
The 29EA93’s controls are touch-sensitive and located underneath the bottom right of its bezel. There are buttons for the OSD (on-screen display) menu, volume up/down, selection and power.
Although monitor OSDs are typically horrendous, this Flatron boasts a refreshing OSD: it’s intuitive, packed with fine-tuning adjustments and even sports a polished look. Inside the OSD, you’ll find a rich assortment of options and features, including Picture-in-Picture, 6-color calibration, automatic color calibration (when coupled with compatible hardware), aspect ratio selections and a power LED toggle. The 29EA93’s OSD also includes functions for adjusting black-level and response times (more on this later).
Sound
As expected, the 29EA93’s built-in pair of tinny-sounding speakers are essentially devoid of bass and warmth. However, despite its absence of audio fidelity, the 29EA93 gets relatively loud. While the integrated speakers won’t produce sparkling highs or rumbling lows, the sound it does muster can easily be heard from across the room. Anything beyond office work though will warrant a separate set of speakers.Of all of Overwatch's heroes, few feel more neglected than Bastion, the Omnic robot that speaks only in beeps and boops. The hero was tweaked slightly way back while Overwatch was still in beta, but since launch has seen zero adjustments or balance changes, despite being one of the least-played heroes in the game.
Classified as a defense hero, Bastion's Sentry mode gives it a devastating minigun at the expense of mobility. It's a powerful weapon against the unprepared, but is easily countered and completely shut down by a skilled opponent. Bastion's already an unpopular pick, but this makes it all but nonexistent in Overwatch's higher-level competitive or pro scene.
Other underplayed and "weak" characters have been addressed by Blizzard in balance changes since the game's launch. Thus far, Bastion has received no such treatment, but that may change soon. Deep into a thread on the Blizzard forums asking Overwatch's developers to address the state of Bastion, Overwatch principal designer Geoff Goodman said that changes are on the way.
"I'm actually working on some changes for him right now," Goodman said. "I'm not quite sure when these changes will hit the live game, we're still testing different things internally."
Goodman didn't elaborate further, so it remains to be seen if these changes will take the form of small tweaks, such as the boost to Pharah's flight, or massive changes in same vein as the recent Symmetra overhaul. Either way, we're looking forward to the chipper robot getting some love.
Blizzard's most recent changes nerfed Ana and D.Va and reined in Roadhog's hook. Overwatch is running a Chinese New Year event, featuring 13 new skins, until February 13.Yes, women now make up 45 percent of the labor force for S&P 500 companies. However, the majority of low-paying jobs are held by women who make up over half of minimum wage earners. Eighteen million women live in poverty. A quarter of all US families are headed by a single mother.
We have made undeniable progress. But we still have a very long way to go. Which brings me to another question I was asked by a child at that fundraiser I told you about.
A young boy asked me: “What is feminism?”
Feminism began as a rallying cry to empower women — to vote, to get an education, to enter the workplace. But over the years, feminism has devolved into a left-leaning political ideology where women are pitted against men and used as a political weapon to win elections.
Being empowered means having a voice. But ideological feminism shuts down conversation — on college campuses and in the media. If you are a man — or a woman — who doesn’t believe the litanies of the left, then you are “waging a war on women” or you are a “threat to women’s health” or you are variously described as “window dressing” — Joni Ernst — or offensive as a candidate — Carly Fiorina.
The progressive view of feminism is not about women. It is about ideology. And their policies are not working for women.
The economic policies of this administration have been devastating: 3 million women have fallen into poverty in the last six years. One million fewer women are working under President Obama. In California — a state that has been governed by liberal policies for a decade — in California, they have the highest poverty rates in the nation with over 3 million women living below the poverty line.
Today, only 23 percent of women identify with the term feminist. Liberal ideas aren’t the answer. Their version of feminism isn’t working. It is time for a new definition.
Here’s what I told that little boy: A feminist is a woman who lives the life she chooses. We will have arrived when every woman can decide for herself how to best find and use her God-given gifts. A woman may choose to have five children and home-school them. She may choose to become a CEO…or run for President.
I am a conservative because I know we are all equal in the eyes of God — men and women. Our principles work better to lift men and women up so that they can choose their own path and live lives of dignity, purpose and meaning.
Research shows that private sector companies that have diverse workforces have important things in common. They have leaders who are actively engaged in and committed to increasing diversity. They talk about diversity regularly. They recognize the important role that women play and they ensure that outstanding women receive the sponsorship and professional development they need. They don’t compromise standards. To the contrary, they ruthlessly cultivate meritocracies and ensure that the most talented people — men and women — have equal access to opportunities to rise through the ranks.
We did all of these things at HP during my tenure. We also led a process in which my senior team and I would spend time regularly looking at all the open positions above a certain level in the company. I insisted that there be a diversified and qualified set of candidates for every job — and then we selected the best person from there. By the end of my tenure, half of my direct reports were women. They rose on merit. But there’s another side to this story. Less than a year after I was fired and those practices were abandoned, 60 percent of those women were gone. Meritocracies are perishable.
There are many things that we can and must do so that all women can truly choose their own path.
The first is that we must encourage and foster those meritocracies. Look at the federal government. Despite it already being law, the Left wants to further legislate equal pay. Yet they support the seniority systems in government and unions that reward time and grade. We know these systems which pay for years worked rather than performance disproportionately impact women. This is something that government can change. Let’s move to a pay-for-performance meritocracy and make promoting high-achieving men and women a top priority. We also need to give women the tools that they need to rise through these meritocracies — and that starts with reforming our education system.
There is some good news here. In the last 40 years, we have drastically improved a woman’s chance of graduating from college and earning a post-graduate degree. In 2010, women started to surpass men in attainment of advanced degrees.
But it is especially critical for low-income women and families that we fix our broken education system. Every parent deserves a choice as to how to best educate their children so that every child has a chance to fulfill their potential.
In New York City, Bill de Blasio wanted to limit school choice. And who were the people who walked across the bridge in protest? Low-income families who said, “You are not going to take away the only chance my child has.”
A few years ago, the head of the Chicago teachers union said that they could not be held accountable for the performance of students in their classrooms because too many of them were poor and came from broken families. What was she saying? If you are poor and you come from a broken family, then you don’t have potential. You don’t have God-given gifts. But across the country, students in California fought back, arguing that their constitutional right to an equal education was being violated by state laws that protected “grossly ineffective teachers.” And they won. In Louisiana, this administration sued to shut down a program that allowed students to leave their failing public school. That’s right. They sued to put disadvantaged kids back into schools that they knew were failing. The Left is on the wrong side of this issue. They continue to protect the status quo and teacher’s unions and it is hurting our children.
We also know that reducing out-of-wed |
early as 1999. It is extremely important that companies learn when a phishing email has been opened, because there is a lot that can be done to prevent or limit harm. Contrary to popular belief, attacks don’t generally happen “at the speed of light” (it took three weeks for the Target hackers to steal data, from the point of the initial breach). Promptly cleaning potentially infected computers, revoking compromised credentials, and analysing network logs, is extremely effective, but works only if employees feel that they are on the same side as IT staff.
More generally, mock-phishing conflicts with and harms the trust relationship between the company and employees (because the company is continually probing them for weakness) and between employees (because mock-phishing normally impersonates fellow employees). Kirlappos and Sasse showed that trust is essential for maintaining employee satisfaction and for creating organisational resilience, including ability to comply with security policies. If unchecked, prolonged resentment within organisation achieves exactly the opposite – it increases the risk of insider attacks, which in the vast majority of cases start with disgruntlement.
There are however ways to achieve the same goals as mock phishing without the resulting harm.
Measuring resilience against phishing
Companies are right to want to understand how vulnerable they are to attack, and mock-phishing seems to offer this. One problem however is that the likelihood of opening a phishing email depends mainly on how well it is written, and so mock-phishing campaigns tell you more about the campaign than the organisation.
Instead, because every organisation inevitably receives many phishing emails, companies don’t need to send out their own. Use “genuine” phishing emails to collect the data needed, but be careful not to deter reporting. Realistically, however, phishing emails are going to be opened regardless of what steps are taken (short of cutting off Internet email completely). So organisations’ security strategy should accommodate this.
Reducing vulnerability to phishing
Following mock-phishing with training seems like the perfect time to get employees’ attention, but is this actually an ineffective way to reduce an organisations’ vulnerability to phishing. Caputo et. al tried this out and found that training had no significant effect, regardless of how it was phrased (using the latest nudging techniques from behavioural economists, an idea many security practitioners find very attractive). In this study, the organisation’s help desk staff was overwhelmed by calls from panicked employees – and when told it was a “training exercise”, many expressed frustration and resentment towards the security staff that had tricked them. Even if phishing prevention training could be made to work, because the activity of opening a malicious email is so close to what people do as part of their job, it would disrupt business by causing employees to delete legitimate email or spend too long deciding whether to open them.
A strong unambiguous, reliable cue that distinguishes phishing emails from legitimate ones would help, but until we have secure end-to-end encrypted and authenticated email, this isn’t possible. We are left with the task of designing security systems accepting that some phishing emails will be opened, rather than pretending they won’t be and blaming breaches on employees that fail to meet an unachievable bar. If employees are consistently being told that their behaviour is not good enough but not being given realistic and actionable advice on how to do better, it creates learned helplessness, with all the negative psychological consequences.
Comply with industry “best-practice”
Something must be done to protect the company; mock-phishing is something, therefore must must be done. This perverse logic is the root cause of much poor security, where organisations think they must comply with so-called “best practice” – seldom more than out-of-date folk tradition – or face penalties when there is a breach. It’s for this reason that bad security guidance persists long after it has been shown to be ineffective, such as password complexity rules.
Compliance culture, where rules are blindly followed without there being evidence of effectiveness, is one of the worst reasons to adopt a security practice. We need more research on how to develop technology that is secure and that supports an organisation’s overall goals. We know that mock-phishing is not effective, but what’s the right combination of security advice and technology that will give adequate protection, and how do we adapt these to the unique situation of each company?
What to do instead?
The security industry should take the lead of the aerospace industry and recognise the “blame and train” isn’t an effective or acceptable strategy. The attraction of mock phishing exercises to security staff is that they can say they are “doing something”, and like the idea of being able to measure behaviour change as a result of it – even though research points the other way. If vendors claim they have examples of mock phishing training reducing clicks on links, it is usually because employees have been trained to recognise only the vendor’s mock phishing emails or are frightened into not clicking on any links – and nobody measures the losses that occur because emails from actual or potential customers or suppliers are not answered. “If security doesn’t work for people, it doesn’t work.”
When the CIO of a merchant bank found that mock phishing caused much anger and resentment from highly paid traders, but no reduction in clicking on links, he started to listen to what it looked like from their side. “Your security specialists can’t tell if it is a phishing email or not – why are you expecting me to be able to do that?” After seeing the problem from their perspective, he added a button to the corporate mail client labeled “I’m not sure” instead, and asked staff to use the button to forward emails they were not sure about to the security department. The security department then let the employee know, plus list all identified malicious emails on a web site employees could check before forwarding emails. Clicking on phishing links dropped to virtually zero – plus staff started talking to each other about phishing emails they had seen, and what the attacker was trying to do.
Security should deal with the problems that actually face the company; preventing phishing wouldn’t have stopped recent ransomware attacks. Assuming phishing is a concern then, where possible to do so with adequate accuracy, phishing emails should be blocked. Some will get through, but with well engineered and promptly patched systems, harm can be limited. Phishing-resistant authentication credentials, such as FIDO U2F, means that stolen passwords are worthless. Finally, if malware does get onto company computers, compartmentalisation will limit damage, effective monitoring facilitates detection, and good backups allow rapid recovery.
Steven J. Murdoch is a Royal Society University Research Fellow, and M. Angela Sasse is a Professor of Human-Centred Security. They work at UCL.Australia 5 for 482 (Clarke 224*, Warner 119, Hussey 103) v South Africa
Scorecard and ball-by-ball details
Another day, another Michael Clarke double-century © Getty Images
Pwnage. That's the only word for it. Either that or Michael Clarke has been playing in god mode. How else could one explain Clarke scoring his fourth Test double-century this year, a feat that nobody, not even Bradman, has ever achieved? How else could Australia have piled on 482 runs, the most they have managed in a day of Test cricket since 1910? But this was no video game. Graeme Smith couldn't switch off and start over, no matter how much he wanted to.
Clarke finished the afternoon unbeaten on 224. That's two innings in this series for two double-hundreds. David Warner struck a highly entertaining 119 earlier in the day, at better than a run a ball. Michael Hussey scored his second consecutive century, an innings that ended only when he played on to Dale Steyn from what became the last ball of the day for 103. If that wasn't enough for South Africa, they also spent most of the day one bowler short after Jacques Kallis left the field in the first session with a hamstring injury.
Kallis was in his fourth over when he pulled up while running in to bowl. He already had two wickets. That Australia's monumental performance came after they stumbled to 3 for 55 was remarkable enough, but the most notable aspect of their day was the rate at which they scored. They finished with a run-rate of 5.55. They struck 66 fours and nine sixes, helped by the short boundaries square of the wicket, but also by some insipid South African bowling, especially from the legspinner Imran Tahir.
Tahir just couldn't land the ball where he needed to. On the occasions that he did, he built no pressure because the next delivery was likely to give the batsman a release. He finished the day with 0 for 159 from 21 overs, reminiscent of Bryce McGain's horrid analysis in his Cape Town debut in 2009. But one thing to say about McGain is that he didn't once overstep; Tahir's effort was punctuated by five no-balls, unforgivable for a slow bowler.
Against Clarke, Hussey and Warner, he didn't have a hope. The Australians racked up 202 runs in the final session. As stumps approached, Hussey brought up his hundred from his 122nd ball with a slog-swept six off Tahir; the previous delivery Clarke had reached his double-century from his 226th ball with a nudge behind square for a single. It was the 82nd over of the innings. Smith could have already taken the second new ball, but instead he took it in the next over. Go figure.
It was one of those days where, after the first hour, nothing went right for South Africa. Steyn left the field with hamstring tightness, although he was at least able to return late in the day to remove Hussey. The prognosis for Kallis is unlikely to be good, and the South Africans had already lost Vernon Philander, who woke up with back soreness and was replaced in the line-up by Rory Kleinveldt.
In truth, it didn't much matter who was bowling, the way Clarke and Co were batting. Morne Morkel, who picked up two wickets earlier in the day, could not contain Clarke once he was well set. Clarke took 20 runs off one over from Morkel, driving down the ground, cutting hard, and bringing up his 150 with the fifth boundary from the over, a majestic straight drive. Clarke also pulled with confidence; after a couple of early bouncers rattled him, he was untroubled by the short stuff.
South Africa created few opportunities as the day wore on. On 64, Hussey was given out caught behind off Morkel, but asked for a review and Hot Spot showed no touch on the bat, giving him a reprieve. On 73, Clarke had edged Kleinveldt, but the ball flew between the two slips. Nothing was going the South Africans' way.
The Clarke-Hussey partnership was worth 272. They had come together after Warner, on 119 from 112 balls, edged Morkel to slip. Warner had done his job. He brought up his century from 93 balls with a six and a four off Tahir, a clean drive back down the ground and over the rope, followed by a confident cover-drive through the gap.
As he had done all innings, Warner trusted his attacking style, flashing at anything wide and enjoying the short square boundaries - he struck 16 fours. He also enjoyed some garbage from Tahir and Faf du Plessis straight after lunch, as both men sent down full tosses that he dispatched over the boundary. Those overs undid any of the pressure South Africa had built in the first session.
Kallis had been very impressive with the ball during his short spell, removing Ed Cowan and Ricky Ponting by attacking the base of the stumps. On 10, Cowan was beaten by a Kallis yorker that struck him on the toe and at first appeared to have been given out lbw by Billy Bowden, but it later became apparent that he was caught and bowled. After the ball hit Cowan's foot, it ballooned off the bat straight back to Kallis, and under the laws of the game, a catch takes precedence over lbw in deciding how a batsman has been dismissed.
Kallis also accounted for Ponting with an outstanding delivery that was full and accurate, and swung away from the bat just enough to beat Ponting, who suffered the indignity not only of being bowled but of falling onto the pitch on his hands and knees after trying to keep the ball out. Ponting avoided another duck but only just - his only scoring shot was a clip for four off his pads.
In between the dismissals of Cowan and Ponting, the No.3 Rob Quiney fell for an eight-ball duck when Morkel came around the wicket and forced Quiney to play a ball on off stump. Quiney's edge was well snapped up by Smith at slip and after his 9 in his only innings at the Gabba, Quiney was left hoping desperately that he would get another chance in this, his second Test
But South Africa rued the loss of Kallis and Australia dominated the rest of the day. South Africa were pwned.
Brydon Coverdale is an assistant editor at ESPNcricinfo. He tweets here
© ESPN Sports Media Ltd.This excerpt originally appears as a part of the October_November issue of Relix, profiling Phish ahead of the release of their latest album Big Boat. In this excerpt, which we share ahead of the band’s Halloween shows in Las Vegas,Trey Anastasio, Mike Gordon and Page McConnell reflect on past collaborations that altered their musical approach, their current live approach and much more. To pick up the issue to read the full piece, click here.
Shortly before Phish started digging into Big Boat, Trey Anastasio joined the surviving members of the Grateful Dead for their Fare Thee Well performances, which brought the entire psychedelic-rock world to new cultural heights. Page McConnell attended all three Chicago dates, checking out the shows from the crowd or near the soundboard, and says that “seeing Trey up there playing really reinvigorated my fandom.” He started listening to the Dead’s SiriusXM channel regularly, and their songwriting continued to move him while working on Big Boat.
“I’d talk to Trey while he was rehearsing, and I would tell him about playing with the members of The Meters,” McConnell says of what may have been his own heir-apparent moment. The keyboardist, who toured with The Meter Men on occasion between 2012-2015, admits that playing with his heroes increased his confidence, especially when it comes to the organ.
Fare Thee Well spilled over into one of Phish’s most celebrated summer runs in years. Though “Blaze On” shares some fond memories with the Dead chestnut “Man Smart (Woman Smarter),” Anastasio says “Mercury,” a tale of cosmic perspective that he started during a trip to North Carolina’s Outer Banks with Marshall, is the most direct result of that unique experience. But his time at “Dead Camp” inspired him in more profound ways also.
“What I learned was: ‘Be nice. Be kind to your friends while they are here,’” Anastasio says. “I plan on being here a lot longer, and the four of us are still in great shape, but sometimes we will look around and say, ‘God, how many bands who have been around for 33 years have all their original members? It is going to end someday.”’ He pauses and continues, “It’s a good thing, but you start to become aware and take stock— just statistically, you can take any four men in their 50s. It’s not if; it’s when. There’s just a lot of friendship and support and love among the four of us.”
McConnell adds: “We’d been through quite a bit together, and then got back together, and now everything is going well for us. I’d say everyone is feeling pretty good about where we’re at right now and everything that’s happened for us, and the way it’s all falling together.”
For years, Anastasio has worried about the state of live rock-and-roll in an age where smartphones have replaced lighters at shows, everyone has a “movie in their pocket” and a group’s first performance can be captured and shared quicker than, say, a setlist by a 33-year-old band from Vermont can be uploaded and overanalyzed on the web. (He even even used the “Put down your phone” plea as the basis for a sermon during an “Icculus” narrative in 2009.) As he taps on his iPhone between the occasional ping from McConnell, Anastasio laments the lack of breakout rock bands at Coachella and Glastonbury—his harbingers of modern-festival cool—and reminisces about watching Alice in Chains, Nine Inch Nails and Soundgarden rise through the ranks.
While it’s been several summers since DJs, pop stars and vanilla rock bands gained a house majority in the festival sphere, Anastasio’s sentiments carry a particular weight coming from a member of Phish, a band whose biggest legacy may very well be restoring the summer campout as a righteous coming-of-age experience. He mouths the words to “Broken Hearts Are for Assholes” by Frank Zappa who—like Talking Heads and King Crimson—Anastasio saw early on in college, and notes the genius in the song’s wordplay. The trick, Anastasio says, is repeating a phrase three times.
“Seeing music live is still my favorite experience—it’s everything to me, that feeling of unity,” Anastasio says, thinking back to the near-decade that Phish spent incubating and refining their craft in Vermont’s clubs and bars, in a YouTube-less world. “It’s tough for a young band these days. It’s easy for someone to say: ‘Why should I go out when I have the whole season of Orange Is the New Black and a pair of headphones?’ And nobody is buying any records, so you’re not making any money that way.”
He’s guilty of it, too, admitting that he thought about checking out Vulfpeck—a band that shares Phish’s quirky energy and flair for theatrics at New York’s Brooklyn Bowl a few days earlier, but ended up watching a recent video instead. Yet, he still has fond memories of waiting in line at a small club in Burlington to catch Pavement, “the only band [he] listened to in the ‘90s,” and whose smart, slacker lyrics and loose, ragged cool resonated with him at a time when Phish started opening up their sound and heavily favoring “feel” and “groove.” Anastasio is always searching out new music, and he vividly recalls getting chills at night while listening to Pavement on his skateboard. As a member of an improv band, he says, he could also relate to their outsider, cult status.
“I only had a couple of friends who liked Pavement, and we’d listen to them in the corner at parties,” Anastasio reflect. “I tried hard to get Fish to listen to them, but it never really took. Now, I’m trying to get him to listen to Laura Mvula, who I’m obsessed with. There should always be a couple of 22 year olds in bands out there that scare the shit out of everybody else.”
When Phish entered their “3.0 period,” they were branded as “older, wiser and geekier” by fans and the media, and they have succeeded in remaining healthy and committed to embracing their own catalog with renewed vigor. Gordon, in particular, has explored different health and wellness avenues; after years of practicing mindfulness, he switched to Transcendental Meditation and started working out daily with P90X extreme fitness DVDs. He recently read Marie Kondo’s The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up: The Japanese Art of Decluttering and Organizing, and managed to condense his expansive CD collection to a single row. (Interestingly, Gillian Welch was the only artist to have all of her albums survive the purge.)
“I used to talk about The Artist’s Way, which is designed to get yourself back to your childlike sense of wonder,” Gordon says. “I haven’t been doing those exercises as much, but that book paints a good picture of what happens when the inner critic is lurking. You don’t need to worry about exterior criticism because it happens inside. You might not even know it’s there, but it’s cutting you down. And then it’s harder to bask in your success—a lot of writer’s block comes from that stress and questioning. Not that I had been a basket case, but we never notice the knife blade when the internal critic is ready to cut. So much creativity comes from having fun, enjoying the process, which is what [recording in] Nashville was for us. I’m really interested in ways to remove that stress.”
He continues to keep detailed journals of Phish’s concerts, a practice he’s maintained since the band’s earliest days, and though he doesn’t revisit the shows regularly, he’s often surprised by how moments hit him in the rearview mirror. “Sometimes things don’t sound as fresh when I hear them again—I don’t know if it’s the mix or the experience of listening back or my mood or something else,” Gordon admits. “Sometimes things feel really unique and creative, like we’re almost writing on the spot—new rhythms, patterns and textures—and then, I hear it back, and it feels like that’s sort of ‘jamband 101.’ And then other times, I’m pleasantly surprised.” He cites a long “No Man’s Land” at Dick’s as a recent gem. “I liked that Trey had this idea of just jamming right out of the gates,” he says of the early evening exploration. “I loved the ambient jam that came out of the funk part.”
Phish’s setlist process has ebbed and flowed over the years. These days, Anastasio will usually come up with ideas for a certain show—sometimes days before the gig, other times that afternoon—and a song list will be distributed to the band members around dinner time in case they need to brush up on any material. Of course, the band will figure out the night’s flow onstage and often call an audible, with Anastasio discussing ideas with McConnell who, in turn, tells Fishman, who relays the message to Gordon. Occasionally, Gordon says with a laugh, Fishman will forget to tell him and just jump into a number.
“A lot of it is just being playful, but Trey is really good at different approaches at different times. Like he might say, ‘I’ve been thinking: Let’s do less covers and let’s go back into the back catalog because it’s fun.’ He’ll ask one of our managers or a friend if there’s one song that everyone in the parking lot wishes they could hear or what people are talking about,” Gordon says. “Like, one year, they’re talking about ‘Can we have the jams longer?’ and another year they’re asking if we can have it a little more like 1994. It all has to be taken with a grain of salt because, ultimately, we have to feel happy and have to feel that we’re not just regurgitating the same jams and songs that we did in the past.”
In fact, earlier this year, the band scheduled a few extra practice sessions, which allowed them to revisit the oft-overlooked corners of their songbook that they will text each other about. Anastasio says they spent time at Gordon’s house relearning six or seven bust outs, including “Pigtail,” which had been reassigned to TAB, the groovy “Round Room” and the bluegrass classic “Uncle Pen.”
“But mostly,” Anastasio is quick to point out, “we’ve been spending more time just talking. We’ll travel to work on ideas, and it’s really just a chance for the four of us to sit together. We’re adults now, and everybody’s got so much going on. Fish has five kids, Page has three and Mike is busy with his daughter and projects, so I don’t get to see them that much. The experience of us sitting in front of a fireplace and writing had a big effect on the way we’ve been playing. I’ve always loved band practice and, in a way, our recent writing sessions replaced band practice because I got to be with my favorite people.”
Anastasio has started to think of Phish’s repertoire as “a diary of my life from where I stand. I remember writing ‘Harry Hood’ in Greece,” he says. “I remember writing ‘You Enjoy Myself’ when Fish and I were playing street music in Europe. We were sleeping in a car outside of Florence and playing all day in the streets. I was writing that song the whole time. We met this hilarious Italian guy who didn’t really speak any English. One day, he came up and put one arm around me and one around Fish and he said, in broken English, ‘You know, when I’m with you, you enjoy myself.’ So that became the song’s title. The rest of the music was written as we traveled across Europe that summer. That experience is still in there. Phish songs cover every era of my life from 19 until 52.”
All four members of the band still have a deep desire to remain relevant, reach new fans and continue to grow as songwriters and musicians. The lines between their various projects have also blurred: Anastasio mentions that his Broadway community has impacted Phish’s live show too, bringing recent onstage Wingsuit and “Meatstick” gags to life, and even helping the band rearrange David Bowie’s “Space Oddity” as a barbershop-quartet tribute. He hints that they’ll likely continue to work with Phish on their theatrical stunts going forward.
“We’re all in the same band, having the same experiences—similar feelings and experiences,” McConnell says. “We’re really excited for people to hear something that has a little bit more substance and a little bit more depth.”
Phish used to have a band rule that they had to play at least one gig in their 80s, and that goal has taken on new meaning as they enter their later years. “I remember going to see Modern Jazz Quartet,” Anastasio says. “They were so good—telepathic. They started playing in like 1952 and this must have been around 1985. We were all standing there going, ‘We’re gonna be that.’ Well, when you’re standing here after 33 years, you start thinking, ‘Wow, we kind of have been playing for a long time.’”
Yet, he still knows how to keep things in perspective. “My grandmother had a friend who was a geologist,” Anastasio says with a smile. “At the dinner table, when people would get going on ‘today’s subject,’ Trump or Brangelina or whatever, he’d just laugh and say, ‘You’re talking about years, and here I am, all day long, thinking in eons. I can’t get worked up about this.’”
To read the full story, pick up the October_November issue of Relix here.Drawn to the city’s legal weed and low cost of living, families across the US travel to Pueblo looking to make a new life. But not everyone strikes it rich
In cars stuffed with clothes, boxes and furniture precariously tied to car roofs, they come to sit patiently in waiting rooms at social service agencies, in soup kitchens and motels.
They’ve made it to Pueblo, Colorado, a city of just over 100,000 where recreational marijuana sales became legal in 2014.
The new arrivals aren’t on a so-called “weedcation” to visit the swath of new pot shops and spots with weed-tasting menus, which are now sprinkled throughout the state. Instead, they hope to settle and make a new life in the pot industry.
The overstuffed vehicles parked outside Pueblo’s Posada, a nonprofit organization that helps homeless families, have license plates from as far away as South Carolina, Louisiana, Arkansas, Florida and Texas.
Those families have come in what social service agencies here see as a perfect storm: legal marijuana, Colorado’s Medicaid expansion (which extends coverage to all qualified adults under the 2010 Affordable Care Act), and Pueblo’s ranking as one of the least expensive cities to live in the US.
Facebook Twitter Pinterest A long line of buyers trails from a store selling marijuana in Pueblo West, Colorado. Photograph: John Wark/AP
On the state’s southern plains, Pueblo was once an industrial stronghold, a company town of steelworkers employed by the Colorado Fuel and Iron Company.
Like many towns devastated by the steel-market crash of 1982, Pueblo has never really recovered; its main employers are now the town’s hospitals and nearby prisons. The county’s unemployment rate in May was one of the state’s highest, at 7.2%, according to the Colorado division of labor and employment. The unemployment rate statewide in May was 4.3%.
According to caseworkers at social service agencies, the newcomers are mostly from southern states where governors oppose expanding Medicaid to those with no insurance. Many arrive in town with little money and the expectation that they will easily find food, housing and a job in the marijuana industry.
“In September, we helped 1,145 families and 3,214 individuals”, says Edie De La Torre, executive director of Pueblo’s Cooperative Care Center, which was founded by area churches in the wake of the steel mill closing in the mid-1980s. “We gave out $139,784 in food. These were our highest numbers ever.”
De La Torre says the population served by the organization has changed dramatically in the past year.
“It used to be that we helped a lot of people who were stretched very thin,” she says. “Maybe they had lost a job or were working two jobs that didn’t pay a lot … Now we have people coming in from out of state who call us and say they’re staying at a motel, they need food or maybe their medication, but they aren’t residents of Pueblo County. We don’t turn them away. But we tell them that if they’re going to come back, they need to prove that they reside in Pueblo County.”
On a recent weekday, the line stretched around the block when the agency opened at 9am.
“I had a wall I was building come down on my foot, and it got stuck,” says a man in Cooperative Care’s waiting room. “I can’t work right now, so this place is really helping me. I used to bring stuff here to donate; I’m born and bred in Pueblo. Now look at me.”
Another couple said they were there because of “hard times”, but weren’t from Pueblo. When asked about coming to town for legal marijuana, they didn’t answer.
“A good 25% of the people coming in for help are from Texas,” says Mona Montoya, Cooperative Care’s director of operations. “A lot of people will give me a copy of their medical marijuana card or will just say ‘Hey, I’ll be honest with you, I came here to get into the industry’.”
Montoya says that the hardest thing is seeing kids, who have no choice when their parents decide to come to Pueblo. “Just last week I heard a little girl ask her mom if they were going to eat that day,” she says.
Facebook Twitter Pinterest Pot town: for many, the road to self-sufficiency is hard. Photograph: Alamy
“I call it the pot rush,” says Anne Stattelman, director of Pueblo’s Posada. “Many people leave stable situations and maybe even have housing vouchers where they’re from. But they hear about Pueblo on the internet and how it’s this cheap place to live. They think they can find jobs. They uproot their kids. And then they don’t have money for a rental deposit or much else when they get here.”
Though many are leaning heavily on social service agencies, some of these newcomers to Pueblo get settled on their own.
“We’re from Oklahoma,” say two young men aged 22 and 23 as they stood outside their RV in Pueblo West. “Yeah, we came here because pot is legal,” one of them said, standing near their legal grow. “But we’ve already been to social services to get our Medicaid cards and have some calls in for jobs next week.”
But for many others, the road to self-sufficiency is more difficult.
“We’ve had people passing through,” said a young woman named April, who, along with two other homeless campers, has built a small camp hidden by a canopy of trees near the banks of the Arkansas river.
She said she had been there since last winter and used discarded shipping pallets to insulate the bottom of the camp’s tents from the snow. “I give them a place to stay for while, but then they move on,” she said of the travelers coming to Pueblo, explaining that she had gotten stuck here a few years back when she and her husband were on their way to California from Ohio.
April and her friends are part of the growing population of Pueblo’s homeless who intersect with those moving here for legal marijuana.
Often these chronic homeless have drug addictions, mental illness or other problems that have led to them living in these camps or squatting in condemned buildings, according to Stattelman, who goes out weekly with an outreach team of case workers, nurses and counselors to them to make available services for food and shelter.
But despite the drain on social services, the legal marijuana industry is seen by some as a boon for the struggling local economy, where developers and county commissioners believe it has the potential to be the the Silicon Valley of marijuana.
Thousands of acres east of Pueblo’s city limits, where the Pueblo city council voted no in May on allowing recreational dispensaries, are being evaluated as the home of new, state-of-the-art grow operations that could provide the area much-needed jobs.
In June, the state recorded $60.7m in recreational pot sales to date for the year. In Pueblo County in 2014, the first year of legal sales, pot brought in $16.28m and resulted in $1.3m in sales tax and licensing fees.
And for the first time since the first legal sale of marijuana in the state in January 2014, the pot industry surpassed $100m in monthly sales for the month of August, the Colorado department of revenue announced 9 October.
The Pueblo County commissioner and former Colorado state representative, Sal Pace, said that legalization has been an engine for economic growth for the area, citing that 36% of county construction projects in the last year have been related to the marijuana industry.
Newly arrived from out of state, a family’s first stop is often Pueblo’s Posada. Photograph: Posada
“There’s another time in Pueblo’s history when people came looking for jobs, and that’s when the steel mill was booming,” he says. “During the California gold rush, people who moved out here were not seen as a sign of failure, but a sign that it was something good for the economy.”
Pace also points to Ballot Issue No 1B, which county voters will decide on 3 November, along with other marijuana-related measures. If passed, it will impose a phased-in 5% excise tax on the sale of retail marijuana, with half of the proceeds going to a college scholarship fund for Pueblo County residents and the rest divided among funding to study medical marijuana, to fund a marijuana community impact, as well as a host of infrastructure improvements.
“The question I ask is ‘Has pot made Pueblo safer, better, or more prosperous?’” says Stattelman. “I have no problem with pot,” she says. “If the entire country legalizes, I say go for it. I understand that everyone didn’t see these unintended consequences. But now that it’s happened, we need help.
She says they gave a presentation to the city council in spring 2014 about the issues they were seeing with pot, asking for support with sending new arrivals home. Posada, a nonprofit, relies on a mix of grants, donors, and federal, state and local funding.
But Pace does not see evidence that this influx is pot-related. “Until I see hard numbers, I’m not going to consider someone who’s a prohibitionist give information because of their bias or subjective views,” he says.
Stattelman disagrees, pointing out that many people who arrive in Pueblo for jobs in the pot industry are not homeless when they arrive. “People come to Pueblo for opportunity that is not here,” she says. Last month, she decided to post guidelines on Posada’s website for those who are looking to seek a new life here so they know what to expect.
Still, Pueblo County sends a welcoming message on its website to all who might want to relocate.
“So come check us out. If you are just here for a tour of the ‘Rocky Mountain high’, you’re more than welcome. But we also have a rich history and heritage that we’d love to share with you while you explore this ‘new frontier’ for yourself.”6 years ago
(CNN) - A photo released by the State Department shows Secretary of State Hillary Clinton watching her husband deliver remarks Wednesday night at the Democratic National Convention.
Hillary Clinton didn't watch the speech live because she was busy meeting with leaders of the tiny nation of East Timor, 9,963 miles from Charlotte, North Carolina. According to reporters traveling with the secretary of state, Clinton watched a taped version around midnight eastern time.
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Asked about the speech at a press availability, Clinton noted that it was American political tradition for secretaries of state to not attend party conventions.
"I think it is a good rule," Clinton said. "It's one that I certainly accepted. This is the first convention I have missed in many, many years."
She added that her husband read parts of his speech to her over the phone before delivering his remarks.
"It's a great honor for him to be nominating the president and I'm delighted to be here in Timor Leste on behalf of the United States in furtherance of our shared values, interests and security, and I'm grateful that I had the opportunity to visit and have these discussions today," she said.
Clinton, who hasn't missed a Democratic convention in four decades, is on an 11-day swing through the Asia-Pacific region, visiting a number of counties, including China and Indonesia, and standing in for President Barack Obama at the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation forum later this week in Russia. Obama bowed out because of the campaign.
The State Department says the photo was taken at the home of the U.S. ambassador to East Timor. They also added that any graphics on the screen were removed, indicating they were not endorsing one television network over another.
CNN Foreign Affairs Correspondent Jill Dougherty contributed to this report.I was disappointed to find Android only natively supports one full screen window at a time. The Nexus 10 can handle multitasking yet Google has stubbornly refused to add it. Some Samsung devices and the Paranoid ROM (recently dropped apparently) feature their own implementations of multi-window support as well as some builds of OmniROM (but not the Nexus 10 builds). Luckily a few developers have created |
bells that called priests and monks to prayer also drew in the laity from village and field," Sockey explains. "They would gather to listen as lauds or vespers were chanted."
The Horae Sanctae Crucis, from a medieval Book of Hours, linked the seven liturgical hours to scenes from Christ’s passion. The poem helped the faithful to remember the names and timing of the hours:
At Matins bound, at Prime reviled,
Condemned to death at Terce,
Nailed to the Cross at Sext.
At None His blessed Side they pierce,
They take Him down at Vesper-tide.
In the grave at Compline lay,
Who thenceforth bids His Church observe
These sevenfold hours alway.
This was, of course, well before mobile apps such as iBreviary.com, DivineOffice.org and Universalis.com made it unnecessary to set down one’s farm implements and trudge to the neighborhood monastery in order to pray.
"Apps that help Catholics pray the Divine Office are gaining popularity because Catholics want to grow stronger in their faith," says Tom Lelyo, founder of CatholicApps.com. "The Liturgy of the Hours is the ideal vehicle for this because it helps Catholics to pray more often, know Scripture better, live the liturgical year and enter into the public worship of the Church. It’s a perfect response to Sacrosanctum Concilium, in which the bishops encouraged more lay participation in the liturgy."
With all the benefits to be culled from praying the Divine Office, one might assume that each of its "hours" requires a substantial commitment of time, if not a full 60 minutes.
"Don’t let the term ‘hours’ scare you," assures Sockey. "The typical liturgical hour takes about 10 minutes to recite, and many who pray the Divine Office focus on no more than two or three hours daily."
According to Sockey, the early Christian practice of praying at set times of the day was carried over from the Jewish tradition of thrice-daily prayer. The custom of fixed-time prayer has endured.
"Many Catholics are familiar with the practice of praying certain prayers at certain hours of the day: the Angelus at 6am, noon and 6pm; and the Chaplet of Divine Mercy at the 3pm ‘Hour of Mercy,’" observes Jeffrey Pinyan.
Pinyan, a catechist, author and blogger at the CatholicCrossReference.com, has been praying the Divine Office since 2005, when his sister gave him a one-volume Liturgy of the Hours.
"While the Liturgy of the Hours does not demand such a regimen, it does allow the praying Christian to grow in many disciplines, both spiritual and practical. And for those who struggle with organization, it is heartening to know that setting aside scheduled time for prayer can lead to better time management in secular matters."
But how does a busy layperson find 30, 20 or even 10 minutes daily in which to pray the liturgical hours?
"The key is to start small," advises Sockey. "Examine your daily routine and see which times of day present openings for a short prayer break. If you already like to get up before the rest of the family to savor some peace and quiet, then Morning Prayer should work. If you normally find time to breathe a bit either just before or just after dinner, then Evening Prayer is for you. If you get a decent lunch break at work, try Midday Prayer. Add one liturgical hour at a time and form a firm habit before adding another one. If you’re not sure which to try first, then follow the advice of the Church, which particularly recommends Morning and Evening Prayer to laymen. Or go with my personal recommendation to beginners, which is to start with Night Prayer, the easiest hour to do."
Sockey, a longtime devotee of the Liturgy of the Hours, is well-equipped to advise the faithful on such matters.
A few years before writing The Everyday Catholic’s Guide to the Liturgy of the Hours, Sockey launched Coffee and Canticles, a "fan blog" devoted to the Liturgy of the Hours, where ordinary Catholics can go to share their enthusiasm and get questions answered. Readers responded with gusto, and Sockey soon found herself fielding questions on every conceivable aspect of the Divine Office.
"Liturgical prayer is beautiful, but complex," admits Sockey. "There is a lot of terminology associated with it that may confuse people. What are lauds and vespers? What are canticles? And what is a Breviary?"
"Consequently, some people have been too timid to try liturgical prayer at all. Then there are those who have picked up a Breviary — a small, hand-held book of the hours — and tried to use it, but gave up because they were afraid they weren’t ‘doing it right,’" says Sockey. "Some people may have attended the odd vespers or lauds service at church and wondered what that was all about. Others may have been praying the Liturgy of the Hours for a while, but need a little inspiration to help them appreciate this treasure once more.
"My book is meant for ordinary lay Catholics like them."
Celeste Behe writes from
Bethlehem, Pennsylvania.
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The Everyday Catholic’s Guide to the Liturgy of the Hours can be found at EWTN's Religious CatalogueAfter topping the rock charts in 2014 and 2015, THE PRETTY RECKLESS returns with their extraordinary third studio album, "Who You Selling For", due October 21 on Razor & Tie. The new album is the band's anticipated follow up to "Going To Hell", which spawned the biggest rock song of 2014 in "Heaven Knows" and a total of three #1 Mainstream and Active Rock hits. The first single from the new album, "Take Me Down", premiered worldwide July 15 on iHeart Radio and impacted at rock radio four days later on July 19, quickly climbing to #7 on the chart.
Produced by longtime collaborator Kato Khandwala, "Who You Selling For" is an arresting collection of rock tunes that expand the band's sound to encompass soulful, bluesy undertones, written by frontwoman Taylor Momsen and guitarist Ben Phillips. This raucous 12-track collection puts Momsen's dark lyrics and raw, charismatic vocals on full display while the band delivers at full intensity with a level of musicianship that raises the bar.
Formed in 2009, THE PRETTY RECKLESS released their debut album, "Light Me Up", in 2010 scoring legions of fans worldwide, but it was their sophomore record "Going To Hell" that positioned the band to become the first new artist to breakout of rock in years, debuting in the Top 5 on Billboard's Top 200. Achieving three #1 Rock hits — "Heaven Knows", "Fucked Up World" and "Follow Me Down" — was a feat that has not been accomplished by a female fronted group since THE PRETENDERS in 1984, nearly a quarter of a century ago.
Despite feeling the physical and emotional demands from their epic two-year run supporting "Going To Hell", Momsen and Phillips jumped right into writing the songs for the new album. "We had so much we wanted to say, it was like shaking a can of soda on tour, and then when we started writing we cracked the seal," says Momsen. "The touring life is very isolating. You look at the world through a bus or airplane window. But music is the healing factor. It's the one thing that is grounding and a true companion through the forest. It saved us — again."
With "Who You Selling For", the band continues to take bold steps forward, cementing their place at the forefront of rock. The deeply personal album features a diverse set of standout tracks, from the blistering hard rock of "Oh My God" to the classic southern rock of "Back To The River". Lead single "Take Me Down" features Taylor's distinctively smoky voice rolling over '60s-tinged rock guitar.
The band will hit the road this fall in support of the album and will run through major U.S. cities such as Chicago, New York and Nashville before wrapping on December 6 in Los Angeles. Tickets go on sale to the public Friday, August 12 at 10 a.m. local time.
Tour dates:
Oct. 20 - Tulsa, OK - Brady Theater (Wizard World)
Oct. 22 - Elverta, CA - Discover Park (Aftershock Festival)
Oct. 23 - Las Vegas, NV - House of Blues
Oct. 24 - Scottsdale, AZ - Livewire
Oct. 26 - Lubbock, TX - Wild West
Oct. 27 - Dallas, TX - Gas Monkey Live!
Oct. 29 - New Orleans, LA - City Park (Voodoo Festival)
Oct. 30 - Houston, TX - House of Blues
Nov. 01 - Atlanta, GA - The Buckhead Theatre
Nov. 03 - Ft. Lauderdale - Revolution Live
Nov. 04 - Orlando, FL - House of Blues
Nov. 05 - Destin, FL - Club LA
Nov. 07 - Nashville, TN - Cannery Ballroom
Nov. 10 - Detroit, MI - St. Andrews Hall
Nov. 11 - Chicago, IL - House of Blues
Nov. 12 - Cleveland, OH - House of Blues
Nov. 13 - Toronto, ON - The Phoenix Concert Theater
Nov. 15 - Boston, MA - Paradise Rock Club
Nov. 16 - New York, NY - Terminal 5
Nov. 18 - Baltimore, MD - Rams Head Live!
Nov. 19 - Niagara Falls, NY - The Rapids Theater
Nov. 21 - Omaha, NE - Sokol Auditorium
Nov. 22 - Clive, IA - 7 Flags Event Center
Nov. 23 - Minneapolis, MN - Myth Live Event Center
Nov. 25 - Green Bay, WI - The Sandlot Entertainment Complex
Nov. 26 - Sioux City, KA - Anthem @ Hard Rock
Nov. 28 - Denver, CO - The Ogden Theatre
Nov. 30 - Salt Lake City, UT - The Depot
Dec. 01 - Boise, ID - Knitting Factory
Dec. 02 - Seattle, WA - The Showbox
Dec. 03 - Portland, OR - The Roseland Theater
Dec. 06 - Los Angeles, CA - Mayan TheatreHoward Stern has interviewed Donald Trump many times over the years, back when he was just "Apprentice" Trump, the Trump who owned pageants and would speak in gritty detail about his experiences with women and celebrities. Stern considered that iteration of Trump a friend -- someone he liked.
On Wednesday's "Howard Stern Show" on Sirius XM, Stern, 63, shared his thoughts about the new president, a person who he says "wants to be loved," but one he didn't think could easily withstand the difficulties and criticisms of holding the office.
"I personally wish that he had never run," Stern said, as reported by CNN. "I told him that, because I actually think this is something that is gonna be detrimental to his mental health too, because, he wants to be liked, he wants to be loved. He wants people to cheer for him."
Stern, who said he doesn't agree with Trump's current politics, also highlighted what he felt was a disconnect between Trump's criticism of the media and Hollywood and the New Yorker's history. "He loves Hollywood," Stern said. "First of all, he loves the press. He lives for it. He loves people in Hollywood. He only wants to hobnob with them. All of this hatred and stuff directed towards him. It's not good for him. It's not good. There's a reason every president who leaves the office has gray hair."
Stern, echoing statements made by director Michael Moore, said he believes Trump ran for president in a bid to secure a better "Apprentice" deal with NBC. As a judge for several seasons of "America's Got Talent," the radio host used to have his own deal with the network. "I was shocked when he decided to run for president, and even more shocked that sort of, people took it seriously," Stern said. "... He just wanted a couple more bucks out of NBC, and that is why Donald is calling for voter fraud investigations. He's pissed he won. He still wants Hillary Clinton to win. He's so f***ing pissed, he's hoping that he can find some voter fraud and hand it over to Hillary."
The reformed "shock jock" said he was amazed at Trump's actions because he remembers him "being for Hillary Clinton" and "pro-abortion." Stern said any anti-abortion talk from Trump is just an effort to appeal to his political base.
Amy Kuperinsky may be reached at akuperinsky@njadvancemedia.com. Follow her on Twitter @AmyKup or on FacebookIn a bombshell allegation, three Breitbart staffers have told Buzzfeed they believe their website is being paid by Donald Trump to provide positive coverage for his presidential campaign.
Buzzfeed’s McKay Coppins reports that many staffers at the conservative website have privately complained about the website’s relentlessly positive coverage of Trump. “One current editor… said he was told by an executive last year that the company had a financial arrangement with Trump,” Coppins writes. “A second Breitbart staffer said he had heard a similar description of the site’s relationship with the billionaire but didn’t know the details; and a third source at the company said he knew of several instances when managers had overruled editors at Trump’s behest.”
Coppins also interviewed a “communications operative” who claims to work closely with Breitbart. He claims the operative had conversations with multiple editors and writers confirming the arrangement, and “one staffer claimed to have seen documentation of the ‘pay for play.’”
Brietbart’s Steve Bannon strongly disputes the allegations, calling them “a lie” in a statement to Buzzfeed:
We have no financial relationship with Donald Trump as an investor, advertiser or in any other capacity at this time — nor have we ever. The insinuation that we do — or did — is a lie. Mr. Trump is a savvy and successful businessman but not the type of investor I partner with in emerging growth companies. In fact, Mr. Trump’s presidential campaign hasn’t — unlike other campaigns — bought digital advertising on our site, though we would certainly be open for business on that front as we are with every campaign from both parties. Many campaigns have taken advantage of the fact Breitbart News Network has nearly 20 million readers and 90 million page views per month.
[Image via Breitbart]
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>>Follow Alex Griswold (@HashtagGriswold) on Twitter
Have a tip we should know? tips@mediaite.com[Image via Robert Mayer / USA TODAY Sports]
Another day, another disappointing Wizards loss. The reason why Monday’s defeat in Miami was so disappointing is Washington’s creativity in finding new ways to lose. The 2016-17 Wizards have fully established themselves as consistently inconsistent.
In one game, the team is being done in by poor bench play.
In another, it’s poor communication on help-defense and even poorer on-ball defense that leads to their demise.
The last time the Wizards played the Heat, it was an astounding rebounding margin and second chance points that caused defeat.
This latest iteration of losing was due to missing open 3-point looks, key turnovers, and the inability to stay in front of Heat point guard, Goran Dragic.
Brad Beal was #Shaqtin just a bit with this launched pass last night — drive the lane, kid! pic.twitter.com/HRd7lNUdSm — Kyle Weidie (@Truth_About_It) December 13, 2016
There is no doubt in my mind the Wizards are actually showing signs of improvement in almost every contest, but these moral victories don’t really amount to much if the team is incapable of putting all of the pieces together each they step on the court.
Goran Dragic picked up his fourth personal foul early in the third quarter, so he had to sit out the rest of the period as he watched his team go from having an 11-point lead to a 5-point deficit. During that frame, the Wizards used some pretty good ball pressure to disrupt the rhythm of the Heat offense and not allow them to get into their sets until late in the shot clock. This forced Heat players who are not particularly known for their shot-creation to attempt highly contested shots.
When Dragic entered the game in the fourth quarter, everything changed for the Heat offensively and he was able to score 13 of his season high 34 points. The Wizards started out the period with Kelly Oubre defending him, because John Wall was resting on the bench and Dragic is a bit too much for Trey Burke to handle. Scott Brooks has done a pretty decent job over the last few weeks of getting his lineup rotations in order, but I still vehemently disagree with him having fourth quarter lineups that do not include Wall nor Beal. While the bench has shown signs of improvement, it is playing with fire to field lineups without one of your best players on the court—especially in a closely contested game, where every possession matters.
When Wall got back into the game he did a good job of creating points to keep the score close but was not at his best with his on-ball defense of Dragic. Wall has been everything that the Wizards could possibly want in a franchise player this season except an elite defender. Currently, Wall is the 29th ranked point guard in terms of Defensive Real Plus-Minus. The problem with Wall defensively is that he picks and chooses his spots when he wants to expend maximum energy. On possessions where he delays getting in his stance and getting up on his man, he often times gets caught trailing and compromises the help defense behind him. There were a few critical possessions in Monday night’s game where Wall was trailing Dragic, and that gave Dragic just enough space to get to his hot-spot of the night (fadeaway jumper from the right elbow).
Defensively, Wall showed some warts that on most nights would be acceptable given his ability to carry the team offensively. On this particular night, however, Wall was not able to protect the ball in crunch time and committed two critical turnovers that halted any chance of keeping the Wizards in the game. The few possessions where Wall was able to use his dribble-drive skills to create wide-open 3-point looks for the team’s best shooter, Bradley Beal was not able to capitalize. Beal started the game hot, scoring 19 of his 29 points in the first half, but he only shot 2-8 on his 3-point attempts. While his offseason talk of offensive aggressiveness has led to tangible results in terms of increased attempts from behind the arc and at the free throw line, his max contract status obligates him to finish plays on a more consistent basis.
The other problem that I can see with how this game turned out is the fact that Wall and Beal both took 20-plus shots … and the most efficient scorer on the team, Otto Porter, only took seven shots from the field.
Updated look at the most efficient scorers in the @NBA. Otto Porter makes debut. @warriors with an unprecedented 3 players in the top-10. pic.twitter.com/PdHh1WbAcA — Synergy Sports Tech (@SynergySST) December 12, 2016
Otto made his first appearance this week on the Synergy Sports Tech most efficient scorers in the NBA because he scores 1.16 points per possession and gets 12.2 possessions per game. It would greatly behoove the Wizards to get Otto involved more in the offense, especially to take pressure off of Wall and Beal. The team seems to be leaning on Porter heavily on defense in small-ball lineups with him playing the power forward position, but I would like to see Brooks be a little bit more creative in designing opportunities for Porter to use his athleticism and create mismatches versus bigger opponents.
Wall's handiwork, Gortat's fluid screening, & Otto's perfect cut — fun to watch till you lose, #Wizards. pic.twitter.com/rIGbrqpKjg — Kyle Weidie (@Truth_About_It) December 13, 2016
Monday’s game was a momentum stopper for a team that appeared to be turning the corner, but it is not a total killer in terms of the season-long goals that this team has set out for themselves. The Wizards are only one game back in the loss column of the 8th seed, and with more critical matchups against Eastern Conference opponents who are ahead of them in the standings, there is still a reasonable sense to be cautiously optimistic.At least 53 people, including children, have been killed in government air strikes in Syria's Aleppo city, activists have said.
Dozens of barrel bombs - oil drums or cylinders packed with explosives and shrapnel - were dropped by military helicopters on the heavily populated al-Qatriji neighbourhood, the Syrian Observatory for Human rights, a UK-based monitoring group, said on Sunday.
Activists told Al Jazeera that at least 53 people were killed in the air strikes, while the Observatory gave a death toll of 32, including three children.
Eight others were killed in shelling attacks by rebels on regime-controlled areas in the city, it added.
At least 40 air strikes hit the rebel-held areas on Sunday in some of the heaviest recent raids by Russian and Syrian government warplanes, the Syrian Civil Defence, also known as volunteer rescuing group White Helmets, have said.
READ MORE: Can the world provide Syrians with aid from above?
Rebels also hit government-held parts of Aleppo in what Syrian media said was an escalation in mortar attacks on the western parts of the country's largest city before the war.
State media said missiles fired on Hamadaniyah and the Midan areas by rebels left scores injured and several casualties in a second day of intense shelling of government-held areas.
According to the Observatory, at least 74 people in Aleppo have been killed in air strikes since May 31.
Zouhir al-Shimale, a local journalist, told Al Jazeera that Aleppo had been hit by intensive raids over the past few days.
"Every morning for the past few days over 50 air strikes and barrel bombs have targeted Aleppo. A local journalist was among those killed, while another journalist was injured.
"A rescue worker was also killed while he was saving an injured person. It happened within two minutes," Shimale said.
Government advance in Raqqa
In another development, the Syrian army crossed the boundary of Raqqa province after advancing in a major Russian-backed offensive against the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) group, the Observatory said on Saturday.
Heavy Russian air strikes hit ISIL-held territory in eastern areas of Hama province, near the boundary of Raqqa, on Friday to facilitate the Syrian army's advance, the Observatory reported.
IN PICTURES: Devastation reigns in Syria's Aleppo
The Observatory said at least 26 ISIL fighters and nine Syrian government and allied troops were killed in the fighting.
It was the first time that government troops had entered Raqqa province since they were ousted by ISIL fighters in August 2014.
The Syrian army was making its advances from the Athriya area of eastern Hama province, close to the provincial border with Raqqa.
The offensive brought troops to within less than 40km of Tabqa, which is the site of an airbase and a big reservoir, SOHR said.
ISIL, which controls large swaths of territory in Syria and Iraq, is fighting Syrian troops, US-backed fighters and other rebel groups in northern Syria and is facing an offensive by Iraqi government forces in their stronghold of Fallujah.
Russia's military intervention in support of Damascus in September has helped to bolster President Bashar al-Assad's government.Spanish design studio Atipo has created Papeles de cine, a collection of beautifully minimalistic movie posters made of clever paper art. As part of a promotional campaign to announce the new Paper Gallery website by create graphic service provider Minke, each poster uses the unique weight, texture, and color of different sheets of paper to create sleek works of art and design.
These “papers for characters” were each manipulated by hand to produce clever representations of iconic films like Frankenstein, Bonnie and Clyde, Jaws, and The Curious Case of Benjamin Button. With just a burn, a rip, some crumpling, or ingenious color selection, Atipo manages to accurately convey themes or content of the movies, rendering the posters instantly recognizable to any fans of these classics. Although the paper art is clean and simple in design, they are rich in symbolism, embodying the philosophy that less is often more.
Atipo Website
Minke Website
via [Partfaliaz]A Florida official went undercover to help pioneer a neo-Nazi motorcycle gang, and now six members of a national hate group may soon be behind bars.
The five-year operation netted suspects on charges ranging from drug dealing to bomb threats. The central Florida mission used the ruse of a biker gang to bait white supremacists.
In 2007, an officer with the Orange County Sheriff's Office deceptively contacted an avowed white supremacist to begin laying the trap that culminated in the March arrests of 1st SS Kavallerie Brigade Motorcycle Division members.
The Orlando Sentinel exposed the depths to which the Orange County Sheriff and the FBI went to prosecute extremists.
At the center of the ploy was August Kreis III. Kreis has been involved since the late 1980s with the Christian Identity movement, an anti-Semitic religion that preaches white superiority. He has advocated for the mass murder of non-white people, and has stated that "the Jew is the enemy of all races on the planet," according to the Southern Poverty Law Center, a nonprofit civil rights organization.
When the undercover officer first made contact, Kreis was also the leader of one splinter faction of Aryan Nations. Aryan Nations is a white supremacist religious organization that the FBI has called a "terrorist threat," according to the West Orlando News.
The officer, whose name has not been released, found that the faction leader was looking to create a Nazi motorcycle brigade. By 2010, the men had formed the 1st SS Kavallerie Brigade Motorcycle Division. Under a false name, the officer became the division's chief recruiter, and soon two undercover FBI agents were also members of the club.
Ostensibly, the group of motorcyclists functioned as a security crew for white supremacists. However, hidden cameras and microphones inside the gang's clubhouse ultimately led to arrests of six Aryan Nations members.
Members of the club "were obtaining explosives and explosives expertise, and they intended to use them to kill people in the United States," State Attorney Lawson Lamar told the Sentinel.
Brian Klose, the 49-year-old "Führer" of the gang, along with Ronald Cusack, 47; Carlos Eugene Dubose, 54; and Harold Johnson Kinlaw, 54; were arrested on charges that included threatening to throw, project, place, or discharge a destructive device. Kinlaw was also charged with attempting to solicit conspiracy and evidencing prejudice.
In addition, Cusak, Klose, and Dubose, along with Klose's 41-year-old wife, Leah, face a slew of drug charges. Deborah Plowman, 47, originally was arrested on possession of a controlled substance, but her charges have since been dropped, according to the Sentinel.
See Photos And Charges Of Those Arrested (Story Continues Below) :
PHOTO GALLERY Arrested Members Of 1st SS Kavallerie Brigade Motorcycle Division
Kreis was convicted separately in 2011 on federal fraud charges in South Carolina, where he was sentenced to six months in jail followed by a half-year of house arrest. A month after being sentenced, he stepped down as leader of his Aryan Nations faction.
In Florida, threatening to throw a destructive device is a second degree felony, which carries a maximum prison sentence of 15 years. However, if Brian Klose is convicted of this charge in addition to all seven of his drug charges--which include purchasing cocaine, distributing opium and trafficking controlled substances--he could be looking at 75 years in prison.
Nabbing hate group members on drug charges is "kind of the 'Al Capone theory' of prosecution," Assistant State Attorney Steven Foster told the Orlando Sentinel. Though Capone was suspected of a multitude of crimes, ranging from smuggling alcohol to prostitution to murder, federal authorities eventually were only able to jail him on charges of tax evasion.
"We decided to strike against the Kavallerie Brigade by bringing these heavy-duty drug charges to shut the active members down," Foster said.
The 1st SS Kavallerie Brigade Motorcycle Division was named after Hitler's SS Cavalry Brigade, a horse-mounted unit involved in the murder of Jews while stationed in the Soviet Union.Students protested in downtown Montreal Friday against a five-year tuition hike they say will limit accessibility to post-secondary education. ((Canadian Press)) Students in Quebec are warning the provincial government that its plan to raise university tuition fees by 75 per cent will result in crippling debt levels and a showdown with their powerful unions.
A small but boisterous group of students took to the streets on Friday to express their anger at the government's intention to hike annual tuition by $325 a year for five years.
The measure is among the most controversial in the provincial budget tabled Thursday by Finance Minister Raymond Bachand.
Militant student unions in the province have long resisted any effort to increase tuition, which is the lowest in Canada.
"In Quebec we want the best universities, the best students, and money shouldn't be an issue," said Leo Bureau-Blouin, who heads the The Quebec Federation of University Students (FECQ).
Bureau-Blouin said student leaders plan to meet over the weekend to plan larger protests in the coming weeks.
The province's student unions have shown their ability to rally large crowds in the past; 50,000 people attended a protest in Montreal the weekend before the budget.
Students should pay 'fair share' says minister
Friday's protest snarled traffic outside a Montreal hotel where Bachand was defending his budget.
At one point they even managed to block the mayor of Montreal's car, forcing him to make his way to the speech on foot.
Bachand says students should pay their fair share of actual tuition costs. ((Canadian Press)) Inside, Bachand expressed little sympathy for the students' concerns.
"What's the fair share that students should pay?" Bachand asked reporters after his speech.
"He [the student] is going to earn hundreds of thousands of dollars more than if he had a high-school education."
Students argue the new tuition rate will limit access to higher education, something which Bachand rejects out of hand.
He says 35 per cent of the revenues generated by the higher rate will be put back in to student aid. The rest will help finance an ambitious array of funding programs for Quebec's universities.
Among them is a plan to encourage private companies to donate more to post-secondary education. In all, cash-strapped universities will see $850 million in additional public funds by 2016-17.
"The competition for brains in this planet is quite high," said Bachand. "If we don't start working on our universities now, it will be too late."
Students say hikes mean more debt, longer programs
The Canadian Federation of Students accused the Quebec government of seeking to balance its books on "the backs of students."
David Molenhuis, the federation's chairperson, said the government's move will "bankrupt a generation and undermine Quebec's long-term economic stability."
Tuition fees in Quebec have been frozen for 33 of the past 43 years. ((Canadian Press)) Students are worried the higher tuition fees for Quebecers will further complicate efforts to fund their education.
Concordia student Sandra Besada expects it will take longer to finish her degree.
"I'm going to have to be working more to save up more to be able to pay my school. So probably take less classes," she said.
Civil engineering student Andrew Samuel is doubtful the additional money will improve the quality of education, given how much Concordia has been spending on severance packages lately.
"We have classrooms falling apart and stuff. I don't see the money that they promised necessarily going in the school," he said.
"I'll have to talk to my boss and work more hours," said Marc-Andre Marquis, a political science student at the Université du Québec à Montreal who works part-time at a pet store.
"But under the financial aid system, if I work more, I'll receive fewer bursaries."
One study conducted by a prominent Quebec student union found that as many as 40 per cent of students in the province fund their education without support from their parents and that 80 per cent work while studying full time.
Universities wanted more
While many students say the tuition hikes will put an unfair burden on them, University of Montreal rector Guy Breton said rates in the end will be more fair.
He said tuition in Quebec has been kept artificially low for decades and universities have suffered.
"I think [for] the students, it's a religion for them. Any increase is wrong. In 2016-17, so half a century after the freeze or quasi freeze, we'll get back to that point. I think it has been enough," said Breton.
McGill University principal Heather Monroe-Blum had hoped the province would increase tuition by an even greater degree, such as $500 a year.
"The government has been quite timid in the steps that it has taken with respect to tuition. This will leave Quebec's universities still dramatically underfunded vis-à-vis their Canadian counterparts," said Munroe-Blum.Grayson Bruce, the 9-year-old boy who gained national attention after being told he couldn’t wear his My Little Pony backpack to school, received good news this week.
According to a statement posted on the Buncombe County (North Carolina) School District’s Facebook page, the decision to ban the student’s backpack has been reversed.
“We sincerely regret that the issue of being told to leave the bookbag at home was perceived as blaming Grayson. While that was not the intent, the perception became reality. We support Grayson bringing the bookbag to school,” the statement read, in part.
Controversy surrounding the bag arose earlier this month, after Grayson’s mom told media outlets that administrators banned the backpack because it was a “trigger for bullying.” Grayson had previously been the victim of verbal and physical abuse from bullies who criticized him for wearing a “girly” backpack.
Soon after administrators told Grayson he should no longer wear the bag to school, he left the public school district, reports TODAY.com. However, after the district’s latest decision, he will re-enroll.
“We are considering all options for getting Grayson back in school. We are pleased the school system is working closely with us. All of the options include Grayson taking his ‘My Little Pony’ bag to school,” Grayson’s mom, Noreen Bruce, said in a statement posted to the district’s Facebook page. She also wrote that she has been working with the district to improve anti-bullying policies.Illustration: Andrzej Krauze
As governments and leaders of opinion all over the world struggle to end continuing economic paralysis in the wake of the global financial crisis (GFC), they are unanimous on only one point: the need to revive economic growth. Up to now there have been two mainstream schools of economic opinion as to how this revival is to be achieved. These are identified as a) the ‘Austerians’, who assert that by returning policy to fiscal orthodoxy (moving towards a balanced budget) governments can restore market confidence to the point where businesses will start to expand their operations again, and b) Keynesian, according to which budget deficits, so far from being cut, should be expanded further (along with public debt) so as to boost demand and stimulate private sector activity. Both schools are seemingly agreed that there is no place in such a climate for any restraint on monetary expansion.
Unsurprisingly the Austerian view has rapidly been discredited for the logical nonsense that it is, most obviously by its tendency to exacerbate deficits in a climate of weak demand and thus have the opposite effect to what its advocates claim it should. This predictable failure has induced a kind of schizophrenia on the part of the Coalition in the UK and most other governments in Europe, as doubts about the political sustainability of continued budgetary austerity intensify – especially as voters have given it an emphatic thumbs down in France and Greece. But while most governments in Europe cling to the wreckage of this failed strategy, economists have largely abandoned it, perhaps fearing professional ridicule if they continue to try to defend the indefensible. Thus for example Martin Wolf, chief economics commentator of the Financial Times, who for decades has been a high-profile defender of the neo-liberal, free-market ideology of the ‘Washington consensus’, has felt compelled by the inescapable realities of the GFC to adopt an openly Keynesian position.
It would be wrong, however, to see this apparent shift of opinion as representing any kind of ideological watershed. For in reality the neo-liberal ‘revolution’ of the 1980s did not amount to a complete rejection of the Keynesian consensus that had dominated policy during the post-World War II era. Markets were indeed liberalised and globalised, giving the corporate sector (and finance in particular) much greater freedom to seek out profit-making opportunities. But what did not change was the official presumption that governments need to intervene in markets so as to support economic growth and financial markets. Indeed it is ironic that the ‘supply-side’ strategy – based on cutting direct taxes – which was the core of Reaganomics applied in the US in the 1980s, was essentially a form of Keynesian-style deficit financing designed to stimulate growth, although few noticed this at the time. What is undeniable is that it signally failed to bring about the sustained revival of growth anticipated by its advocates, although it did result in a doubling of US public debt and helped precipitate a financial and property market bubble and bust by 1990.
But arguably the most pernicious aspect of this global liberalisation and deregulation of markets was that it reinforced rather than reversed the culture of corporate dependence on state support which was the legacy of the post-war Keynesian era, when policy makers everywhere were driven by the idea that market intervention and support of the private sector by the state (of which the Marshall Plan of the 1940s is the classic example) was justified in order to sustain growth and employment. Although by the 1980s this view had been ostensibly abandoned – along with the restriction of cross-border capital transfers and regulation of such matters as employment and environmental standards – few were inclined to demand a corresponding withdrawal of state subsidies and protection for the private sector, least of all those corporate interests which benefited from this public largesse and which largely set the political agenda. Hardly anyone appeared to recognise that |
is interest from both sides. For us, it would be a huge return on investment for both the two major sponsors of the team, Lampre and Merida, to have an Italian rider of Vincenzo’s quality on the only worldTour Italian team. We obviously have to respect the UCI transfer rules, regulations and times but for now I can confirm there is interest from both parties.
“Vincenzo is a rider who brings results in both Grand Tours as well as one-day classic races. This is a quality which is difficult to find in modern day cycling, thus it's the reason for even more interest, which we are putting into this project. As well as the fact that our future GC rider, youngster Louis Meintjes can only but learn from a talent such as Vincenzo, as well as our other hugely talented rider Diego Ulissi, who lives in the same town as Vincenzo, namely Lugano, and they can form a good combo on the team where they train together ”
Nibali has previously been linked to Trek-Segafredo too with the team announcing an Italian co-sponsor starting this year. Trek had also been linked to American rider Tejay van Garderen but Cyclingnews understand that any possible transfer move will not go through.
Lampre made a number of signings head of this season including the talented South African Louis Meintjes, Yukiya Arashiro, and Matej Mohoric.*
ARSENE Wenger has helped to transform English football, on and off the pitch, since his arrival at Arsenal from Japan in 1996. Silverware and plaudits followed but since 2005, when the ‘big money era’ of Roman Abramovich’s Chelsea and Sheikh Mansour’s Manchester City have led to increased competition in the Premier League, the Gunners have gone without a trophy. Has Wenger been under-achieving? Has he in fact been performing as well as resources dictate, or better? What are those resources? The Arsenal Supporters’ Trust asked Sportingintelligence to look at some of these issues, and that culminated in a presentation to Trust members in London on Monday. That piece of work is available in full as a free PDF download HERE. The main part of the work is published below, but all the supplementary materials are available in full here: Arsene Wenger – what is he good for?
By Nick Harris
24 October 2013
APART from helping to transform English domestic football culture, on and off the pitch, and delivering Arsenal fans two Doubles, an Invincibles season plus multiple domestic and European finals – what has Arsene Wenger ever done for Arsenal?
The research laid out in this article and in the supplementary material concludes:
FIRST: Consistently and with the rare exceptions of two seasons out of the 17 between 1996-97 and 2012-13, Wenger has produced teams that have either out-performed expectation on the pitch given the resources available to him off it, or at least met those expectations.
It is well established that he has not spent much, net, in the transfer market. This research shows, using official club accounts, that in the 17 seasons from 1996-97 to 2012-13 inclusive, Arsenal spent £444.5m on transfers, and received £341.3m, so spent £103.2m net in those 17 years.
BUT the research also shows that much of that net spending was laid out on agents’ fees and other ‘normal’ costs of deals, and the ‘real’ net spent over those 17 years was more like £23.4m. This is tiny compared to any of Arsenal’s main competitors.
Arguably more important, Wenger has very frequently out-performed Arsenal’s wage spend – and wages are a key determinant of success in elite football.
SECOND: Analysis suggests that Wenger’s worst ever Arsenal season, in terms of performing less well than finances should have dictated, was in 2005-06, when as well as finishing in the top four of the Premier League (again), he also took Arsenal to the final of the Champions League.
THIRD: That season, 2005-06, was the worst ever not just because Wenger had more to spend than key rivals yet finished behind them, but because Arsenal amassed the fewest points of any Wenger season (67), finished as low as any Wenger season (fourth), and had less ‘team stability’ than any other season of the Wenger era.
‘Team stability’ in this context considers how many Premier League starts, combined, Wenger gave to his “core” XI players in that season, whoever they were.
We have looked at every season of the Wenger reign and found the 2005-06 season to be the least ‘stable’, with only 64% of starting places going to “core” players. This is the lowest % of the Wenger years.
In the Invincibles season the comparative figure was as high as 83%, similar to the 1998-99 season when Arsenal lost the title by a point to another of the era’s best-ever teams, Manchester United’s Treble winners.
This ‘woeful’ 2005-06 season for Wenger, in which Arsenal took the lead in the Champions League final before losing 2-1 to Barcelona, is compounded in statistical terms by being one in which Arsenal spent more money in the financial year – £23.75m cash – on transfers than any Wenger season bar one up to that point, and also had more ins and outs for cash than any financial year before or since.
FOURTH: That perhaps Wenger is telling the truth when he speaks, often, about wanting value in the transfer market, and wanting to buy players when they are better than he already has. Because he knows, from that 2005-06 season, and from the following season and a few others, that all business is not necessarily good business. And too much business can have a negative impact on the team, if selection becomes too ‘unstable’, which we can show, in a general sense, for Arsenal and key rivals, is a bad thing.
FIFTH: Evidently there is some issue at play hindering Arsenal in recruitment. Whether this is the loss of key ally David Dein still being felt from 2007 – a view to which I still subscribe – is debatable. There are also those who argue that for all the huge cash balances of the past half dozen years, there really has not been as much money to spend as Arsenal have sometimes made out. Again this is debatable.
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SO THE INTENTION of this exercise is to present some key basic facts and data to digest, in order to help you make up your own mind.
Do you fall into the camp that believes there are three ages of Wenger?
The silverware years of 1998 to 2005.
The ‘big money’ barren years when Chelsea and City as well as United have bought success.
The renaissance years, just getting underway.
Or is Arsene Wenger a busted flush?
Let’s start with a financial analysis of transfer and wage spending in the 12 years from the Millennium to summer 2012, taking into account Arsenal and their key current ‘rivals’, who together comprise the so-called ‘Sky 6’ – so that’s Manchester United and Manchester City, Chelsea, Liverpool, Tottenham and Arsenal.
Why those six? Because they are relevant to now in a way that say, Newcastle United and Leeds, and to a lesser extent Aston Villa and Everton and other top-four challengers are no longer relevant. They are today’s ‘Big Six’.
And why 2000 to 2012? Pragmatically because the things we want to look at for six teams over 12 years fit into our first big graphic; but also because these years comprise the boom years of the second Double and Invincibles season, take in the ‘big money’ age of Abramovich and Mansour, the Arsenal ‘decline’ post-2005 and the emergence of the contemporary Arsenal, with its mixture of home-grown players, ‘home imports’ from other British clubs and growing financial power that allowed the purchase of Mesut Ozil, and quite possibly more big-money signings to come.
So what are we looking at?
1: Net transfer spend each season between 2000-01 and 2011-12, which means the difference between what each club spent in each of those seasons and what it received. If a club spent £10m in a year and received £10m, it had net expenditure of nothing. If it spent £20m and received £10m, it had net expenditure of £10m. If it spent £10m and received £20m, it had net income of £10m. How do we know how much each club spent? For the purpose of this exercise, we are using the official cash expenditure on transfers each financial year, according to official club accounts.
2: Wage expenditure. For this exercise, we are using the total wages spend by each club on all their employees each year, according to official club accounts. The biggest single expense of any football club is player wages. They account for (very, very, very roughly) about 70 per cent of all wages at a club, although this varies. So if a club’s total wage bill is £100m, then you might reasonably expect around £70m, give or take a few million, to be spent on player wages, as opposed to on managers, coaches, executives, cleaning staff, ticket office personnel, marketing people, stewards and all the rest combined.
3: This first graphic – which contains 306 separate pieces of information – also tells us where each club ranked in wage bill each season (1st, 2nd, 3rd etcetera) and where they finished in the league each season.
Article continues below. Click on the graphic to enlarge
We are interested in wage expenditure particularly because of the strong link between wages and performance in the Premier League. This is a well established relationship as anyone who has read ‘Soccernomics’ will be aware. Over a period of time, clubs spending more on wages will, generally, do better in the Premier League than clubs spending less.
Sportingintelligence also contributed to a study in 2010 in association with the Wall Street Journal (link here) that found the relationship between wages and success to be around 85 per cent – ie: wage spending is 85 per cent responsible for finishing position. In the NFL, the same study showed it was 14%.
Anyone interested in a more detailed look at wages and success in the Premier League, or with insomnia, can see further articles on the same subject here, and here in an article that focused on an exception that proved the rule, QPR last season.
To massively simplify the theory that wages = success, it goes as follows: when you spend loads of money on wages, it’s because you’re getting great players, who will do better than less good players on less money.
It is very much an ‘all other things being equal’ theory.
The first graphic above showed: transfers, wages, wage rank and performance over 12 years for six teams. Elsewhere, in the season-by-season pages of the supplementary materials, you can see most of the individual permanent transfer deals by Arsenal in the period; loans not included.
The big six against each other
The graphic ranks the ‘big six’ in order of their total net spending on transfers plus wages combined over the 12 years in question.
Chelsea spent most, with £2.078 billion, then Man Utd on £1.43bn, then City with £1.4bn, then Liverpool with £1.3bn then Arsenal with £1.1bn and Spurs on £777 million.
The year-by-year spending on transfers and wages is self-evident and these next two graphics depict that spending visually. Arsenal’s net transfer spending is 1/10th of Chelsea’s, or £57m v £570m. Note that Arsenal’s net spend is for those 12 years; the total net spend for the 17 years, as mentioned earlier, is £103.2m, much of which wasn’t transfer fees at all, but related costs.
Article continues below
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So how do the ‘Big 6’ compare when measuring (wage) resources versus achievement?
In the 12 years in question:
Chelsea did not do better than their resources in any year, under-performing against their wage bill eight times and doing only as well as expected four times.
United did better seven times, worse three times and as well as expected twice.
Manchester City performed better once: when finishing ninth in 2002-03 when wages said they should have finished 10th. They have otherwise under-performed apart from the title-winning season when they did as well as expected.
Liverpool did better than expected four times in the period, worse four times and as expected four times.
ARSENAL out-performed their wage spending seven times, did as well as expected three times, and under-performed in 2005-06 and 2006-07. We’ll come back to that – but it’s better than any rival.
Tottenham did better than their wage bill six times – and worse six times, in the period under review.
The first age of Wenger
That record shows that he:
1: Took Arsenal to third place, second but for goal difference, in his first (incomplete) season.
2: Did the Double in 1998.
3: PL Runners-up by a point in 1999.
4: PL Runners-up in 2000, when also runners-up in Uefa Cup
5: PL Runners-up in 2001, and FA Cup final
6: Double in 2002
7: PL runners-up in 2003 and FA Cup winners
8: Invincible PL winners in 2003-04 and two Cup semi-finals
9: PL runners-up and FA Cup winners in 2005
Vieira left in summer 2005, Arsenal moved to the Emirates in 2006 and David Dein left in 2007 in the wake of Stan Kroenke, who he introduced to the club, arriving as an shareholder.
The second age of Wenger
The post-2005 ‘down’ period: 4th in 2006 and Champions League finalists; 4th in 2007 and LC finalists; 3rd in 2008; 4th in 2009; 3rd in 2010; 4th in 2011, LC r-up and R16 loss to eventual CL winners Barca; 3rd in 2012; 4th in 2013 and CL loss to eventual winners Bayern.
Before we look at why Wenger may have been influenced not to spend a lot of money after 2006, because of what happened in 2005-06, let’s look in more detail at transfer spending, reports versus reality.
First, a graphic, explanation afterwards.
Article continues below. Click to enlarge
TRANSFER spending is a contentious issue at Arsenal precisely because there has been so much attention on whether Wenger has been free to spend.
The graphic above contrasts a) spend by season as reported by the media and as detailed on a deal-by-deal basis in the supplementary material with b) the money going in and out of the club in cash on transfers each season as documented by the accounts.
The accounts show that cash spending on transfers in the Wenger era from 1996-97 to 2012-13 inclusive was £444.5m.
That was actual cash, out, detailed season by season in the graphic. It is also £84.5m more than the transfer spend that most people reading ‘respectable’ reports will expect to have been spent. As the detailed deals show, Arsenal have reportedly (according to the media) spent only £360.1m in that time.
When it comes to selling players, the real amount received according to the accounts, in cash, has been £341.3m, which is very close to the reported amount of £336.7m.
The reported net spend over the period is a tiny £23.4m, while the actual net spend is £103.2m – and the difference almost certainly lies primarily in unreported parts of deals when buying players, namely agents fees, and then subsequent payments in add-ons later, not initially reported.
Why do we think this? Two reasons. First, because of the amortisation figures: £315.5m for the Wenger era.
Amortisation is a ‘book’ figure that spreads the total cost of buying a player across the term of that player’s contract. So that’s the transfer fee plus any agent’s fees, plus signing-on or other costs. If a player joins for £10m on a four-year deal, and let’s add £2m more in agent fees and signing-on costs for £12m total, it will be ‘amortised’ through the books at £3m a year over four years. When players renegotiate their contracts to extend them, the amorisation cost is ‘re-set’.
So if the player, after two years, signs a two-year extension, the club will have only £6m of his original fee left to amortise, also over four years (the original two remaining plus the new two), and the charge for him will reduce from £3m a year to £1.5m a year. In this way, the amortisation charges up to any one point will not wholly reflect the money spent – there will be tens of millions pounds remaining unamortised; effectively if not exactly the difference between actual cash spent and the amortisation figure.
Our second ‘check’ that reported figures are generally accurate comes when we compare those numbers to profits on player sales as detailed in the club accounts. The two columns ‘reported receipts’ and ‘profit on player sales’ on the graphic above, depicted in the graphs on the right-hand side, closely if not exactly mirror each other. The profit on player sales is slightly less over 17 years combined (£302.9m) than the reported receipts but this simply means that not all the receipts have been profit – just most of them. This of course demonstrates that Arsene Wenger has, over a long period of time, kept his net spending on players (fees aside) down to a minimum.
Whether or not he should have to done so, of course, is an entirely different matter.
Before we consider that question, we’ll quickly have a detour to why, when everything is taken into account, that 2005-06 season was Wenger’s worst.
On each of the season-by-season pages (they’re in this download, and each one looks like the example on the left from 1996-97), there is a team of players started most often that season in the Premier League by Wenger.
Why the League? Because it is the bread and butter competition, the first priority, the staple of the season.
Why starts? Because over the whole season it will reflect the most important players.
The teams as laid out are therefore not meant to suggest, always, that Wenger played that formation or those exact players in that place on the pitch, and certainly not that the 11 main players in each formation were played together in that formation every week, although in many weeks they may have been.
The layouts simply show a ‘core’ XI who started the most league games.
The only times these 11 players were not the 11 most used is when, for example, a key role would have gone uncovered by using that 11.
In 2001-02 for example, none of Arsenal’s goalkeepers reached 20 league starts, but 11 outfielders did. But David Seaman, with 17 starts (with Wright making 12, and Taylor nine) gets into that season’s most-used XI.
The ‘stability’ number for each season is calculated by working out how many starts the core XI players made each season, and working out what percentage of the ‘perfect’ 418 (or 38 games times 11 starting places) they added up to.
The season-by-season pages show you stability number for every Arsenal season, and also the stability number for the champions each season when that wasn’t Arsenal. The title winners are at around 70% in most seasons, if not all, and often a lot higher.
The next graphic illustrates contrasting Arsenal seasons, Invincible versus ‘In Transition’.
The stability in the Invincible season was 83%, and in 2005-06 it was 64%.
That equates to each of the core XI playing an average of 32 league games each (of 38) in the Invincible season, but 24 each in the 2005-06 season.
Small margins matter in elite sport, and that is some gap.
I’m sure some Arsenal fans will be wondering what these season’s stability number is sitting at. Up to an including last Saturday’s thrashing of Norwich, it was at 82 per cent.
SO WHERE has Wenger gone wrong? Arguably that 2005-06 season indicates signing too many players – and having too many players moving in and out in one season – was a bad idea. Whether this is also his own private assessment, only he will know. Of course there have been misses on transfers along with many hits, and it doesn’t require a non-Arsenal fan to list some of those.
The trophy-less years have also coincided, of course, with the advent of the ‘big money’ from Chelsea and Man City. Abramovich’s first season of ownership in 2003-04 was transitional for them but by 2004-05 and 2005-06 they had spent massive sums on new players and wages; and Manchester United in turn responded to that before Sheikh Mansour arrived at Man City in 2008 and started his own spending.
The last time Arsenal’s wage spending was even as high as third in the Premier League was 2007-08, and they finished third. Since then it’s been fourth or fifth and Arsenal have performed as well or better each season. Wage inflation has been enormous across the league, of course, as this next graphic shows in detail for Arsenal.
Look at the wage bill in 1989-90 (£2.79m or 36.5% of income), and then look at 2012-13: £154.49m or 55.1% of income.
NOTE: ‘Freaky’ high income in a few seasons of stadium development, years ending 2009 and 2010 especially, from property sales income, does not reflect football income alone those years.
The continuing ascent of the wage bill, from £2.79m to £154.49m, or up by more than 5,400% between 1990 and 2013, does reflect football inflation of the Premier League years.
Article continues below. Click to enlarge graphic
As a blast from the past, a snapshot of a bygone and more transparent era, here is a more detailed breakdown of Arsenal’s wage bill from 1989-90 as listed in the accounts. It was the last time they provided such detail.
Article continues below. Click to enlarge graphic
Back to the current Arsenal, and the search for a first trophy since 2005, Arsenal insist that they are now ready to combat the ‘big money’ of their main rivals with their own big money. Ivan Gazidis has been saying this with some fervour for some months now; and the summer deal for Ozil did demonstrate that the cash was in fact there to be spent. And I’m sure there is more, certainly tens of millions more for January, if the right players are available.
Wenger has been notoriously reluctant to spend. These ‘interim years’, the post-Vieira, post-Dein, new stadium and new owner years have, for those and other reasons, have contributed to the lack of spending. Finding the right replacements, doing the right deals, staying within comfortable financial limits and coping with the in-fighting of the boardroom have all undoubtedly contributed to lack of ‘significant’ activity before Ozil.
Not getting Suarez or Rooney or Higuain or Lars Bender or whoever was not lack of money but lack of pre-planning or availability, I would argue.
What about cash? It’s been there for some years.
The cash pile at the end of 2012-13 was £153.5m; 11-12 was higher, £153.6m; 10-11 was £160.2m; 09-10 was £127.6m; 08-09 was £99.6m; 07-08 was £93.3m; and 06-07 was £73.9m with £35.6m and £71.6m the two years before.
How much is there to spend?
Tens of millions. The Arsenal Supporters’ Trust’s own analysis of the most recent accounts concludes some £50m should be available for Wenger in January for players – if he wants it.
Not all of the £153.5m that was there in May was available, because around £30m needs to be kept in the debt service reserve account. A chunk of the rest is season ticket income, and I know the AST have put this as high as £65m a year ago, calculating therefore a ‘usable’ balance of £46m a year ago.
Arsenal could safely spend a few tens of millions in January, and as much again and more next summer, even if you err on the side of caution.
But Wenger is cautious; we know that.
The wage bill can soon balloon when you decide to pay £200,000 per week, or £10.4m a year plus national insurance and pension and other costs.
A squad of players, even only 25 of them, costing £11m each per year, is an utterly unfeasible £275m.
That’s without dozens of other young pros, a manager, coaching staff and all other employees.
Ridiculous? Don’t think there won’t be pressures for pay rises once a player or a few are way ahead of the rest.
Until now, Wenger has also been good for equality in the dressing room. I’m sure he still is.
It’s been one of the many reasons Arsenal should be thankful for him. Debatably.
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The BBC has been blasted for trying to find someone who would talk about 'why the Welsh language should die'.
A researcher for Radio 5 live tweeted the request to Oli Dugmore, the editor of university news site The Tab.
In the past he has argued that money should not be thrown into the'sewer' of Welsh.
The question sparked a Twitter storm as Welsh language supporters lashed out.
The BBC has apologised for any offence caused by "an inappropriate tweet".
The original tweet has now been deleted but a screenshot was taken of it.
In her Twitter bio, Sam Proffitt describes herself as a "broadcast researcher for BBC Radio 5 Live".
The tweet was instantly met with criticism as with Plaid leader Leanne Wood calling on the BBC to take steps to "stop this nonsense".
Former Plaid Cymru chief executive Rhuanedd Richards asked: "Can you explain how this question conforms to the impartiality required by BBC editorial guidelines?"
Former BBC journalist and current Plaid Cymru AM for Anglesey Rhun ap Iorwerth said he was aghast at his former employers.
He tweeted: “Gobsmacked (at) the BBC. “Why the Welsh language should die.” I pay a licence fee. @bbc5live please explain.
“My language isn’t a hobby, or an option. It’s my soul.
“The air that I breathe. To discuss ‘wanting’ my language to die? Can’t put in words.”
Plaid Cymru AM for Dwyfor Meirionnydd tweeted: “Welsh is my children’s first language. How can you condone this (BBC)?”
A spokesperson for BBC Radio 5 live said: "We aired a broad discussion about non-English languages. We obviously wanted to reflect a full range of views. In seeking to do this, an inappropriate tweet was sent from a personal account. We're sorry for any offence caused."At approximately 9:45 p.m., the woman was sitting inside the vehicle in the 3800 block of South Princeton Avenue when shots were fired, according to the Chicago Police Department.
A woman being driven by a hired driver was fatally struck by a bullet Friday night near U.S. Cellular Field on Chicago’s Southwest Side.
At approximately 9:45 p.m., the woman was sitting inside the vehicle in the 3800 block of South Princeton Avenue when shots were fired, according to the Chicago Police Department. A bullet pierced through the trunk of the Dodge Charger and hit the woman in the back, according to community activist Andrew Holmes.
The woman was taken to John H. Stroger Jr. Hospital of Cook County where she was later pronounced dead, according to investigators.
The victim was identified by the Cook County medical examiner’s office as 30-year-old Shari Graham of the 7700 block of South Paulina.
Graham was visiting her children's father shortly before the shooting, according to Holmes. Graham was a mother of a 14-month-old boy, a 3-year-old boy, and a 6-year-old girl. She had moved back to Chicago from Texas in December.
It was not clear whether Graham had hailed a driver using a ride-sharing app or livery service. Holmes confirmed that Graham had called for a ride to take her to Popeye's, then home.
Investigators said that Graham was not the intended target. No one was in custody as of Saturday evening.
Holmes is offering a $1,000 reward for information that leads to an arrest.Giant Panda Guerilla Dub Squad, the boundary-pushing reggae band from Rochester, NY, will release its latest studio album, Steady, on September 30, in its first collaboration with independent reggae label Easy Star Records.
The bulk of the songs on Steady were recorded in 2013 with Craig Welsch of 10 Ft. Ganja Plant co-producing. Two other tracks were recorded after those sessions and added to the sequence – the title track was co-produced by Danny Kalb (The Green, Ben Harper), while live show favorite “Mr. Cop” was recorded with Matt Saccuccimorano (John Brown’s Body).
“This is without a doubt the best sounding record we’ve ever made,” says singer-bassist James Searl. “But it’s also the most consistently solid set of songwriting we’ve done to date.”
As for ending up as part of the growing Easy Star family, Giant Panda couldn’t be happier to be on the label with a roster that includes The Green, Rebelution, John Brown’s Body, Cas Haley, The Black Seeds, and Easy Star All-Stars. The band and the label had been friends since 2008, but the timing was never right to join up forces until now. “Sometimes it takes a while for the stars to align right,” Easy Star CEO Eric Smith says. “We always bounced around the idea of working with each other, but after hearing the growth on these latest sessions and seeing how good the band’s live set had become, we knew now was the time to finally make it happen.”
Steady will be followed in early 2015 by a sequel to Country called Bright Days, which will take the band’s Americana acoustic persona even further than before. This is also due to come out on Easy Star, along with a vinyl version of Steady. In the meantime, fans both old and new can revel in the startlingly good Steady.
Panda also released a handful of West Coast Dates with Easy Star All Stars and Tatanka!The Andean highlands of Peru have long drawn those in search of fortune. Centuries ago, Spanish conquistadors arrived to plunder the rough, jagged landscape of its gold and silver, effectively ending the Incan Empire. Today, multinational mining companies cut into the earth to extract its abundant resources.
For the past 20 years, Yanacocha - the world's second-largest gold mine - has been operating in the dizzying heights of the mountain region. Heavy machinery cuts deep ridges into the ground, leaving unmistakable scars behind. Trucks laden with ore snake down roads from the mine.
The operators, U.S.-based Newmont Mining Corporation and Peruvian company Minas Buenaventura, say it has boosted the economy of what is Peru's poorest province. But some locals in its region of Cajamarca disagree.
They say they haven't gotten a fair share of the area's spoils, and that the sprawling open-pit mine pollutes their rivers and irrigation canals through nitrates used in explosives, chemicals used for processing the ore and fuel residues. Even worse, some say they have been repeatedly threatened and when they demonstrate to draw attention to their cause, they face police brutality.
"I've been beaten twice just for a peaceful protest against one project that would drain our lake," says Eduardo Ramirez (not his real name*), a local activist who says runoff from the mine has already contaminated the waters he uses for farming. "We don't know who to trust, since Yanacocha has contracts with the police."
The mining company has built a water reservoir to supply drinking water year-round. However, it also drains natural lakes in the area.
Precious water
In the area around Cajamarca, water is a particularly critical resource. That's because mining is a thirsty business that consumes massive amounts of that liquid of life, stripping soil and vegetation that help to replenish underground aquifers.
The population in the region is growing and in its capital city of the same name, water supply is already insufficient to meet need, says Robert Moran, a Colorado-based hydrogeology consultant who did an independent analysis of water in the region in 2012.
At the time of his visit, municipal water was available only a few times a day in many sections of Cajamarca. The other issue, he says, is the danger of contamination from chemicals released by mining and mineral processing.
"Roughly 70 percent of the city's water is supplied by the El Milagro facilities, which take water from the Rio Grande below the Yanacocha operation," wrote Moran.
That water is at risk of contamination from mining operations - some insist that mining activities have already polluted it. Moran says "the city has inadequate resources (analytical, financial, etc.) to strongly support these allegations."
Newmont: 'We are trying to help'
For its part, Newmont says it does what it can to mitigate the environmental impact of the Yanacocha mine. It says it invested more than $1 billion in environmental and social responsibility projects in the region between 1993 and 2012, such as health care, community infrastructure and facilities, agricultural support, and education. The local community also has better access to water, thanks to the company's efforts, says spokesman Omar Jabara.
A recently constructed water reservoir provides year-round water to a handful of smaller communities near the city of Cajamarca, even during the six-month dry season.
"Cajamarca's regional government doesn't have any water storage capacity, and that's why we're trying to help," says Jabara.
The region received more than 418 million soles (111.2 million euros) in mining royalties from 1996 to 2011, according to a 2014 report, co-authored by the Columbia University Law School Human Rights Clinic and local nonprofits - much of which goes to the local and regional government.
But that same report also notes that over half of Cajamarca residents still live in poverty. "Mining has not lifted the region out of poverty, and instead has produced social and environmental conflict for our communities," the report says.
Open pit mining involves stripping soil and vegetation which can cause soil erosion and affect water supply
Dangerous protests
That conflict often plays out in the form of protests against the operations, particularly around lakes facing drainage for mining purposes. One such protest is being led by subsistence farmer Máxima Acuña, who has been resisting alleged attempts to force her off her land for years. Acuña and her family say they have withstood violent eviction attempts, including beatings that left her and one of her daughter's unconscious. The mining company denies any involvement.
Yanacocha claims it bought the land in 1997 from the local community, and that Acuña, who won the prestigious Goldman Environmental Prize in 2016, is illegally occupying it. A court case contesting her ownership is still pending. The joint venture that owns the Yanacocha mine wanted to set up a new project, the Conga gold mine, in the region but the project has been on hold since 2011, according to Newmont.
It's a dangerous time for environmental activists in the region. In 2012, four deaths in the nearby town of Celendin were linked to protests against the Conga project, says Maryum Jordan, a lawyer with the NGO Earthrights International in the Peruvian capital of Lima.
One farmer, Elmer Campos, is still seeking compensation for medical costs for when he was shot in the back while protesting expansion of the Yanacocha mine in 2011, according to Jordan.
But a law passed in 2014 freeing police from criminal responsibility if they kill or injure someone in the line of duty means protesters in the future would have no legal avenue to challenge police brutality.
Some heavy duty machinery at a goldmine
Jordan added that she's also heard reports about activists facing criminal charges when they hadn't done anything, as retaliation for their activism. Some of them face up to 65 charges each, including things like kidnapping and public obstruction of roads, she says.
Still, as protests continue, the mining company is yielding to some of the demands from Cajamarca residents. It recently announced it would not forge ahead with the Conga project "for the foreseeable future." It's one small victory for communities there.
"When you stand up to mining interests, it feels like David battling Goliath," says Ramirez. "But Máxima [Acuña] shows us that the fight is not hopeless."
*Out of fear for reprisal, the interviewee requested his real name not be usedCredit: CNN
Since a federal court decision last month determined that the FCC cannot enforce net neutrality regulations on internet service providers (ISPs), many have warned that a de-regulated internet could result in slowed broadband speeds for high-bandwidth internet services. Susan Crawford, a law professor and author of a recent book on the subject, says consumers were experiencing this phenomenon on sites like YouTube long before the net neutrality ruling.
In a recent episode of NPR’s Fresh Air, Crawford, the author of Captive Audience: The Telecom Industry and Monopoly Power in the Gilded Age, said YouTube video buffering is often the result of an intentional degradation of service by Internet service providers (ISPs) that are trying to force Google |
the bar, both sweating and panting lightly.
Rarity took a seat in front of her half-full martini glass. “Ah, good, it’s still here.” She lifted the drink to her muzzle and downed what was left, eating the olive off its skewer afterwards.
“That was really fun,” Twilight said, sitting down beside her. “I’m glad you taught me how to dance.”
“Yes, well I’m glad I had you to dance with,” Rarity replied with a smirk.
Joy walked up to them, a damp white rag slung over her shoulders. “Anything else for you, girls?”
“I’ll have another apple cocktail,” Twilight said.
“And I’ll have one as well,” Rarity chimed in.
Twilight turned to look at her with a raised eyebrow. “I thought you didn’t like experimenting?”
“Let’s just say I’m convinced,” Rarity said, looking at Twilight out of the corner of her eye. “For now.”
Twilight looked at her carefully, chewing her lip. Rarity’s coat glistened with a light sheen of sweat, the fluorescent lights of the club making her coat shimmer like silver, and making the gems on her cutie mark look like real diamonds.
Joy came back, setting two apple cocktails in front of them.
“Thank you,” Twilight said, raising her glass to her lips.
Joy smiled and nodded, before leaving to attend to a pair of orange mares at the other end of the bar.
Twilight turned to see Rarity set her drink down, licking her lips with a thoughtful expression.
“This is quite good actually,” she said, eyeing the sour green liquid. “It reminds me a bit of Applejack’s baking.” She lifted the glass back to her lips, taking another sip and setting it down with a refreshed sigh. “The cinnamon is a nice touch, too.”
“The apples it’s made with probably come from Sweet Apple Acres,” Twilight said, taking a sip of her own drink.
“I suppose that would explain it, wouldn’t it?” Rarity said, setting her muzzle down on the bar counter and gazing up at the wall over the bar. “We should go somewhere.”
Twilight looked at her. “Huh?”
“We should go someplace quiet after this. Just the two of us. We could go for a walk down by the lake.”
Twilight felt her voice beginning to go hoarse from all the yelling. “That sounds like a great idea.”
Rarity lifted her drink to her muzzle, finishing the second half in one go. She placed it down on the counter along with a few bits, and turned to Twilight. “Shall we go now, then?”
“Sure,” Twilight said, downing her drink with the same gusto as her friend before turning back to her.
Rarity stood and walked away from the bar, Twilight following behind her as she wove her way past other mares to the door.
They stepped outside into the warm midsummer eve, the music fading to muffled rumbling as the door swung shut behind them. The fresh air was a breath of relief from the hot, musty atmosphere in the club. Twilight glanced over at Rarity, seeing the other mare smile at her.
“Shall we go?” Rarity asked.
Twilight nodded, turning and walking with Rarity down the road, a halo of dusk at their backs.
“I don’t think I’ve ever gone swimming this late before,” Twilight said. “Is the water cold?”
“Not cold, no,” Rarity said, looking up at the sky. “The water’s just a bit more... crisp.”
Twilight bit her lip, glancing up anxiously at Rarity before her next question. “So considering you’ve been trying to get me a date, how come you don’t have anypony?”
Rarity flinched in her step, and even in the dim light, Twilight saw a brief flash of pain in her eyes.
“I-I’m sorry,” Twilight stuttered, as she came to a stop. “I shouldn’t have asked.”
Rarity cleared her throat. “No, no, it’s quite alright.” She resumed walking. “Honestly, maybe I just need to get over myself. I’ve been waiting all this time for someone perfect, expecting them to just come along one day and sweep me off my hooves.” Rarity stifled a giggle. “I suppose it’s all part of some childish notion that I never got rid of.”
Twilight looked down, watching her hooves as she walked. “I think before this I was the same way. I just expected it to happen on it’s own eventually, but after these past couple of days, I’m starting to see that it’s something you have to go out and look for yourself.”
Rarity let out a loud sigh. “As much as I pretend otherwise, even I haven’t had very much success with dating. I seem to be able to draw eyes, but never keep them interested for long.”
How could somepony ever get tired of looking at her? Twilight thought, glancing at the other mare out of the corner of her eyes.
“It’s all too complicated. I wish it were simpler,” Rarity said.
“Maybe it’s not as complicated as you think.”
Rarity shook her head, smiling. “I like being around you, Twilight. You always seem to say the right things to put me in a good mood.”
Twilight stopped, her hoof hitting sand. She looked up, and made her horn glow bright pink, lighting the area around them to reveal a shore just a short distance away from where they stood.
Rarity turned and gave her a silly half-drunk grin. “Last one in’s a rusty horseshoe!” She turned, kicking sand in the air as she sprinted to the water’s edge.
Twilight closed her eyes and shielded her face as some of the sand kicked up in her face. “Hey, wait! That’s cheating! You have to do a countdown!” she shouted with a smile, chasing after Rarity.
Up ahead, Rarity’s hoofsteps became accompanied by splashing as she ran through the shallows, her hooves sloshing slowly as she went deeper into the water. By the time Twilight put her first hoof in the water, Rarity was up to her shoulders with only a small part of her back still poking out of the water.
Twilight stopped, taking her hoof out of the water and whining, “It’s cold!”
“Don’t be silly! It’s the middle of summer!”
Twilight waded in slowly, first a quarter of the way up to her knees, then half, then—
“Oh come on!” Rarity shouted, rolling her eyes.
“I’m just being careful!” Twilight shouted back, inching further into the lake. “Don’t rush me!”
“You’re going to get wet sooner or later, you might as well get it over with.”
Twilight chewed her lip and closed her eyes. She gritted her teeth as she began taking larger steps into the water, walking out until she was at as deep a part of it as Rarity. She opened her eyes to see Rarity smiling at her.
“There, that wasn’t so hard, now was it?”
“I-it’s c-c-cold,” Twilight chattered, shaking beneath the water.
“Well, I feel plenty warm. Maybe I should stand next to you.” Rarity walked over to Twilight, pressing her side up against her. “Better?” Rarity asked, turning to look at her.
Twilight turned pink. “Y-yes.” She didn’t know if it was because she was getting used to the water, or if it was because of Rarity, but her legs stopped shaking. “Do you go swimming often?” Twilight asked lamely.
“Once in a while.”
Rarity closed her eyes and her horn began to glow bright white like a pearl. She left Twilight’s side, wading further out into until she was swimming.
Twilight swam out to meet her. “Um...”
“Yes?”
“I just wanted to say these past few days have been really fun.” Twilight swam up closer to Rarity, until their horns were almost touching. “I know you must be busy.”
“Don’t worry, dear. It was my pleasure.” Rarity’s smile soured. “And as for the shop, I haven’t been all that busy.”
“O-oh, that’s g-good.”
“Twilight, dear, you’re shivering!” Rarity swam to her side, pointing her towards shore. “Let’s go get dried off.”
Twilight nodded, swimming after Rarity to the shore. Water dripped from their manes and coats as they walked out onto land, the sand clinging to their hooves.
“S-sorry,” Twilight said, water dripping from her muzzle. “I’m used to the mountain lakes in C-C-Canterlot.”
“Ah, yes, all those hot springs.” Rarity tossed part of her mane out of her face. The weight of the water had made her mane straight and curvy, giving Rarity an exotic look. “Feeling any warmer?”
A gentle breeze went by, but to Twilight it felt like a blizzard’s wind against her wet coat. “N-no.”
Rarity sighed. “I guess it can’t be helped.” She lay down on the sand with her legs curled beneath her. “Come, lay down.”
Twilight bit her lip, walking over to the other mare and standing frozen there, for a moment. She closed her eyes and lay down next to her. Her coat was wet, but it radiated heat.
“I hate getting sand in my coat.”
“Sorry.”
“Not your fault, dear.”
The sand became warm the longer they lay there, and Twilight began to feel the chill leave her. She glanced at Rarity out of the corner of her eyes. “Have you...”
“Hm?”
Twilight blushed and looked down at the sand. “Have you noticed anything different about me lately?”
“Of course,” Rarity said, smiling down at her. “You’ve grown much more confident than when we first started.”
Twilight sighed. “That’s not what I meant.”
“What did you mean?”
Twilight looked up at her, and from the look in Rarity’s eyes she knew for certain the other mare hadn’t clued in on her feelings yet. It was so tempting, right then, to just tell her everything.
But her mouth felt numb.
“Nevermind, I’m just being silly,” she said, smiling and trying to shrug off the concerned look Rarity was giving her. Twilight stood first, caked bits of sand falling off her as she looked down at Rarity and gave her a nod. “I think I’m feeling better now.”
Rarity gave her one last worried glance, before she stood, wincing as she looked at the sand clinging to her coat. “Oh, I’m going to have to have a shower once I’m home.”
Twilight looked at her own coat, seeing a lot of sand still clinging to her hairs. “I think I’ll have to have one too.”
“Oh, well,” Rarity said, “it was fun.”
Twilight felt a smile tug at her lips. “Yes, it was.”
Rarity looked back at the water. “You know...”
“Hm?”
“I think I’d like to try sex on the beach.”
Twilight turned bright red. “I-ba-wha?”
“Next time we’re at The Salt Around the Rim. I bet they mix a good one.”
“Oh.” Twilight laughed nervously, rubbing the back of her head with a sand-stained hoof. “Right. The drink.” She looked at Rarity from a sidelong glance. “So would you like to go again tomorrow night?”
Rarity smiled. “Sounds lovely,” she said with a sweet and polite voice. “It’s quite late. I suppose it’s time for the two of us to head home.”
The two of them walked up from the beach back onto hard land.
Rarity turned to look at her, her eyes smiling. “I’ll see you tomorrow!” she said, waving as she began to walk away.
Twilight didn’t turn to leave quite yet, instead sticking around to watch Rarity walk away. Her shoulders slumped, and she let out a wistful sigh. “It’s a date.”Facebook’s recent workaround for Adblock Plus and other ad blockers is already earning it money. On today’s blockbuster Q3 earnings call, the company said desktop ad revenue grew 18 percent year-over-year this quarter compared to around 9 percent in previous quarters, and that thwarting ad blockers was largely the cause for that boost.
While Adblock Plus announced it would circumvent the ban, and temporarily did, Facebook nullified that change and has managed to keep ads flowing through Adblock Plus. Facebook’s position is that ads help pay for operating its service, so it’s reasonable to force users to see them as long as they’re not too interruptive. Adblock Plus and some users counter that Facebook’s ads are still distracting even if they blend into the feed. And they say that ad blockers help prevent people from being tracked, which raises privacy concerns.
Facebook hit $1.1 billion in desktop ad revenue this quarter, up from $998 million last quarter. While Facebook makes 84 percent of its ad revenue on mobile, desktop still contributes a meaningful amount to its total $7.01 billion in Q3 revenue. Scoring ad revenue from ad blocker users could help offset the reductions in revenue growth Facebook expects now that it’s hitting maximum ad load.
During the call, Facebook CFO David Wehner said, “On ad blocking, in terms of the impact I would just point out that this quarter we had 18 percent year-over-year desktop revenue growth. If you look at recent quarters, it was about half of that growth rate on a year-over-year basis. So that increment, that acceleration in desktop revenue growth is largely due to our efforts on reducing the impact of ad blocking. So that’s what led to the acceleration of desktop revenue growth.” Earlier in the call he specifically said this was desktop ad revenue, which Facebook confirms to me.
As long as Facebook’s elite engineering squad can stay one step ahead of the ad-blocking software developers and their army of open-source contributors, Facebook could squeeze more revenue out of its remaining desktop users.If you go Travelers with Swedish roots who’d like to dig into their past should check out the Kohlers Genealogical Travel Service website at kohlersgts.com. It’s in Swedish, but Google Translate will turn it into English with a click.
I never met any of my great-grandparents. They died long before I was born. But after a trip to Scandinavia last fall, I feel a lot closer to my maternal grandmother’s parents — who left Sweden in the late 1800s and moved to Minnesota.
Thanks to Anders, a Swedish cousin three generations removed, I was able to visit Oklunda, the farm where my great-grandmother grew up. Amazingly, it’s still in our (greatly extended) family. Anders also took me to the church where my great-grandparents were married. I also got to hear some 130-year-old gossip about them.
One of the best parts of the visit was having a fika — coffee with pastries and sandwiches — at Oklunda with another cousin, Eva, and her husband. As we walked around their property, which had several large red barns, I could imagine my great-grandparents courting there back in the 1870s. The farm is also the site of a well-known rune stone, which tells the story of a man from the early Viking age (perhaps another relative?) who killed a rival and fled for his life before he was pardoned.
And while I’d expected the Lutheran Church where they were married to be a modest structure in the small village (population 800) named Östra Husby, I was surprised to see that it was an imposing building with a tall bell tower that had been recently restored. The graveyard was full of kin.
Blood ties — even distant ones — are strong. For the few days I was in the province of Östergötland, where Östra Husby is located, I was a special guest in Anders’ home. Better yet, he drove me around to see castles, museums and parks. Why, we even went mushroom and wild strawberry hunting together!
Probably the most interesting tidbit of information I learned from him, however, was that my great-grandmother was 30 years old when she married. While that is certainly not unusual now, it was late back then.
Moreover, her husband was the hired man at her father’s farm. So she married down on the social ladder. He’d been to the U.S. and returned for her. They moved several weeks after they were married, never to return to Sweden. But she stayed in touch with her kin in the old country. Lucky for me.Parents of children with autism are more likely to exhibit traits of the developmental disorder themselves, new research suggests.
In a study looking at data on moms and dads of 256 children with autism and nearly 1,400 without, researchers found that parents of those on the spectrum tended to score higher on a questionnaire known as the Social Responsiveness Scale.
“When there was a child with autism in the family, both parents more often scored in the top 20 percent of the adult population on a survey we use to measure the presence of autistic traits,” said John Constantino of Washington University who worked on the study published online this month in the journal JAMA Psychiatry.
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Constantino was quick to emphasize that a higher score on the assessment is not necessarily a bad thing. More than likely, the traits parents display in small doses may be exaggerated in their children.
“It could be that a mother or a father is just a little bit repetitive or slightly overfocused on details,” he said. “The problem comes when those traits are so intense that they begin to impair a person’s ability to function.”
In cases where both parents had mildly elevated scores on the survey, researchers found that they were 85 percent more likely to have a child with autism. If just one parent scored high, there was a 53 percent increased chance of the developmental disorder occurring in their son or daughter.
Previous research has found that siblings of those with autism often have more autistic traits, but this study is believed to be the first to find as much in parents.SK Gaming talent Michael "Friis" Jørgensen has been ruled out of the upcoming European Minor Championship at DreamHack Tours due to a health problem, HLTV.org has learned.
The 27-year-old has recently undergone hip surgery and is unable to travel to Tours to compete in the tournament, which is due to start on Saturday.
Replacing him on SK's roster for the tournament will be Casper "cadiaN" Møller, who remains contracted to the German organisation despite stepping down from their starting roster at the start of the year. His most recent team, Preparation, recently disbanded following the departures of John "wenton" Eriksson and Nicolai "glace" Jensen to fnatic and Escape, respectively.
Friis unable to attend DH Tours following hip surgery
Usually, rosters are locked before a Minor, which means that the qualified teams cannot make any changes before the event, but SK have been granted an exception after providing the necessary medical records to confirm Michael "Friis" Jørgensen' surgery.
Eight European teams will be taking part in the European Minor, which will hand out $50,000 in addition to two invites to the ESL One Cologne qualifier.
This means that SK Gaming will attend DH Tours with:More emails have been released by prosecutors in the corruption case against Alabama House Speaker Mike Hubbard.
These, rather than outlining schemes for making money from his position as Speaker - as previously filed emails did -- purport to show that Hubbard, one of his lawyers, and former Alabama Gov. Bob Riley were for months being briefed on the status of the grand jury investigation by a mole inside the attorney general's office.
On Dec. 12, 2012, then-Alabama GOP chair Bill Armistead broke the news to Republican steering committee members that a grand jury had begun asking questions about the party's campaign finance operations during 2010, when Hubbard ran the GOP.
Alabama Rep. Mike Hubbard (AP Photo/Brynn Anderson)
By the next day, Hubbard, Riley, and Riley's son Rob - who was representing Hubbard, according to the exhibits filed in the case - had already received insight into the investigation from the bowels of Attorney General Luther Strange's office.
"Talk to Rob when you can," Hubbard told Riley in a Dec. 13, 2012 email. "Armistead and Luther have now teamed up to try and ruin me politically. Not sure what Luther's end game is other than he views me as a potential threat down the road. Rob knows details. "
Former Gov. Riley responded this way:
"I was with him during the conversations with you and Sonny last night," he wrote. "Have a couple of people trying to understand what's happening."
And that's the nugget. The first of them, anyway.
Because Sonny Reagan, who worked in Strange's office after working for Bob Riley himself, resigned from Strange's office last year after being told he would be fired for obstructing the Hubbard investigation and having improper conversations. Reagan at the time wrote "I categorically deny that any such conversations have been improper."
But these emails trace the communication back to the beginning of the investigation. Hubbard told Riley he had done nothing wrong, that Strange was trying to ruin him to gain political advantage.
"Armistead is evil and I guess so is Luther," Hubbard wrote. And later in the string of emails:
"I guess he sees me as a threat for Governor in 2018," Hubbard wrote. "It sounds crazy, bur (sic) may be true. Also know that he met with Armistead 3 weeks ago. The subpoena yesterday was very well orchestrated that maximized re (sic) drama. Armistead read it aloud to the Steering Committed (sic) (with glee)."
Hubbard, his lawyers and his mentor had a voice from inside. Hubbard wrote Riley in January 2013 about discussions Reagan had with Hubbard's then-Chief of Staff, Josh Blades.
"Confidentially, I received word just now from Josh that a mutual friend in the AG's office (he used to work for you) called to tell him that the prosecutor told him this afternoon that the accusations against me have been thoroughly investigated and totally dismissed by the Grand Jury," Hubbard wrote Riley.
What's interesting here is that this filing comes in response to a motion by Hubbard's defense team to dismiss the indictment on the grounds that prosecutors violated grand jury secrecy by leaking information. The state argues there is nothing to support that claim. And let's face it, they will fight that part out in court.
Hubbard lawyer Mark White has already subpoenaed records and testimony from Strange, and from various staffers in the AG's office, as well as radio hosts Dale Jackson and Leland Whaley, who spoke to prosecutor Matt Hart on the telephone.
So far, though, most of the evidence of real grand jury leaks has flowed toward the Hubbard camp.ICC World Twenty20 final, Mirpur Sri Lanka 132-4 (17.5 overs) beat India 130-4 (20 overs) by six wickets Match scorecard
Kumar Sangakkara guided Sri Lanka to a six-wicket victory over India to win the World Twenty20 in Mirpur and end a run of four defeats in global finals.
Sangakkara, playing his final Twenty20 international, scored 52 not out as Sri Lanka chased down 131 in 17.5 overs.
Tight Sri Lanka bowling had limited India to 130-4 despite Virat Kohli's sublime 77 off 58 balls.
Sri Lanka were beaten in the 2007 and 2011 World Cup finals and the 2009 and 2012 World T20 finals.
Test Match Special analysis "India had been flawless throughout the tournament but they mucked it up today. Sri Lanka - almost everyone's second favourite team - bring joy to almost everyone at the end of what has been a great tournament. The players have enjoyed what is a brilliant format."
Sangakkara and veteran team-mate Mahela Jayawardene were involved in all four of those disappointments, and this was a fitting way for both to bow out of international T20 cricket.
Victory was particularly sweet for Sangakkara, who had scored only 19 runs in his previous five innings in the tournament but oversaw a patient run chase that was finished off in style when Thisara Perera clubbed Ravichandran Ashwin for his third six.
World Cup and Champions Trophy winners India were hoping to become the first team to hold all three limited-overs trophies.
But their quest was undermined by a disappointing batting performance that stalled badly after Rohit Sharma drove to short extra cover in the 11th over for 29 to break a second-wicket partnership of 60 with Kohli.
Yuvraj Singh, so often a destructive batsman in the shorter forms of the game, looked horribly out of touch as he scratched around for 11 off 21 balls.
With Kohli starved of the strike, the innings lost all momentum and even Mahendra Dhoni could add only four from seven balls after Yuvraj's tame lob to long-off finally brought the captain to the crease in the penultimate over.
The final four overs, in which Kohli faced eight balls, yielded just 19 runs before the tournament's leading run-scorer was run out trying to force a second from the last ball of the innings.
There was a wicket apiece for Nuwan Kulasekara, Angelo Mathews and Rangana Herath as not one of Sri Lanka's five bowlers conceded more than 29 runs from four overs.
India took wickets with enough regularity to keep the match alive and evoke memories of the 2012 final, when Sri Lanka were bowled out for 101 in pursuit of West Indies' modest 137-6.
Kusal Perera sliced Mohit Sharma to mid-off in the second over and Tillakaratne Dilshan holed out to Kohli at deep square leg for 18.
Jayawardene swiped Suresh Raina to midwicket to depart for 24 and, when Lahiru Thirimanne nicked Amit Mishra to wicketkeeper Dhoni, Sri Lanka were wobbling on 78-4.
But Perera announced his intent by hitting Mishra over long-on for a huge six and followed up with another maximum in the leg-spinner's next over.
Sangakkara thrashed consecutive fours off Ashwin to reach his half-century and take Sri Lanka to within four runs of the title.
Perera danced down the track to apply the perfect finish and spark jubilant scenes among the Sri Lanka players and fans.Melbourne Storm has today announced that resilient utility Slade Griffin will remain at the Club until at least the end of 2017.
Griffin’s re-signing adds another deserving chapter to his remarkable comeback from injury.
The 25-year-old bounced back from three knee injuries in four years to make his NRL return in Round 15 this season – 1,056 days since he last appeared in the purple jersey.
The Club’s decision to re-sign Griffin is a further testament to his unwavering resilience and dedication, which has been a source of inspiration to his teammates.
“Slade has been through a lot in his four years at the Club and that comeback game showed how strong of a character he is,” Storm Football Director Frank Ponissi said.
“He is a valued member of the playing group and the boys love having him around the Club because of how hard he works every day.
“We look forward to seeing Slade back to his best on the field in 2017.”
As well as re-signing Griffin, Storm has also cast an important eye to the future, securing the signatures of exciting youngsters Jahrome Hughes and Brandon Smith as well as standout Queensland Cup half Ryley Jacks.
Smith and Hughes come to Melbourne as highly touted youngsters from the North Queensland Cowboys.
Smith, a 20-year-old Junior Kiwi, has signed a three-year deal with Storm after an impressive season for the Cowboys’ NYC side. As well as guiding them to a Preliminary final berth, he was also named at Hooker in the NYC Team of the Year.
Hughes, 21, made his NRL debut for the Titans in 2013 and played one game for the Cowboys in Round 12 this season.
The utility back played most of this year with the Townsville Blackhawks in the Queensland Intrust Super Cup and was named at fullback for representative side Queensland Residents. He joins Melbourne until at least the end of 2018.
Jacks has signed a one-year deal with Storm after a stellar season for feeder side Sunshine Coast Falcons.
The 24-year-old halfback/five-eighth ranked highly in the votes for Queensland Intrust Super Cup Player of the Year and is the second Falcons player to join Storm next season after Erevonu Kamikamica.
Ponissi said signing the young trio was another important step forward for the Club.
“We are delighted to have Jahrome, Brandon and Ryley come down to Melbourne,” Ponissi said.
“Jahrome and Brandon are very talented and exciting young players that we look forward to seeing develop at Melbourne Storm and become a big part of our Club’s future.”
“Ryley has been outstanding for the Falcons and impressed our recruiting staff during this season. He is a welcomed addition to our halves and we look forward to seeing him thrive in an NRL system.”Daisy Ridley, star of Star Wars: The Last Jedi, is understandably tight-lipped about sharing any of the details of the forthcoming movie, or possibly anything about the franchise for that matter. But in the recent 70th British Academy of Film Awards (BAFTA) on February 12, she opened up about the emotional impact of the death of Carrie Fisher on the cast and crew.
Fisher, aka General Leia, passed away on December 27, 2016 to the utter grief of her colleagues and fans around the world.
Ridley paid homage to Fisher during the awards ceremony in the sequence where the academy remembered their dearly departed. She admitted that the iconic actress' departure was "horrific,' "devastating," and "a great, great loss to the world." Though she and her Star Wars: The Force Awakens co-stars still have to get together since that time, they have gotten in touch through "conversations" to presumably share the burden.
In the Express report of her speech, Ridley remembered Fisher as an individual who celebrated life and left a legacy that should be honored and celebrated:
“I think everything, the kind of legacy she left. She’s gone too soon, but we can see everything that she did do, and kind of have joy in that."
Other stars outside the immediate Star Wars universe have paid their own unique forms of tribute to Fisher. Meanwhile, Lucasfilm's reported refusal to have Leia continue in the growing saga through CGI is certainly an example. Ultimately, the late actress will live long in our memories.
For a flashback of her last performance in a Star Wars movie, check the clip below.
Star Wars: The Last Jedi is set to release in theaters on December 15, 2017.What if I were to tell you there could be a real, psychological reason behind why that guy ghosted you so brutally that one time?
I recently received a message from a reader who told me something I think could be of interest to a lot of you. She was an avid reader of my weekly column "Boom, Ghosted," and she had a feeling she knew why a lot of these guys were ghosting these girls.
She felt they suffered from the same personality disorder her own ex (who also ghosted her) has. The disorder is called "borderline personality disorder" (BPD), and she was certain it was the explanation behind lots of the installments in my column.
I was intrigued, so I reached out to Dr. Niloo Dardashti, a psychologist and relationship expert in New York City, to figure out if there was any truth to what this reader was talking about.
It turns out, she wasn't totally off. Dating someone with BPD comes with its own unique challenges —including, sometimes, an increased likelihood of being ghosted.
What BPD Is
Dr. Dardashti defines BPD as a "personality disorder characterized by people who experience emotions very intensely and often have trouble regulating their emotions and tolerating the stress."
People who suffer from BPD tend to see things as very black and white. They see people as either all good or all bad.
The disorder is what she calls a "bio-psycho-social issue," meaning that there are biological, psychological and social factors all playing into it
On the social front of the "bio-psycho-social" issue, lots of people with BPD have a history of chronic invalidation from someone who was around them a lot.
As a result, some people with BPD (There's a spectrum of severity when it comes to the disorder.) may be very sensitive to feeling invalidated.
How BPD Plays Into Ghosting
I asked Dr. Dardashti, straight up, "Do you think it's fair to say there's a link between ghosting and BPD?" She says that the link isn't a leap by any means.
It all roots back to their fear of invalidation. "If they're perceiving the situation as invalidating, it can be hard to communicate with them and get through to them because, now, they've gone to that place of 'you're all bad,'" Dr. Dardashti explains.
Essentially, they feel as though you've done something to them, so they're done. You're dead to them.
But, as we all know, ghosting might happen when we didn't even realize that anything had gone wrong in the first place. Is it possible for someone with BPD to feel totally invalidated and, as a result, ghost you when you had no idea you even did anything wrong?
Dr. Dardashti says, "That could happen too, where they just shut down completely."
It's also important to understand that people who suffer from BPD very often have an overwhelming fear of abandonment. If you don't spend time when them, they'll feel like you're abandoning them, so they'll ghost you before you can.
Also, they're unable to have a firm grasp over their own self-identity. Their sense of self changes so often that the minute you don't suit whatever self-definition they have, they'll ghost you.
How To Communicate With Your Partner Who Suffers From BPD
If you are dating someone with BPD, there are definitely ways to make the relationship work. So how do you do that?
Dr. Dardashti's got you covered:
Generally, if someone was honest enough to tell you, "Hey, I have borderline personality disorder," then it's good to know that it's likely that this person has had a history of invalidation — not a definite, but likely —and that they do feel sensitive to being invalidated. Most people feel sensitive to being invalidated, but for these people, it's more of a trigger.
Most people feel sensitive to being invalidated, but for these people, it's more of a trigger.
The only way to avoid this issue? Communication.
"There's so much power in just validating someone's feelings, even if you disagree with them," Dr. Dardashti explains. Yes, validation doesn't necessarily mean you have to agree with what the person is saying. It just means you express that you understand where they're coming from and that you hear them.
There's so much power in just validating someone's feelings, even if you disagree with them.
It's incredibly important that you make them feel validated, especially in difficult, confrontational conversations. Here's how to do that:
"When you're about to talk about something that's upsetting to you or something that you need — anything that you think might be triggering to them, you start out with a validation," Dr. Dardashti explains.
For example, let's say you were having a fight with your partner about your plans for tonight. You want to go out with your friends alone, but he doesn't like it when you go out without him. He'd rather be with you.
Instead of getting defensive (i.e "I don't understand why you're being like this. I can't be with you all the time."), say something like this: "It seems like you feel like I'm choosing them over you, and that's not the case. I want to be able to have both. I love the time I spend with you, and I love the time I spend alone with my friends."
When you try to argue with your partner and refute them with a bunch of "buts," you're just reinforcing their sense of black-and-white thinking. "By responding like this, you kind of model this process of integrating two things that are different but also can exist mutually," Dr. Dardashti says.
By responding in this way, you're essentially refuting your partner's assumption of "If you love me, why do you want to spend time with your friends?" by explaining, "Just because I love spending time with you, doesn't mean I don't also love spending time with my friends."
So, next time you're ghosted, instead of getting angry or hurt, maybe now you'll feel a little more sympathetic towards his potential medical condition.
Citations: Fear of Abandonment (Out of the Fog)“I always feel we’ve been really hard on our fathers’ generation,” Carlos tells me, draining the last from a glass of whiskey, the ice still clanking in that familiar way.
This intrigues me.
“How do you mean?” I ask.
It’s not the kind of conversation you have before you’re deep into that third or fourth drink.
“Well, think about it,” he says, reaching out for the bottle. “Guys like you, me, in our early forties now, this was supposed to be our time.”
It’s not the kind of conversation you have before you’re deep into that third or fourth drink.
“If things had gone the way we always figured they would go when we were kids, the way they were supposed to go, we’be be reaching upper management now, climbing up from vice-ministerial rank to ministerial, eying that spot in the CEN, whatever. That’s what they raised us to do, right? But we lost all that. They lost that for us, they let these shitheads grab power and destroy the country.”
It’s a dramatically politically incorrect little riff, but also honest in a way we often don’t get to be in the public sphere.
Carlos went to the same elite school I went to: Los Arcos. We grew up around the same kind of people — for him in La Lagunita, for me in El Country. We both ended up having to get out, reluctantly. He’s doing great in the U.S.: brilliantly educated and just brilliant, he has a fantastic job for a household-name company that pays a ton of money. It’s hard to feel sorry for him —and to be sure, he’s not the complaining type. But there’s an awareness of loss here that’s not a complaint. More like the bitter recognition |
infancy. The Red Skelton Show made its television premiere on September 30, 1951, on NBC. By 1954, Skelton's program moved to CBS, where it was expanded to one hour and renamed The Red Skelton Hour in 1962. Despite high ratings, the show was cancelled by CBS in 1970, as the network believed that more youth-oriented programs were needed to attract younger viewers and their spending power. Skelton moved his program to NBC, where he completed his last year with a regularly scheduled television show in 1971. He spent his time after that making as many as 125 personal appearances a year and working on his art.
Skelton's artwork of clowns remained a hobby until 1964 when his wife Georgia persuaded him to have a showing at the Sands Hotel in Las Vegas while he was performing there. Sales of his originals were successful, and he also sold prints and lithographs of them, earning $2.5 million yearly on lithograph sales. At the time of his death, his art dealer believed that Skelton had earned more money through his paintings than from his television work.
Skelton believed that his life's work was to make people laugh; he wanted to be known as a clown because he defined it as being able to do everything. He had a 70-year career as a performer and entertained three generations of Americans. His widow donated many of his personal and professional effects to Vincennes University, including prints of his artwork. They are part of the Red Skelton Museum of American Comedy at Vincennes.
Biography [ edit ]
Early years, the medicine show and the circus (1913–1929) [ edit ]
According to some sources, Skelton was born Richard Bernard Eheart on July 18, 1913, in Vincennes, Indiana, although his actual middle name is a subject of debate. In a 1983 appearance on The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson, Skelton said his middle name was really "Red" and he had made up the middle name Bernard, from the name of a local store, Bernard Clothiers, to satisfy a schoolteacher who would not believe his middle name was really "Red",[2] although this story he presented in the comedy interview appearance does not match the reported content of his birth certificate.
Skelton was the fourth and youngest son of Ida Mae (née Fields) and Joseph Elmer Skelton (who at times used his stepfather's surname, Eheart).[3] Joseph, a grocer, died two months before Richard was born; he had once been a clown with the Hagenbeck-Wallace Circus.[4][5] His birth certificate surname was that of his father's stepfather. During Skelton's lifetime there was some dispute about the year of his birth. Author Wesley Hyatt suggests that since he began working at such an early age, Skelton may have claimed he was older than he actually was in order to gain employment.[a][b] Vincennes neighbors described the Skelton family as being extremely poor; a childhood friend remembered that her parents broke up a youthful romance between her sister and Skelton because they thought he had no future.[8]
Because of the loss of his father, Skelton went to work as early as the age of seven, selling newspapers and doing other odd jobs to help his family, who had lost the family store and their home.[8][9] He quickly learned the newsboy's patter and would keep it up until a prospective buyer bought a copy of the paper just to quiet him.[4] According to later accounts, Skelton's early interest in becoming an entertainer stemmed from an incident that took place in Vincennes around 1923, when a stranger, supposedly the comedian Ed Wynn, approached Skelton, who was the newsboy selling papers outside a Vincennes theater. When the man asked Skelton what events were going on in town, Skelton suggested he see the new show in town. The man purchased every paper Skelton had, providing enough money for the boy to purchase a ticket for himself. The stranger turned out to be one of the show's stars, who later took the boy backstage to introduce him to the other performers. The experience prompted Skelton, who had already shown comedic tendencies, to pursue a career as a performer.[5][8][c]
Skelton discovered at an early age that he could make people laugh. Skelton dropped out of school around 1926 or 1927, when he was 13 or 14 years old, but he already had some experience performing in minstrel shows in Vincennes, and on a showboat, The Cotton Blossom, that plied the Ohio and Missouri rivers.[4] He enjoyed his work on the riverboat, moving on only after he realized that showboat entertainment was coming to an end.[6] Skelton, who was interested in all forms of acting, took a dramatic role with the John Lawrence stock theater company, but was unable to deliver his lines in a serious manner; the audience laughed instead. In another incident, while performing in Uncle Tom's Cabin, Skelton was on an unseen treadmill; when it malfunctioned and began working in reverse, the frightened young actor called out, "Help! I'm backing into heaven!" He was fired before completing a week's work in the role.[4][6][13] At the age of 15, Skelton did some early work on the burlesque circuit, and reportedly spent four months with the Hagenbeck-Wallace Circus in 1929, when he was 16 years old.[15]
Ida Skelton, who held multiple jobs to support her family after the death of her husband, did not suggest that her youngest son had run away from home to become an entertainer, but "his destiny had caught up with him at an early age". She let him go with her blessing. Times were tough during the Great Depression, and it may have meant one less child for her to feed.[5] Around 1929, while Skelton was still a teen, he joined "Doc" R.E. Lewis's traveling medicine show as an errand boy who sold bottles of medicine to the audience. During one show, when Skelton accidentally fell from the stage, breaking several bottles of medicine as he fell, people laughed. Both Lewis and Skelton realized one could earn a living with this ability and the fall was worked into the show. He also told jokes and sang in the medicine show during his four years there. Skelton earned ten dollars a week, and sent all of it home to his mother. When she worried that he was keeping nothing for his own needs, Skelton reassured her: "We get plenty to eat, and we sleep in the wagon."[18]
Burlesque to vaudeville (1929–1937) [ edit ]
Red and Edna Skelton at home, 1942
As burlesque comedy material became progressively more ribald, Skelton moved on. He insisted that he was no prude; "I just didn't think the lines were funny". He became a sought-after master of ceremonies for dance marathons (known as "walkathons" at the time), a popular fad in the 1930s.[6][19] The winner of one of the marathons was Edna Stillwell, an usher at the old Pantages Theater.[20][21][d] She approached Skelton after winning the contest and told him that she did not like his jokes; he asked if she could do better.[25] They married in 1931 in Kansas City, and Edna began writing his material. At the time of their marriage Skelton was one month away from his 18th birthday; Edna was 16.[6] When they learned that Skelton's salary was to be cut, Edna went to see the boss; he resented the interference, until she came away with not only a raise, but additional considerations as well. Since he had left school at an early age, his wife bought textbooks and taught him what he had missed. With Edna's help, Skelton received a high school equivalency degree.[25][e]
The couple put together an act and began booking it at small midwestern theaters.[28] When an offer came for an engagement in Harwich Port, Massachusetts, some 2,000 miles from Kansas City, they were pleased to get it because of its proximity to their ultimate goal, the vaudeville houses of New York City. To get to Massachusetts they bought a used car and borrowed five dollars from Edna's mother, but by the time they arrived in St. Louis they had only fifty cents. Skelton asked Edna to collect empty cigarette packs; she thought he was joking, but did as he asked. He then spent their fifty cents on bars of soap, which they cut into small cubes and wrapped with the tinfoil from the cigarette packs. By selling their products for fifty cents each as fog remover for eyeglasses, the Skeltons were able to afford a hotel room every night as they worked their way to Harwich Port.[18]
Skelton with John Garfield at the 1944 FDR Birthday Ball
Skelton and Edna worked for a year in Camden, New Jersey, and were able to get an engagement at Montreal's Lido Club in 1934 through a friend who managed the chorus lines at New York's Roxy Theatre.[18] Despite an initial rocky start, the act was a success, and brought them more theater dates throughout Canada.[6][f]
Skelton's performances in Canada led to new opportunities and the inspiration for a new, innovative routine that brought him recognition in the years to come. While performing in Montreal, the Skeltons met Harry Anger, a vaudeville producer for New York City's Loew's State Theatre. Anger promised the pair a booking as a headlining act at Loew's, but they would need to come up with new material for the engagement. While the Skeltons were having breakfast in a Montreal diner, Edna had an idea for a new routine as she and Skelton observed the other patrons eating doughnuts and drinking coffee. They devised the "Doughnut Dunkers" routine, with Skelton's visual impressions of how different people ate doughnuts.[g] The skit won them the Loew's State engagement and a handsome fee.[28]
The couple viewed the Loew's State engagement in 1937 as Skelton's big chance. They hired New York comedy writers to prepare material for the engagement, believing they needed more sophisticated jokes and skits than the routines Skelton normally performed. However, his New York audience did not laugh or applaud until Skelton abandoned the newly written material and began performing the "Doughnut Dunkers" and his older routines.[6][h] The doughnut-dunking routine also helped Skelton rise to celebrity status. In 1937, while he was entertaining at the Capitol Theater in Washington, D.C., President Franklin D. Roosevelt invited Skelton to perform at a White House luncheon. During one of the official toasts, Skelton grabbed Roosevelt's glass, saying, "Careful what you drink, Mr. President. I got rolled in a place like this once." His humor appealed to FDR and Skelton became the master of ceremonies for Roosevelt's official birthday celebration for many years afterward.[32]
Film work [ edit ]
Skelton's first contact with Hollywood came in the form of a failed 1932 screen test. In 1938 he made his film debut for RKO Pictures in the supporting role of a camp counselor in Having Wonderful Time.[33] He appeared in two short subjects for Vitaphone in 1939: Seeing Red and The Broadway Buckaroo.[4] Actor Mickey Rooney contacted Skelton, urging him to try for work in films after seeing him perform his "Doughnut Dunkers" act at President Roosevelt's 1940 birthday party.[36] For his Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer screen test, Skelton performed many of his more popular skits, such as "Guzzler's Gin", but added some impromptu pantomimes as the cameras were rolling. "Imitation of Movie Heroes Dying" were Skelton's impressions of the cinema deaths of stars like George Raft, Edward G. Robinson and James Cagney.[32][37]
Skelton appeared in numerous films for Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer throughout the 1940s. In 1940 he provided comic relief as a lieutenant in Frank Borzage's war drama Flight Command, opposite Robert Taylor, Ruth Hussey and Walter Pidgeon. In 1941 he also provided comic relief in Harold S. Bucquet's Dr. Kildare medical dramas, Dr. Kildare's Wedding Day and The People vs. Dr. Kildare. Skelton was soon starring in comedy features as inept radio detective "The Fox", the first of which was Whistling in the Dark (1941) in which he began working with director S. Sylvan Simon, who would become his favorite director. He reprised the same role opposite Ann Rutherford in Simon's other pictures, including Whistling in Dixie (1942) and Whistling in Brooklyn (1943).[40][41][42] In 1941, Skelton began appearing in musical comedies, starring opposite Eleanor Powell, Ann Sothern and Robert Young in Norman Z. McLeod's Lady Be Good. In 1942 Skelton again starred opposite Eleanor Powell in Edward Buzzell's Ship Ahoy, and alongside Ann Sothern in McLeod's Panama Hattie.
In 1943, after a memorable role as a nightclub hatcheck attendant who becomes King Louis XV of France in a dream opposite Lucille Ball and Gene Kelly in Roy Del Ruth's Du Barry Was a Lady, Skelton starred as Joseph Rivington Reynolds, a hotel valet besotted with Broadway starlet Constance Shaw (Powell) in Vincente Minnelli's romantic musical comedy, I Dood It. The film was largely a remake of Buster Keaton's Spite Marriage; Keaton, who had become a comedy consultant to MGM after his film career had diminished, began coaching Skelton on set during the filming. Keaton worked in this capacity on several of Skelton's films, and his 1926 film The General was also later rewritten to become Skelton's A Southern Yankee (1948), under directors S. Sylvan Simon and Edward Sedgwick.[49] Keaton was convinced enough of Skelton's comedic talent that he approached MGM studio head Louis B. Mayer with a request to create a small company within MGM for himself and Skelton, where the two could work on film projects. Keaton offered to forgo his salary if the films made by the company were not box office hits; Mayer chose to decline the request. In 1944, Skelton starred opposite Esther Williams in George Sidney's musical comedy Bathing Beauty, playing a songwriter with romantic difficulties. He next had a relatively minor role as a "TV announcer who, in the course of demonstrating a brand of gin, progresses from mild inebriation through messy drunkenness to full-blown stupor" in the "When Television Comes" segment of Ziegfeld Follies, which featured William Powell and Judy Garland in the main roles. In 1946, Skelton played boastful clerk J. Aubrey Piper opposite Marilyn Maxwell and Marjorie Main in Harry Beaumont's comedy picture The Show-Off.
[53] His wife, Edna, is on his left. Skelton also imprinted "Junior's" shoes along with the message, "We Dood It!". Theater owner Skelton's imprint ceremony at Grauman's Chinese Theatre, June 18, 1942.His wife, Edna, is on his left. Skelton also imprinted "Junior's" shoes along with the message, "We Dood It!". Theater owner Sid Grauman is in foreground of photo.
Skelton's contract called for MGM's approval prior to his radio shows and other appearances.[54] When he renegotiated his long-term contract with MGM, he wanted a clause that permitted him to remain working in radio and to be able to work on television, which was then largely experimental. At the time, the major work in the medium was centered in New York; Skelton had worked there for some time and was able to determine that he would find success with his physical comedy through the medium.[i] By 1947, Skelton's work interests were focused not on films, but on radio and television. His MGM contract was rigid enough to require the studio's written consent for his weekly radio shows, as well as any benefit or similar appearances he made; radio offered fewer restrictions, more creative control and a higher salary.[54] Skelton asked for a release from MGM after learning he could not raise the $750,000 needed to buy out the remainder of his contract.[54] He also voiced frustration with the film scripts he was offered while on the set of The Fuller Brush Man, saying, "Movies are not my field. Radio and television are."[57][j] He did not receive the desired television clause nor a release from his MGM contract.[60] In 1948, columnist Sheilah Graham printed that Skelton's wishes were to make only one film a year, spending the rest of the time traveling the U.S. with his radio show.
Skelton's ability to successfully ad-lib often meant that the way the script was written was not always the way it was recorded on film. Some directors were delighted with the creativity, but others were often frustrated by it.[k] S. Sylvan Simon, who became a close friend, allowed Skelton free rein when directing him.[62][63] MGM became annoyed with Simon during the filming of The Fuller Brush Man, as the studio contended that Skelton should have been playing romantic leads instead of performing slapstick. Simon and MGM parted company when he was not asked to direct retakes of Skelton's A Southern Yankee; Simon asked that his name be removed from the film's credits.[49][64]
Skelton was willing to negotiate with MGM to extend the agreement provided he would receive the right to pursue television. This time the studio was willing to grant it, making Skelton the only major MGM personality with the privilege. The 1950 negotiations allowed him to begin working in television beginning September 30, 1951.[65][66] During the last portion of his contract with the studio, Skelton was working in radio and on television in addition to films. He would go on to appear in films such as Jack Donohue's The Yellow Cab Man (1950), Roy Rowland and Buster Keaton's Excuse My Dust (1951), Charles Walters' Texas Carnival (1951),[69] Mervyn LeRoy's Lovely to Look At (1952), Robert Z. Leonard's The Clown (1953) and The Great Diamond Robbery (1954),[70] and Norman Z. McLeod's poorly received Public Pigeon No. 1 (1957), his last major film role, which originated incidentally from an episode of the television anthology series Climax!.[72] In a 1956 interview, he said he would never work simultaneously in all three media again.[73] As a result, Skelton would make only a couple of minor appearances in films after this, including playing a saloon drunk in Around the World in Eighty Days (1956), a gambler in Ocean's 11 (1960), and a Neanderthal man in Those Magnificent Men in Their Flying Machines (1965).
Radio, divorce and remarriage (1937–1951) [ edit ]
Performing the "Doughnut Dunkers" routine led to Skelton's first appearance on Rudy Vallée's The Fleischmann's Yeast Hour on August 12, 1937. Vallée's program had a talent show segment and those who were searching for stardom were eager to be heard on it. Vallée also booked veteran comic and fellow Indiana native Joe Cook to appear as a guest with Skelton. The two Hoosiers proceeded to trade jokes about their home towns, with Skelton contending to Cook, an Evansville native, that the city was a suburb of Vincennes. The show received enough fan mail after the performance to invite both comedians back two weeks after Skelton's initial appearance and again in November of that year.
On October 1, 1938, Skelton replaced Red Foley as the host of Avalon Time on NBC; Edna also joined the show's cast, under her maiden name.[76][l] She developed a system for working with the show's writers: selecting material from them, adding her own and filing the unused bits and lines for future use; the Skeltons worked on Avalon Time until late 1939.[78] Skelton's work in films led to a new regular radio show offer; between films, he promoted himself and MGM by appearing without charge at Los Angeles area banquets. A radio advertising agent was a guest at one of his banquet performances and recommended Skelton to one of his clients.[36]
Skelton went on the air with his own radio show, The Raleigh Cigarette Program, on October 7, 1941. The bandleader for the show was Ozzie Nelson; his wife, Harriet, who worked under her maiden name of Hilliard, was the show's vocalist and also worked with Skelton in skits.[80]
"I dood it!" [ edit ]
[81] Skelton with "Doolittle Dood It" newspaper headline, 1942
Skelton introduced the first two of his many characters during The Raleigh Cigarette Program's first season. The character of Clem Kadiddlehopper was based on a Vincennes neighbor named Carl Hopper, who was hard of hearing.[m] Skelton's voice pattern for Clem was similar to the later cartoon character, Bullwinkle; there was enough similarity to cause Skelton to contemplate filing a lawsuit against Bill Scott, who voiced the cartoon moose. The second character, The Mean Widdle Kid, or "Junior", was a young boy full of mischief, who typically did things he was told not to do. "Junior" would say things like, "If I dood it, I gets a whipping.", followed moments later by the statement, "I dood it!" Skelton performed the character at home with Edna, giving him the nickname "Junior" long before it was heard by a radio audience. While the phrase was Skelton's, the idea of using the character on the radio show was Edna's.[84] Skelton starred in a 1943 movie of the same name, but did not play "Junior" in the film.[85]
The phrase was such a part of national culture at the time that, when General Doolittle conducted the bombing of Tokyo in 1942, many newspapers used the phrase "Doolittle Dood It" as a headline.[36][86][87] After a talk with President Roosevelt in 1943, Skelton used his radio show to collect funds for a Douglas A-20 Havoc to be given to the Soviet Army to help fight World War II. Asking children to send in their spare change, he raised enough money for the aircraft in two weeks; he named the bomber "We Dood It!"[88] In 1986 the Soviet newspaper Pravda offered praise to Skelton for his 1943 gift, and in 1993, the pilot of the plane was able to meet Skelton and thank him for the bomber.[89][90][n]
Skelton also added a routine he had been performing since 1928. Originally called "Mellow Cigars", the skit entailed an announcer who became ill as he smoked his sponsor's product. Brown and Williamson, the makers of cigarettes, asked Skelton to change some aspects of the skit; he renamed the routine "Guzzler's Gin", where the announcer became inebriated while sampling and touting the imaginary sponsor's wares.[91] While the traditional radio program called for its cast to do an audience warm-up in preparation for the broadcast, Skelton did just the opposite. After the regular radio program had ended, the show's guests were treated to a post-program performance. He would then perform his "Guzzler's Gin" or any of more than 350 routines for those who had come to the radio show. He updated and revised his post-show routines as diligently as those for his radio program. As a result, studio audience tickets for Skelton's radio show were in high demand; there were times where up to 300 people needed to be turned away for lack of seats.[32]
Divorce from Edna, marriage to Georgia [ edit ]
In 1942, Edna announced that she was leaving Skelton but would continue to manage his career and write material for him. He did not realize she was serious until Edna issued a statement about the impending divorce through NBC.[93] They were divorced in 1943, leaving the courtroom arm in arm.[94][95] The couple did not discuss the reasons for their divorce and Edna initially prepared to work as a script writer for other radio programs. When the divorce was finalized, she went to New York, leaving her former husband three fully prepared show scripts. Skelton and those associated with him sent telegrams and called her, asking her to come back to him in a professional capacity.[96][97][o] Edna remained the manager of the couple's funds because Skelton spent money too easily. An attempt at managing his own checking account that began with a $5,000 balance, ended five days later after a call to Edna saying the account was overdrawn. Skelton had a weekly allowance of $75, with Edna making investments for him, choosing real estate and other relatively stable assets.[32] She remained an advisor on his career until 1952, receiving a generous weekly salary for life for her efforts.[99]
The Skeltons, circa 1957. Back from left: Red, wife Georgia, sister in law Maxine Davis. Front: Son Richard and daughter Valentina
The divorce meant that Skelton had lost his married man's deferment; he was once again classified as 1-A for service. He was drafted into the army in early 1944; both MGM and his radio sponsor tried to obtain a deferment for the comedian, but to no avail.[100] His last Raleigh radio show was on June 6, 1944, the day before he was formally inducted as a private; he was not assigned to Special Services at that time. Without its star, the program was discontinued, and the opportunity presented itself for the Nelsons to begin a radio show of their own, The Adventures of Ozzie and Harriet.[40]
By 1944, Skelton was engaged to actress Muriel Morris, who was also known as Muriel Chase; the couple had obtained a marriage license and told the press they intended to marry within a few days. At the last minute, the actress decided not to marry him, initially saying she intended to marry a wealthy businessman in Mexico City. She later recanted the story about marrying the businessman, but continued to say that her relationship with Skelton was over. The actress further denied that the reason for the breakup was Edna's continuing to manage her ex-husband's career; Edna stated that she had no intention of either getting in the middle of the relationship or reconciling with her former husband.[102][103] He was on army furlough for throat discomfort when he married actress Georgia Maureen Davis in Beverly Hills, California, on March 9, 1945; the couple met on the MGM lot.[94][104][p] Skelton traveled to Los Angeles from the eastern army base where he was assigned for the wedding. He knew he would possibly be assigned overseas soon and wanted the marriage to take place first.[107] After the wedding, he entered the hospital to have his tonsils removed.[108][109] The couple had two children; Valentina, a daughter, was born May 5, 1947, and a son, Richard, was born May 20, 1948.[110][111]
A cast of characters [ edit ]
Skelton served in the United States Army during World War II. After being assigned to the Special Services, Skelton performed as many as ten to twelve shows per day before troops in both the United States and in Europe. The pressure of his workload caused him to suffer exhaustion and a nervous breakdown.[4][40] His nervous collapse while in the army left him with a serious stuttering problem. While recovering at an army hospital at Camp Pickett, Virginia, he met a soldier who had been severely wounded and was not expected to survive. Skelton devoted a lot of time and effort to trying to make the man laugh. As a result of this effort, his stuttering problem was cured; his army friend's condition also improved and he was no longer on the critical list.[113] He was released from his army duties in September 1945.[40] "I've been told I'm the only celebrity who entered the Army as a private and came out a private," he told reporters.[115] His sponsor was eager to have him back on the air, and Skelton's program began anew on NBC on December 4, 1945.[116]
Upon returning to radio, Skelton brought with him many new characters that were added to his repertoire: Bolivar Shagnasty, described as a "loudmouthed braggart"; Cauliflower McPugg, a boxer; Deadeye, a cowboy; Willie Lump-Lump, a fellow who drank too much; and San Fernando Red, a conman with political aspirations. By 1947, Skelton's musical conductor was David Rose, who would go on to television with him; he had worked with Rose during his time in the army and wanted Rose to join him on the radio show when it went back on the air.
On April 22, 1947, Skelton was censored by NBC two minutes into his radio show. When he and his announcer Rod O'Connor began talking about Fred Allen being censored the previous week, they were silenced for 15 seconds; comedian Bob Hope was given the same treatment once he began referring to the censoring of Allen.[q] Skelton forged on with his lines for his studio audience's benefit; the material he insisted on using had been edited from the script by the network before the broadcast. He had been briefly censored the previous month for the use of the word "diaper". After the April incidents, NBC indicated it would no longer pull the plug for similar reasons.[120][121]
Skelton changed sponsors in 1948; Brown & Williamson, owners of Raleigh cigarettes, withdrew due to program production costs. His new sponsor was Procter & Gamble's Tide laundry detergent. The next year he changed networks, going from NBC to CBS, where his radio show aired until May 1953.[122] After his network radio contract was over, he signed a three-year contract with Ziv Radio for a syndicated radio program in 1954.[124] His syndicated radio program was offered as a daily show; it included segments of his older network radio programs as well as new material done for the syndication. He was able to use portions of his older radio shows because he owned the rights for rebroadcasting them.[73][125]
Television (1951–1970) [ edit ]
Skelton was unable to work in television until the end of his 1951 MGM movie contract; a renegotiation to extend the pact provided permission after that point.[60][65] He signed a contract for television on NBC with Procter and Gamble as his sponsor on May 4, 1951, and said he would be performing the same characters on television as he had been doing on radio.[126][127] The MGM agreement with Skelton for television performances did not allow him to go on the air before September 30, 1951.[128] His television debut, The Red Skelton Show, premiered on that date: at the end of his opening monologue, two men backstage grabbed his ankles from behind the set curtain, hauling him offstage face down.[129][r] A 1943 instrumental hit by David Rose, called "Holiday for Strings", became Skelton's TV theme song. The move to television allowed him to create two non-human characters, seagulls Gertrude and Heathcliffe, which he performed while the pair were flying by tucking his thumbs under his arms to represent wings and shaping his hat to look like a bird's bill.[132] He patterned his meek, henpecked television character of George Appleby after his radio character, J. Newton Numbskull, who had similar characteristics.[s] His "Freddie the Freeloader" clown was introduced on the program in 1952, with Skelton copying his father's makeup for the character. He learned how to duplicate his father's makeup and perform his routines through his mother's recollections.[15][135] A ritual became established at the end of every program, with Skelton's shy boyish wave and words of, "Good night and may God bless."[4][137][t]
Skelton as Willie Lump-Lump and Shirley Mitchell as his wife, who appears to be walking on the wall in a 1952 Skelton show sketch.
During the 1951–1952 season, the program was broadcast from a converted NBC radio studio. The first year of the television show was done live; this led to problems as there was not enough time for costume changes; Skelton was on camera for most of the half-hour, including the delivery of a commercial which was written into one of the show's skits.[142] In early 1952, Skelton had an idea for a television sketch about someone who had been drinking not being able to know which way is up. The script was completed and he had the show's production crew build a set that was perpendicular to the stage, so it would give the illusion that someone was walking on walls. The skit, starring his character Willie Lump-Lump, called for the character's wife to hire a carpenter to re-do the living room in an effort to teach her husband a lesson about his drinking. When Willie wakes up there after a night of drinking, he realizes he is not lying on the floor but on the living room wall. Willie's wife goes about the house normally, but to Willie, she appears to be walking on a wall. Within an hour after the broadcast, the NBC switchboard had received 350 calls regarding the show, and Skelton had received more than 2,500 letters about the skit within a week of its airing.[143]
Skelton was delivering an intense performance live each week, and the strain showed in physical illness. In 1952, he was drinking heavily from the constant pain of a diaphragmatic hernia and marital problems; he thought about divorcing Georgia.[145][u] NBC agreed to film his shows in the 1952–1953 season at Eagle Lion Studios, next to the Sam Goldwyn Studio, on Santa Monica Boulevard in Hollywood. Later the show was moved to the new NBC television studios in Burbank. Procter & Gamble was unhappy with the filming of the television show, and insisted that Skelton return to live broadcasts. The situation caused him to think about leaving television at that point.[149][150] Declining ratings prompted sponsor Procter & Gamble to cancel his show in the spring of 1953, with Skelton announcing that any future television shows of his would be variety shows, where he would not have the almost constant burden of performing.[151] Beginning with the 1953–1954 season, he switched to CBS, where he remained until 1970. For the initial move to CBS, he had no sponsor. The network gambled by covering all expenses for the program on a sustaining basis; his first CBS sponsor was Geritol.[153][154] He curtailed his drinking and his ratings at CBS began to improve, especially after he began appearing on Tuesday nights for co-sponsors Johnson's Wax and Pet Milk Company.
By 1955, Skelton was broadcasting some of his weekly programs in color, which was the case approximately 100 times between 1955 and 1960.[156] He tried to encourage CBS to do other shows in color at the facility, but CBS mostly avoided color broadcasting after the network's television set manufacturing division was discontinued in 1951.[157][v] By 1959, Skelton was the only comedian with a weekly variety television show; others who remained on the air, such as Danny Thomas, were performing their routines as part of situation comedy programs.[158][159] He performed a preview show for a studio audience on Mondays, using their reactions to determine which skits needed to be edited for the Tuesday program. For the Tuesday afternoon run-through prior to the actual show, he ignored the script for the most part, ad-libbing through it at will. The run-through was well attended by CBS Television City employees[134] Sometimes during sketches, both live telecasts and taped programs, Skelton would break up or cause his guest stars to laugh.[4][160][w]
Richard's illness and death [ edit ]
The Red Skelton Show of January 15, 1957. Skelton as a sailor and Rooney as his wife play contestants on a parody of Do You Trust Your Wife?. This was Skelton's return to television after his son Richard's leukemia diagnosis. Skelton and Mickey Rooney at dress rehearsal forof January 15, 1957. Skelton as a sailor and Rooney as his wife play contestants on a parody of. This was Skelton's return to television after his son Richard's leukemia diagnosis.
At the height of Skelton's popularity, his nine-year-old son Richard was diagnosed with leukemia and was given a year to live.[163][164] While the network told him to take as much time off as necessary, Skelton felt that until he went back to his television show, he would be unable to be at ease and make his son's life a happy one.[165] He returned to his television show on January 15, 1957, with guest star Mickey Rooney helping to lift his spirits.[166] In happier times, he frequently mentioned his children on his program, but found it extremely difficult to do so after Richard became ill. Skelton resumed this practice only after his son had asked him to do so.[168] After his son's diagnosis, |
moist sites is Amaryllis belladonna. This species also flowers most profusely after fire. The name means ‘beautiful lady’ but this bulb is also known as the naked lady owing to the growth of the inflorescence at the head of a bare stalk. The flowers are most strongly scented in the evening, attracting moths as pollinators, but during the day they are commonly visited by Carpenter bees.
One of the largest and most spectacular of all the autumn bulbs is Brunsvigia orientalis. The bright red inflorescence which emerges prior to the leaves can reach as much as 40cm in diameter. The genus Brunsvigia was named by Heister in 1753 in honour of the Duke of Brunswick.
This year we have been treated to the sight of Boophone disticha flowering at Haarwegskloof Renosterveld reserve. These large geophytes from the Amaryllidaceae family do not flower annually and can take as long as ten years to flower from seed and so it is a precious sight to treasure. The flowers are pollinated by bees and flies but also are sometimes visited by ants. The bulb is highly poisonous and the name Boophone is derived from the Greek words ‘Bous’ meaning ox and ‘phone’ meaning death. It is known to be poisonous to sheep and cattle.
Boophone disticha has a variety of different medicinal uses. The Khoi San traditionally used the poison from the bulbs for the tips of their arrows. The outer covering of the bulb has been used to treat boils and abscesses. This species has a wide distribution throughout South Africa and as far north as Uganda. However, it is declining in its natural habitat owing to a combination of habitat loss and collection for muthi or traditional medicine. Within South Africa trade is thought to amount to as much as 1.6 tonnes annually.
Also flowering on the reserve is Nerine humilis. This is a relatively common autumn bulb in the Overberg’s renosterveld vegetation but there are several unusual forms. At Haarwegskloof Renosterveld Reserve we have a very special form with a particularly long reproductive parts (stamens and styles). This is thought to be an adaptation to a specific pollinator but more research is needed to find out what insect this may be. For now it remains a mystery……“I’ve got some stuff you might be interested in.”
With that simple message, sent in December 2012 from former NSA contractor Edward Snowden to Guardian reporter Glenn Greenwald, the biggest leak of government secrets in history was set in motion.
Greenwald paid little attention at first. As he explains in the above excerpt from United States of Secrets, premiering tonight on FRONTLINE, “Ninety-nine percent of the time, it ends up that they’re crazy or delusional, or the story is just not very good.”
But the source didn’t let up. He sent follow-up messages to Greenwald and documentary filmmaker Laura Poitras, and also contacted Barton Gellman of The Washington Post. Six months later, Greenwald and Poitras were on a flight to Hong Kong to meet him.
Snowden was promising an unprecedented scoop, but it wasn’t until the two journalists were finally airborne, in a space where they felt secure from government eavesdropping, that the they could finally examine together the secret documents that had been shared with them.
“I didn’t sleep one second for the next 16 hours because the adrenaline made that impossible,” Greenwald remembers. “We essentially couldn’t believe what it was that we had. And that was really the first time, I think, I fully understood that this was going to be unlike any other story — really ever — in American journalism or politics.”
What they had, specifically, were thousands — “not dozens or hundreds, but many thousands” — of top secret files showing that for the first time under the Obama administration, the communications records of millions of U.S. citizens were being collected in bulk, regardless of whether they had any connection to potential terror suspects.
“We all knew that this was incredibly risky and uncertain, but the story had to be reported,” Greenwald says.
In United States of Secrets, FRONTLINE tells the dramatic inside story of how the U.S. government came to spy on millions of Americans — and the extraordinary lengths taken to keep the effort hidden. From 9/11 to the Edward Snowden revelations, the two-part investigation is the definitive history of the government’s controversial surveillance program.
United States of Secrets (Part One) premieres on-air and online tonight, starting at a special time, 9 p.m. EST (check local listings). Part Two premieres next Tuesday, May 20.The United States will be allowed to share information about Canadians with other countries under a sweeping border deal.
The U.S. won't have to explicitly tell Canada about its plan to pass along the personal details in many cases, suggests a newly released binational privacy charter.
Information-sharing about security cases has sometimes been a sore point between the two countries since the 9-11 terrorist attacks.
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Canada and the U.S. jointly released the 12-point statement of privacy principles late Thursday, covering areas including sharing, data quality, information security, effective oversight, and redress for people whose privacy is infringed.
The principles help flesh out a perimeter security deal struck by the two countries last year. The deal is intended to smooth the passage of people and cargo across the Canada-U.S. border while bolstering continental security.
The plan calls for joint, integrated assessments about security threats and improved intelligence sharing. The countries have pledged to create common privacy principles to guide such information exchanges.
Other main components include more comprehensive advance screening of travellers from third countries heading to North America and a harmonized approach to screening cargo arriving from offshore.
The most contentious feature could be the plan to exchange entry information collected from all persons at the border, which would serve as a record of exit from the other country.
In separate statements, Public Safety Minister Vic Toews and U.S. Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano welcomed release of the privacy principles.
The privacy charter's preamble says greater information sharing between Canada and the U.S. "is vital to protecting the security of our citizens" and that personal information is to be provided, received and used only in accordance with domestic and international laws applicable to the two countries.
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The principles say Canada or the U.S. may transfer information received from the other to a third country.
For instance, the U.S. could send information received from Canada to an ally abroad. However, the U.S. could do so only if American law allowed it. And it must be done in accordance with relevant international agreements and arrangements.
In the absence of such "international agreements and arrangements," the U.S. must inform Canada prior to the transfer, or as soon as possible after the transfer in the case of urgent circumstances.
Emily Gilbert, director of the Canadian studies program at the University of Toronto, said the sharing principle begs questions.
"When somebody is a person of interest in the United States, but is a Canadian, what does that mean?" she asked. "And then what does it mean if that information is then being sent to the European Union or somewhere else?"
Ms. Gilbert said that overall the privacy principles represent a welcome first step. But she added it is unclear how the distinct constitutional and legal frameworks of the two countries are going to be maintained in the context of cross-border information sharing.
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She would like to know more about where data collected under the border processes will be physically stored and who will have access to it.
Ms. Gilbert said she was pleased to see mention in the principles of "effective remedies before a fair and objective authority" when a person's privacy has been breached, but wondered who would fulfil the role of authority and whether the body's rulings could be appealed.
"We have no sense of that coming from this document."
The federal privacy commissioner's office, which was consulted during drafting of the principles, said Thursday it would "take some time to read these in order to see how any suggestions we provided may have been reflected."
The principles say Canada and the U.S. intend to consult each other on application of the privacy principles to particular projects that flow from the border pact, and to discuss "more general developments in the protection of privacy rights."Michael Jordan - NOT the best ever!!!
The sister page to the Exposers of jordon's Foolishness Page
FastCounter by bcentral
Michael Jordan is one of the greatest basketball players in the history of the NBA. He is in the elite class of players who dominate the game. He had many great traits that I do not need to expound on.
However, with that said, he's not the best player in NBA history. Many media types, who are into hype and usually never seen anyone play from past eras, sing Jordan's praises and say he is the best ever - without question. If you do question it, I find that Jordan fanatics act like you've committed blaspheme.
I am here to step on toes, if need be. Jordan is not the best and this webpage explains why.
What I require from you is to explain what criteria you use for comparing two players. How do you compare Patrick Ewing vs. Hakeem Olajuwon? Isiah Thomas vs. John Stockton? Larry Bird vs. Magic Johnson? Wilt Chamberlain vs. Bill Russell? Allen Iverson vs. Vince Carter? Kevin Garnett vs. Shaq? If you have a consistent method for determining which 2 players are better, then I will prove to you that Jordan is not the best.
If you say, "Bill Russell is better than Wilt because he won more championships" then that means you believe Isiah Thomas is better than John Stockton (2 championships to none). If you back peddle and say Stockton is better because he had better career numbers, then you have just exposed your duplicity. You have no method for comparing players. You just make up any excuse to pick a player you like, and your double-standard is a joke. I often find Celtics fans say Russell is better than Chamberlain because of championships, but at the same time, they will not admit Magic Johnson is better than Larry Bird, based on the same criteria. These people do not have educated opinions. They are just fans trying to hype their favorite players. If you are one of these people, go away. I only want to talk basketball with intelligent fans.
With that said, think about your criteria for comparing players. I list mine on this site. If you determine yours, you will see that Jordan is not the best. The only criteria that puts Jordan #1 is endorsements and popularity. If this is your criteria for comparing players, then please leave. I have no time to discuss basketball with Inside Stuff-watching fanboys.
This site is not a forum to argue about if Bill Russell is better than Magic Johnson or Oscar Robertson is better or worse than Kareem Abdul-Jabbar. I respect arguments comparing these guys. They are all elite players, on the same level of Jordan, and have a good argument for being the best player ever. What I DO know is that no player - not Wilt, Russell, Magic, Jordan, etc has an outright claim to being the best basketball player ever, and that is why this site serves only one purpose -- to prove that whatever you think about Michael Jordan's place in basketball history, it is NOT at the very top.
If you disagree, that is your choice, but please have a well-defined reason as to why Jordan is the best ever. As you will see, for Jordan, there is no standard. His claim to the best ever is based on popularity, media-hype, and endorsements, with a few weak arguments thrown in for good measure. This page will systematically tear down these popular weak arguments given for Jordan's supposed dominance, as well as expose the myths created by the media.
With that said, here are the topics:
Ranking Jordan:
Who is better than Jordan? - Determine your criteria and you will see that someone is better.
How I rank them - Here is an example of determining criteria for comparing players and then ranking the elite players consistently based on this criteria.
Jordan myths exposed:
Jordan did not carry a bunch of marginal role players to 6 championships - The Bulls were a very, very good team with or without Michael Jordan. The argument I present proves beyond a shadow of doubt that Jordan simply wasn't as valuable as his friends in the media would like to make him out to be.
Jordan does not make those around him better - Dismantling the myth. He played with very good teammates who did just fine without him.
Jordan was an overrated defender - From 1996-98, Jordan had no business being named to the all-defensie team.
Examples of Jordan being over-hyped by the media:
Jordan in college - a perfect example of media hype. He didn't "lead" Carolina to a title. When he did lead the team, they choked.
Jordan - the greatest athlete ever? Proof that ESPN's list was biased and ignorant.
The 1988 dunk contest - Even when Jordan loses, he wins.
E-mail me - feedback.15 May 2012. Apple offers fix: https://support.apple.com/kb/TS4272 But note this caution about Filevault 2 (FV2): https://discussions.apple.com/thread/3940600?tstart=0 softwater May 10, 2012 5:40 AM (in response to Patrick Barsby) FV2 is highly secure, but there is 'hole' in the whole philosophy behind it, which only applies if you have other users on your system and you give them'startup' permissions (i.e., they have their own password for FV2). Once a user is given startup permissions, they can in fact read your entire user home folder through Single User mode. This is a pretty obscure vulnerability and only applies under the situation I just described. If you do have other users on your system and you want your own home folder to remain out of their reach, don't give them startup permissions. Alternatively, use Disk Utility to locally encrypt sensitive folders in your own account. 5 May 2012 Apple Legacy Filevault Hole Date: Fri, 4 May 2012 20:40:07 -0400
From: "David I. Emery" <die[at]dieconsulting.com>
To: cryptography[at]randombit.net
Subject: [cryptography] Apple Legacy filevault barn door... As someone said here recently, carefully built crypto has a unfortunate tendency to consist of three thick impregnable walls and a picket fence in the back with the gate left open. That seems to have happened to Apple's older ("legacy") Filevault in the current release of MacOX Lion (10.7.3).... something intended to protect sensitive information stored on laptops by providing for encrypted user home directories contained in an encrypted file system mounted on top of the user's home directory. Someone, for some unknown reason, turned on a debug switch (DEBUGLOG) in the current released version of MacOS Lion 10.7.3 that causes the authorizationhost process's HomeDirMounter DIHLFVMount to log in *PLAIN TEXT* in a system wide logfile readible by anyone with root or admin access the login password of the user of an encrypted home directory tree ("legacy Filevault"). The log in question is kept by default for several weeks... Thus anyone who can read files accessible to group admin can discover the login passwords of any users of legacy (pre LION) Filevault home directories who have logged in since the upgrade to 10.7.3 in early February 2012. This is worse than it seems, since the log in question can also be read by booting the machine into firewire disk mode and reading it by opening the drive as a disk or by booting the new-with-LION recovery partition and using the available superuser shell to mount the main file system partition and read the file. This would allow someone to break into encrypted partitions on machines they did not have any idea of any login passwords for. One can partially protect oneself against the firewire disk and recovery partition attacks by using Filevault 2 (whole disk encryption) which then requires one know at least one user login password before one can access files on the main partition of the disk. And one can provide further weaker protection by setting a firmware password which must be supplied before one can boot the recovery partition, external media, or enter firewire disk mode - though there is a standard technique for turning that off known to Apple field support ("genius bar") persons. But having the password logged in the clear in an admin readible file *COMPLETELY* breaks a security model - not uncommon in families - where different users of a particular machine are isolated from each other and cannot access each others files or login as each other with some degree of assurance of security. Granted, of course that someone able to alter executable code could plant keyloggers and the like... and break this... but actually shipping product that does so without notice is disturbing. And for those who use Apple's easy backup tools ("Time Capsule"), it was possible to assume that those tools only wrote copies of the sparsebundle encrypted container for a Filevault legacy home directory to the backup media meaning that an unencrypted backup would still provide protection for the contained encrypted home directories... but with the password required to decrypt the sparebundles stored in the clear on the (unencrypted) backup that assumption is no longer true. One wonders why such a debug switch exists in shipped production code... clearly it could be invoked covertly in specific situations, this seems to be an example of someone turning it on for the entire release by accident. Nobody breaks encryption by climbing the high walls in front... when the garden gate is open for millions of machines. This bug (LEA feature?) seems to have been introduced into MacOS Lion 10.7.3 early February 2012 and so far has not been corrected by any updates. -- Dave Emery N1PRE/AE, die[at]dieconsulting.com DIE Consulting, Weston, Mass 02493
"An empty zombie mind with a forlorn barely readable weatherbeaten
'For Rent' sign still vainly flapping outside on the weed encrusted pole - in
celebration of what could have been, but wasn't and is not to be now either." _______________________________________________ cryptography mailing list
cryptography[at]randombit.net
http://lists.randombit.net/mailman/listinfo/cryptographyDarwin wrote about the phenomenon of most plant crosses winding up sterile, and how most animals will not breed in captivity without special inducements.
This got me to thinking again about the recent post here about “grass eaters.”
In the animal kingdom as in humans, mating behavior requires some wildness, or at least what’s correctly called a ritual among the beasts, birds, bugs, and people.
When you disrupt an animal’s ability to conduct their ritual behavior, you also disrupt their ability to knock boots and make kids. Typical rituals involve a physical struggle between males, a singing competition, a physical inspection, or some combination of these.
Perhaps the most profound change made during the sexual revolution was the end of most forms of sexual segregation, heralded in popular culture and by intellectuals as a stupendous moral development. What this has meant is a disruption in the mechanism by which men compete with one another.
Rather than grouping off into teams to compete individually and as groups within a male status system to become more attractive to women, instead, everyone is jumbled together. Men who would be competing hard with one another instead find that they are in a non-competitive situation, in which feminine standards of inclusion tend to rule.
This disrupts the instincts of both genders, causing them to behave in odd, novel ways. The stated reason for gender equality is to get more productivity out of the entire population, encouraging both genders towards activities that generate tax revenue. What we have seen, instead, is a substantial drop in the male labor force participation rate. The increase in female participation has cannibalized a large portion of the male participation in work outside the home.
Breeding in captivity
When placed into captivity, most wild animals will stop reproducing naturally, and many undergo extensive physical changes. When the animal stops needing to survive based on its own wits and powers, and can instead laze about in a cage, fed and housed, it loses much of the will to live as it did before.
This is not entirely what has happened with Europeans, but there are echoes between the domestication of animals and that of people. We ask people to travel in regiments to work-places, where large portions of their productivity are siphoned off to bosses, investors, and governments. They are asked to behave in a systematic fashion (so that production can be rationalized) while still showing ‘creativity’ in coming up with solutions.
The most prize performers are coveted by employers, but not for their future children — instead, they are sought after for their present productivity, and no one seems to care all that much about the long term productivity of the population — it’s really about extracting as much revenue as possible out of the people in the moment, without concern for the deleterious effects this might have on their characters and the surrounding society.
Healthy competition requires separation
Competition within a species requires physical separation between genders and competing genetic lines. It is the rule of life that one genetic line in direct competition with another one seeks to have its direct competitor replaced over time.
When the genders are not separated, the natural instincts towards propagation become disrupted. The purpose behind competition within the species becomes muddled. The competitive behavior becomes an end within itself rather than a means to a eugenic end.
You can perhaps temporarily extract more resources from a population by disrupting their natural instincts and turning them towards other ends, but in the long term, you harm the ability of the organism to reproduce itself effectively.
While it may not be appropriate to say that people are exactly like the animals, humans are still animals, and are not immune to the same laws that apply to the rest of the kingdom.
When thinking about problems related to dysgenics, we should also think about what effects over-civilization has on people, their instincts, and their ability to sustain themselves. People need wildness in them to keep the spark of life alive.
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Like this: Like Loading...Oil price collapse claims WA's Red Fork Energy, shale gas company in receivership
Updated
The collapse of the oil price has snared its first West Australian victim with Red Fork Energy losing the support of its major lender.
The Perth-based company drills shale rock onshore in the United States, producing oil and gas.
But it is completely exposed to the US shale industry, which analysts say has become unviable at current oil prices.
The oil price has tumbled 40 per cent in recent months, dragging down the value and margins of oil and gas producers.
Red Fork's major lender, Guggenheim Corporate Funding, called in the receivers this week.
It has appointed KordaMentha as receiver and Ferrier Hodgson will act as administrator.
Macquarie private wealth resource analyst Bevan Sturgess-Smith said most players in the shale oil and gas industry were heavily in debt.
"Their costs of production are a bit higher, they've only been in the game really for a few years so their debt structure is a little bit higher than other companies, more mature companies," he said.
"Those two things are really putting pressure on them so with the price where it is they're just not making any margin."
Rapid development blamed for price freefall
The rapid development of America's onshore shale reserves over the past five years is partly blamed for the price freefall.
Their servicing costs of debt and their cost of production is quite high so it's going to be a struggle for them if the oil price doesn't improve. Bevan Sturgess-Smith
Mr Sturgess-Smith said many WA companies jumped on the boom, taking on massive amounts of debt to capitalise on a relatively untested technology.
"There was a number of them that started in that area in the last four or five years," he said.
"They saw an opportunity, the land was becoming available, I guess no-one was really quite ready to take on that technology.
"These companies took the risk and it started working out pretty well for them but the debt structures that a lot of them have, their servicing costs of debt and their cost of production is quite high so it's going to be a struggle for them if the oil price doesn't improve."
The shale industry has transformed America from a net importer of oil to a potential exporter but created a glut of global oil supplies.
When OPEC (Organisation of Petroleum Exporting Countries) nations met last month, markets expected them to cut production to prop up falling prices.
But that did not happen.
"OPEC would prefer that the US start buying oil again from them," Mr Sturgess-Smith said.
"So yes, there's a theory that OPEC is trying to force out these shale oil producers in the US - if that price doesn't move they potentially could be successful."
Stock Analysis's Peter Strachan agrees.
"By the middle of 2015, we're going to see oil production plateau and if this oil price stays where it is for another 12 months after that, oil production in the United States will fall by about 500 barrels of oil a day," he said.
"So the Saudis will have had their way, they would have slowed down the whole shale gale and they will be able to assert some authority over the market."
Lenders at risk due to over-leveraging
Analysts say companies tied to the onshore shale reserves are not the only ones under threat, with lenders also at risk.
The price of oil is down where it is, the shale gas producers might find they are unable to service their debt, so there would be a lot of non-performing loans. Peter Strachan
Mr Strachan said the banks were over-leveraging the industry.
"They've lent a lot of money to the industry on the basis the oil price would be $US100 forever, they bet OPEC would continue to adjust its supplies to keep the oil price at that level," he said.
"That's because OPEC needs a $100 a barrel just to keep the public servants employed because the revenues to run these countries largely come from royalties and taxes from production of oil."
He said if OPEC continues to flood the market, other shale oil and gas producers were also at risk of collapse.
"So, now the price of oil is down where it is, the shale gas producers might find they are unable to service their debt, so there would be a lot of non-performing loans," Mr Strachan said.
"By some reports, $15 trillion of funds has been lent to this business, so it may well be in fact that it's not the oil companies that are in trouble, it's the banks.
"Over the next six months, I'll be watching very closely to see how these banks react to their debt, if they come back to the company and say we want our money back, the company says we've got no way of repaying it, the bank will end up owning these oil and gas assets."
Topics: oil-and-gas, perth-6000
First postedFor more holiday travel updates follow CNNTravel on Twitter.
(CNN) -- Heading to the airport for the first time in months? My, how things have changed.
New security checkpoint measures, which some travelers call "groping" and "virtual strip searches," have sparked a public outcry.
The ramped up use of pat-downs and full-body scanning is needed to stop non-metallic threats including weapons and explosives from getting aboard planes, the Transportation Security Administration says. And it appears that most Americans agree. In a recent CBS News poll, 4 out of 5 Americans supported the use of full-body scans.
"Being scanned sure beats having the plane explode in mid-air," wrote a CNN.com reader who is among the thousands of commenters who have weighed in on the issue. "If something were to happen then everyone will be outraged that the TSA 'allowed' a terrorist act."
But that hasn't stopped a growing group of objectors, from civil rights and privacy advocates to scientists and pilots, from loudly claiming these measures are too invasive, ineffective and possibly unsafe.
There's even a call to declare the frenzied travel day before Thanksgiving National Opt-Out Day, urging travelers selected for full-body scanning to refuse. See photos of the security procedures from The Denver Post
Body scanning is optional
Travelers have the right to opt out of full-body scanning, according to the TSA, but the alternative has, in turn, created its own public furor.
The dreaded thorough "pat-down" alternative has travelers leery about how up close and personal their trip through airport security will become and has sparked a national catchphrase: "Don't touch my junk."
How thorough is thorough? A member of the U.S. Airline Pilots Association described his experience as "sexual molestation," according to union president Mike Cleary.
Others are unfazed.
"I've been patted down rather thoroughly before, and it was not a traumatic experience. Felt more like when I go to the doctor for a physical," wrote a CNN commenter.
About 24 million travelers are expected to fly over the holidays, according to the Air Transport Association of America. There are 400 body-scanning machines installed in 69 airports nationwide, and metal detectors are still widely used.
Pat-downs are used primarily on passengers who set off either the body-scanning machine or the metal detectors and are guaranteed for travelers who opt out of body scanning.
Many travelers will bypass both of the controversial new measures.
"It's important to remember that TSA screens nearly 2 million passengers daily and that very few passengers are required to receive a pat-down," according to a post on the TSA blog.
Opponents waging battle
Lawsuits against the Department of Homeland Security have already popped up around the issue.
A public interest research group has filed a lawsuit seeking the suspension of the body scanning program, arguing that the measures violate the Fourth Amendment and the Privacy Act, among other laws.
A group of University of California, San Francisco medical and science professors have also called for suspension of the body scanner program saying more independent study is needed to address what they claim could be potential health risks posed by small doses of radiation used in one of the technologies used in about half of the machines.
TSA administrator John Pistole defended the security procedures to lawmakers this week, and a TSA blog post attempted to ease passenger concerns.
"These things... have been examined six ways to Sunday," Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano said at a news conference this week. "The [Food and Drug Administration], Johns Hopkins University, the U.S. Science and Standards Association have all measured the radiation involved," she said. "It's almost immeasurable it is so small."
Passengers who refuse complete screening won't be allowed past security and could face civil penalties, according to a TSA statement.
Courts have given wide leeway for airport screening under the Fourth Amendment, which guards against unreasonable searches and seizures, according to Adam Winkler, a UCLA law professor who specializes in American constitutional law.
"The courts generally say that there's not much of an expectation of privacy when you're getting on an airplane. That people get searched, that there's a serious risk, starting with hijacking and now terrorism, such that the expectation of privacy is pretty minimal," Winkler said.
Airport screening methods usually fall under the legal heading of "administrative searches," which are generally used to ensure public safety. The courts will have to consider whether there's an expectation of privacy and how reasonable the search is, weighing security concerns with invasiveness, Winkler said.
"It's one thing to put your bag through an X-ray machine and have to go through a metal detector. It's another thing to have to basically submit to an almost-naked picture of yourself."Judge Admonishes DOJ Over Handling of Gitmo Detainee’s Habeas Challenge
Source: Wikipedia
A U.S. District Court judge had sharp words for the Obama administration and the Justice Department over its handling of a habeas corpus case that the judge said was “riddled with holes” and accused the government of “dragging [the case] out for no good reason” once it became clear that it “fell apart.”
During a hearing last week, Judge Ellen Segal Huvelle gave the Obama administration until Friday to decide whether it will continue to challenge the imprisonment of Guantanamo detainee Mohammed Jawad, who was arrested in December 2002 in Afghanistan when he was believed to have been 12 years-old and tortured by interrogators at the facility. The Department of Defense claims Jawad was as old as 17 when he was arrested, but other accounts have said he was younger.
Jawad was arrested for allegedly throwing a grenade at an unmarked jeep that wounded two U.S. soldiers. He was then taken to an Afghan police station where he was coerced into signing a confession written in Farsi, a language Jawad could not speak, much less read or write. In fact, Jawad was functionally illiterate even in his native language of Pashto.
Once transferred to U.S. custody, Jawad was rendered to Bagram Air Base in Afghanistan, where he was interrogated at least 11 times.
“Typically, beatings by guards preceded interrogation sessions,” according to court papers filed by the American Civil Liberties Union, which is representing Jawad in his habeas challenge against the Obama administration. “Interrogators often placed Mr. Jawad in a position along the wall where he was sitting without a chair and with his arms outstretched.”
Judge Huvelle noted that there “are 11 statements attributed to Afghanistan officials and to the Americans,” but “the Americans did not see anything and there may or may not be an Afghani who saw something. You can’t prevail here without a witness who saw it. I mean, let’s be frank. You can tell your superiors that. You can’t. There is no evidence otherwise.”
Judge Huvelle said if the Obama administration can’t produce any witnesses to testify as to why Jawad should continue to be detained or confirm that he threw the grenade she would likely rule that he be returned to Afghanistan.
“This is a case unlike every other case,” Judge Huvelle said, according to a transcript of the proceedings just released. “You have an eyewitness account. You can’t rely on the petitioner. So, either there is a witness who is going to put this guy there subject to real cross examination like a real case instead of all of this intelligence and attributing it to people who are either cooperators, unknown, unidentified.
“The real people can show up. You can bring them to me in whatever form. If you have to go to Afghanistan to take a deposition, fine. But seven years and this case is riddled with holes. And you know it. I don’t mean you. The United States Government knows it is lousy. If you can’t rely on the guy’s statements, you have lousy case.”
Last week, the Justice Department said in a federal court filing that it would not rely upon evidence or testimony obtained through torture in Jawad’s case. The filing was made in response to a motion filed by the American Civil Liberties Union who accused the Obama administration of relying on statements obtained through torture to support Jawad’s indefinite detention. The ACLU is defending Jawad.
In a 37-page legal brief dated July 1, portions of which are redacted, the ACLU asked a U.S. District Court Judge overseeing the case to suppress all statements obtained against their client through torture.
Last Wednesday, the DOJ said it would not challenge the ACLU’s motion, but it needs until Aug. 3 “to determine how [the Obama administration] will proceed in connection with this habeas action.
Judge Huvelle declined that request and set July 24 as the deadline for the Obama administration to say whether it will fight to keep Jawad detained.
“I’m not putting it off,” Judge Huvelle said. “[Jawad] has been there seven years — seven years. He might have been taken there at the age of maybe 12, 13, 14, 15 years old. I don’t know what he is doing there. Without his statements, I don’t understand your case. I really don’t. You cannot expect an eyewitness time of account to rely on the kind of hearsay you have here.
“You’d better go consult real quick with the powers that be, because this is a case that’s been screaming at everybody for years.
“This case is an outrage to me. I’m sorry. This is an outrage. I’m not going to sit up here and wait for you to come up with new evidence at this late hour. There is only one question here, did the guy throw a grenade or didn’t he throw a grenade. That’s the issue. Right? If he didn’t do that, you can’t win. If you can’t prove that, you can’t win. I’m not going to have people running around trying to figure out a way to get this case out of the Court’s jurisdiction for some other reason. You have to come to grips with your cases.”
In response, Justice Department attorney Daniel Barish tried to explain to Judge Huvelle that Jawad’s habeas challenge was a special case because of the “immense burdens involved.”
“Your Honor, this is a war time habeas proceeding,” Barish said. “So it is not a normal situation where you call live witnesses…there are immense burdens involved. These are intelligence reports we rely on. We don’t want to argue the merits here. But I think you under estimate, with all due respect, the burdens involved in having to call witnesses, remove people off the battlefield and from Afghanistan.”
“There is nobody on the battlefield,” Judge Huvelle retorted. “The only people that you can dredge up here are Afghanistan people. There is nobody else. I’m not aware of you having an American that could conceivably offer real testimony. Maybe I’m missing something.”
“I’m telling you to discuss this case quickly among your superiors. There is a problem with this case. You’ve known about it for years. You’ve known about it since — when was the military commission? If that didn’t wake anybody up there…the case is in shambles.”
Judge Huvelle had been referring to last October’s military commission proceedings, where statements Jawad made to Afghan and U.S. officials following his arrest for allegedly throwing the grenade at U.S. soldiers were suppressed because they were obtained through torture and were made after Afghan authorities threatened to kill his family. However, prior to last week’s filing by the Justice Department, the Obama administration, like the Bush administration, continued to rely on those same statements in arguing that Jawad should be held indefinitely.
Last year, Lt. Col. Darrel Vandeveld, the former lead prosecutor in Jawad’s military commission case, resigned because he did not believe he could ethically proceed with the case based on testimony obtained through torture and the lack of any eyewitness account. Vandeveld signed a declaration in support of the ACLU’s position.
Jonathan Hafetz, an attorney with the ACLU’s National Security Project who is one of the lawyers representing Jawad, said his client should be released because there |
0, there will be a total of 21m total bitcoin in the market, though many will not be in circulation due to loss.
Heading into the event, there were predictions on what would happen, with some speculating that the price would drop immediately after to others suggesting worst-case scenarios.
But what has become clear, at least in the first week after halving, is that halving was just another day for bitcoin.
Price unaffected
One of the primary expectations leading up to halving was that the price would drop due to an expected rumor-and-event cycle, whereby traders would accumulate the asset, riding the excitement up until the actual halving took place, at which point they would exit positions.
Petar Zivkovski, the director of operations at WhaleClub, for example, predicted that the smart money – institutions, professional traders, and other knowledgeable bitcoin traders – would sell their bitcoin holdings at the event.
The day before halving, the price of bitcoin dropped by close to 10%, from $674 to $618, according to CoinDesk’s USD Bitcoin Price Index (BPI). While slightly premature to the actual event, this could have been a sign of that event-based selling.
Yet, since the halving, the price has been in a tight trading pattern between $637 and $673 per bitcoin, or 5% fluctuations.
One possible explanation is that the smart money believes the price of bitcoin is going to go even higher, and that the new supply to the market is being bought, offsetting any sales by the smart money.
Terrence Thurber, founder of Oregon Mines, originally told CoinDesk that he believed the price could reach as high as $900, double the $445 bitcoin had been hovering around prior to the massive run-up in June.
He said:
“The price of bitcoin after the halving would normally be expected to rise as decreasing supply meets increasing demand.”
If 25 BTC is being released into the market every 10 minutes at $660 per bitcoin and the price stays constant, the demand is also 25 BTC every 10 minutes. If the price continues to stay relatively constant after halving, with the number dropped to 12.5 BTC, miners were either not selling all of their coins when they were receiving 25 BTC, or the smart money is selling, offsetting the cut in new supply.
A similar behavior occurred when bitcoin last halved on 28th November, 2012, when the price was $12.35. The price increased by approximately a $1 over the next month, a relative calm despite the predictable nature of the approaching halving. However, by January, the price was beginning to increase until it peaked at approximately $230 on 9th April.
While the price of bitcoin is always in flux, the immediate response to halving was for the price to stay relatively stagnant.
Hashrate stays constant
While price proved stable, bitcoin miners were more immediately impacted.
When Antpool sealed the 419,999th block, it received a 25 BTC subsidy, valued at approximately $16,250 at the time of the block. Only a few minutes later, when F2Pool sealed the 420,000th block, it earned 12.5 BTC, valued at approximately $8,125.
Miners effectively saw their revenue cut in half, which was to be expected. But the anticipated outcome was for the hashrate to drop significantly as well. And while it did drop, from 1,600 petahash/second to a little under 1,400 petahash/second, this is well within the fluctuation of hashing power over the past few months.
Marco Streng, CEO of Genesis Mining, told CoinDesk that efficiency is what matters for bitcoin mining.
He explained:
“For us, the halving didn’t surprise us at all. We were prepared for that event to happen. The most important rule for mining is still: ‘If you are the most efficient miner you will be able to continue mining while others need to step out leaving you a bigger share of the pie.'”
Further, even with a revenue drop from $16,250 to $8,125, revenues were still nowhere near as bad as they had once been when the price of bitcoin hovered in the range of $200-$300 through much of 2015.
According to data collected from Blockchain.info, revenue from mining was lower than today’s levels from January 2015 to November 2015, with some periods where it rose above today’s daily revenue of $1.07m. During that time, bitcoin’s hashrate continued to increase from approximately 300 PH/s to 500 PH/s in the same time period.
But, mining has evolved considerably since that time.
At the start of 2015, miners were still deploying 28nm chips, such as what was found in Bitmain’s Antminer S3, which provided approximately 450GH/s of hashing power per device. Today, Bitmain has its S9, which provides 14TH/s of hashing power per device.
Point being, the hardware that miners use today is far more efficient than it has ever been before, making it possible for miners to earn a return on investment even when revenue gets cut in half.
Eric Mu, CMO at HaoBTC, a mining firm with 5.5% of the hashrate, explained that the vast majority of the cost for the miner was in the actual hardware. Now that they own that, so long as the electricity is cheap, profits can continue to be made.
Ultimately, any miner that was able to survive earning between $5,000 to $7,500 per sealed block (when bitcoin traded in the $200-$300 range) back in 2015, earning $8,125 is still better. For those that couldn’t stomach revenues that low, they likely dropped off back in 2015.
Bitcoin survived
Bitcoin has now experienced two halving events, which, theoretically, should have had a jolting effect on the network and price.
However, what both events showed is that, for the most part, a halving can be pretty boring. While miners are affected, at today’s prices, there doesn’t appear to be an exodus any greater than what the network shows each month.
Segregated witness, an improvement to the code that will solve transaction malleability and open the door to technology like Lightning Network, is still on its way. Companies like OpenBazaar continue to roll out what could be among the first promising consumer apps.
Further, new financial products, like the ETFs proposed by SolidX and the Winklevoss Twins continue to seek regulatory approval. And ultimately, bitcoin continues forward.
While the halving event was an especially boring day for bitcoin, it showed, again, that it continues its journey from a risky experiment to real-world tool.
Tiny trophy image via ShutterstockFigures seen by the Mirror suggest that as many as 50 children a week are being referred to the UK’s leading gender identity clinic.
FactCheck looks at what we know about children and gender identity services in the UK.
How many children are being referred to gender identity clinics?
Official figures from the Gender Identity Development Service (GIDS) at the Tavistock Centre in London show that 2,016 children were referred to them in 2016-17.
That’s about 39 kids a week over the course of the year.
But the Mirror says it has seen data that shows 1,302 children have visited GIDS in the last six months – which works out at about 50 children a week.
We don’t know yet whether that high referral rate will continue for the rest of the year. If it does, it will mean that the number of children referred to GIDS each week has risen by 2,500 per cent since 2009-10.
The number of children attending GIDS has grown every year since 2009-10, but saw a marked increase in 2015-16 – when patient numbers doubled compared to the previous year.
It’s not clear what caused this.
The British Social Attitudes survey began to collect data on the public’s views towards transgender people for the first time in 2016. They cited the fact that “transgender people and their stories are becoming increasingly visible in society” as part of the reason to address attitudes to gender in the survey.
It’s possible that high-profile transgender people, including Caitlyn Jenner, Chelsea Manning and Laverne Cox have brought the issue of gender identity to a wider range of children and parents.
How many children go on to become transgender adults?
Children who are referred to gender identity clinics like the GIDS at the Tavistock Centre are often diagnosed with “gender dysphoria”.
The NHS describes the condition as one where “a person experiences discomfort or distress because there’s a mismatch between their biological sex and gender identity”.
A 2008 study in the Netherlands concluded that “The majority of children with gender dysphoria will not remain gender dysphoric after puberty”. Although it also found that kids who experience very strong feelings of dysphoria are more likely to still have them in adulthood.
A separate study from 2011 found that only 2 to 27 per cent of pre-pubescent children with gender dysphoria continued to have those feelings once puberty hit.
However, research cited by the Tavistock Centre also suggests that gender dysphoria is more likely to persist into adulthood when it’s reported by kids over the age of 12.
In other words, older children and those with more intense feelings of gender dysphoria in childhood are more likely to become transgender adults.
Younger children who report milder feelings of gender dysphoria are less likely to feel the same after puberty.
The majority of children referred to the gender identity clinic at the Tavistock Centre in 2016-17 were over 13 years old, with the most common ages being 15 and 16 years old. We don’t know how many of these were diagnosed with gender dysphoria.
What treatments can children receive at gender identity clinics?
Not all of the children who are referred to gender identity clinics will be diagnosed with gender dysphoria.
But children who do receive a diagnosis can be treated with synthetic hormones that “block” puberty. According to the NHS, the effects of this treatment “are considered to be fully reversible” and can stop at any time.
Figures revealed to the Mail on Sunday earlier this year suggested that as many as 800 children in England – including some as young as 10 – are being treated with puberty blockers.
Once a child reaches 17 they can be seen in an adult gender clinic, and can receive standard adult treatments for gender dysphoria if it has been clinically diagnosed. This can include stronger cross-sex hormones, which are not necessarily reversible and will eventually make those who take them completely infertile.
The minimum age for gender reassignment surgery is 18 years old."It doesn't matter what the origins of the Second Amendment were," says Cody Wilson, creator of the first 3D-printed gun and author of the new book, Come and Take It: The Gun Printer's Guide to Thinking Free. "With the internet, we can transform this thing into right to resistance on a global scale. If it's just a fact that the government serves guns now, this is just a point of political life."
Reason TV visited Wilson at an Austin, Texas-based manufacturing facility of his company Defense Distributed to discuss his new memoir about the creation of first 3D-printed firearm, which he dubbed "The Liberator."
Wilson told Reason TV he plans to push his lawsuit against State Department, which has prohibited him from making the Liberator printing freely available for download on his website, as far as he possibly can. Defense Distributed lost in the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals in September after the court ruled that national security trumps free speech in this case:
Ordinarily, of course, the protection of constitutional rights would be the highest public interest at issue in a case. That is not necessarily true here, however, because the State Department has asserted a very strong public interest in national defense and national security.
"The government, in certain cases, especially gun cases, gets to just wave around the words 'national security' without making a specific claim," says Wilson. He rejects the State Department's argument that this technology empowers enemies of the nation such as ISIS, pointing out that domestic terrorists have a stock of more than 300 million U.S. guns to pull from and that overseas militants are much more likely to get their hands on arms supplied by the CIA and other government agencies than they are to print off weapons.
Wilson is also pushing ahead with a new project: the Ghost Gunner, a do-it-yourself milling machine that allows anyone to construct an unregistered AR-15 rifle in less than four hours. The machine mills holes in an 80 percent completed metal lower receiver, and then users can attach the other components—easily available for purchase online—using common tools, nuts, and bolts to create a fully functional, unregistered military-grade weapon. The price tag on the Ghost Gunner is $1500, and Wilson says he's already moved thousands of units.
"There's a certain political realism here. If you have the implements, outside of federal observation, for military-grade hardware... you have certain political capabilities that, perhaps, your neighbor does not," says Wilson. "I'm not even sure I'm an anarchist anymore. I feel like I'm almost just, like, the accidental node in something else... something deeper and not at all concerned with the affairs of men."
This interview taped before the 2016 presidential election took place, but Wilson confessed that he's in "complete awe" of Donald Trump, whom he describes as "a genius," "almost completely childish in his complete innocence," and propelled by a "huge, unconscious force." Wilson sees parallels with Trump's rise and the creation of the Liberator. In both cases, says Wilson, a fearful media helped push the phenomenon into existence.
"[The media] don't wait for the actual terror of the event to happen," says Wilson. "They jump into the situation and complete it themselves in this nervous anticipation... The media cannot help themselves. If I can get something 80 percent of the way, they will take it to its completion and then a bit further than that."
Watch the full interview above.
Interview by Zach Weissmueller. Edited by Weissmueller. Camera by Alex Manning and Alexis Garcia. Music by Kai Engel.
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INTERVIEW TRANSCRIPT: This is a rush transcript. Check against video for accuracy.
reason: Cody Wilson grabbed the nation's attention in 2013 when he posted a video of himself firing the Liberator, the first fully 3D printed firearm. He's now embroiled in an ongoing lawsuit with the State Department over weather or not he can post the printing plans for the Liberator on his company website. He lost his case in the 5th Circuit Court of Appeals after they ruled that national security trumps the 1st Amendment right to disseminate information in this case. But Wilson is pushing ahead on the legal front, and with a new project: the Ghost Gunner. A do-it-yourself milling machine that allows you to construct an unregistered AR15 in less than 3 hours without leaving the comfort of your own home. It's available on his website for 250$ and Wilson says he's already moved thousands of units. We met up with Wilson at Defense Distributed's manufacturing headquarters in Austin Texas to talk about the Ghost Gunner, his ongoing lawsuit and his journey from disaffected liberal to crypto anarchist creator of the 3D gun as documented in his new memoir Come and Take It: The Gun Printer's Guide to Thinking Free.
The book on it's most superficial level is a recounting of how the Liberator came to be, but it's also at times, a kind of beautifully written meditation on the nature of the modern nation-state and the position of the dissident thinker within that state. And it's also, kind of, packaged as a kind of how-to guide, not how to make a 3D gun, how to be someone who would think of creating a 3D gun when it didn't exist before. So what exactly were you aiming for with this book?First there were food miles and now water footprinting seems to be next in line as consumers take a closer look at the sustainability of the food they buy.
Researchers have worked out that the water footprint of one kilogram of beef is 15,500 litres, while the production of the same amount of cheese uses 5000 litres in its life cycle of production through to managing its waste.
Water footprinting is becoming more important as an environmental management tool, say researchers from Massey University and research organisations from the New Zealand Life Cycle Management.
Centre director Sarah McLaren said the drought had reinforced the need for food producers to account for water use.
She said consumers were becoming concerned about the sustainability of the food they buy, and retailers were acting as "gatekeepers" by scrutinising the environmental impact linked with food products on their shelves.
As a result, producers were being asked to provide information on greenhouse gases, energy use, water consumption and biodiversity, and demonstrate how they were measuring and improving their environmental performance, she said.
Some information was already being labelled, and international companies buying New Zealand products were calling for the information.
American multinational retail corporation Walmart was asking all of its 10,000 suppliers to provide the total water use in their facilities and their water-reduction targets.
Anglo-Dutch consumer goods company Unilever has set itself a target of halving consumer use of water associated with its products by 2020.
McLaren said New Zealand might appear to have an abundance of fresh water, but storage and distribution remained major issues.
"New Zealand trades on its clean, green image, so maintaining high standards of production is imperative," she said.
"We live in a globalised economy with a 'virtual water trade' of around 1000km3/year, so water shortages elsewhere in the world can potentially be compensated by water used in production processes in New Zealand where products are then exported." She said New Zealand could position its exported products for competitive advantage by measuring water footprints and driving improvements.
"The recent drought has reinforced the need to account for water use and also to prepare for a future where there may be less water available for agricultural and horticultural production," she said. The centre is leading research and has a programme for assessing the environmental impact of products along their life cycles from the extraction of raw materials to processing, manufacture, distribution, use and final waste management.
McLaren said farmers and other primary producers needed to be aware of their water use as it contributed to the life cycle of a product.
The centre's partners are Massey University, AgResearch, Landcare Research, Plant & Food Research and Scion Research.WASHINGTON -- There is relatively broad consensus among policy makers and advocates in Washington that income-based repayment is, in most cases, a useful tool for helping borrowers manage their monthly student loan payments.
But should the federal government automatically enroll borrowers in the program as they leave school?
That’s a debate that is increasingly playing out among higher education researchers, advocates and policy makers as Congress moves toward reauthorization of the Higher Education Act.
Senator Tom Harkin, who chairs the Senate education committee, said at a hearing last month that he plans to explore the issue, after two witnesses -- a student aid administrator and an advocate for low-income students -- disagreed about the approach.
Elsewhere, some researchers have called for a single federal income-based repayment program that automatically deducts payments from borrowers’ paychecks, a model that has been used in other countries, such as Australia, New Zealand and the United Kingdom. Representative Tom Petri, a Wisconsin Republican, has introduced legislation to that effect.
And on Monday, several papers funded by the Lumina Foundation and discussed at an event here added to that debate.
Underlying nearly all of the papers was a consensus that the government’s existing array of income-based repayment programs -- there are seven -- need to be simplified and streamlined to make it easier for borrowers to enroll.
Brent Evans, a professor of higher education and public policy at Vanderbilt University, and his co-authors Angela Boatman, also of Vanderbilt, and Adela Soliz of Harvard University, sought to apply lessons of behavioral economics to the programs.
Evans said that the government should consolidate the programs into one since consumers tend to make suboptimal decisions when they are presented with too many choices.
Lauren Asher, president of the Institute for College Access & Success, which helped develop the framework for the Obama administration’s expansion of income-based repayment, said her group had concluded that automatic enrollment in the programs would not be a good policy. However, she said, TICAS has proposed that the government place all federal borrowers who are six months delinquent on their loans -- three months away from defaulting -- in an income-driven plan.
“Income-driven repayment is not the optimal choice for everyone,” Asher said, noting that borrowers end up paying more in the longer term when their monthly payments are reduced.
Asher also said she was concerned that automatically enrolling borrowers in income-based repayment could remove incentives for states and institutions to keep down college costs, thus “creating a safe haven for schools that are not serving students well.”
TICAS also has concerns about an automatic-payment scheme in which employers act as middlemen in loan repayment, Asher said. Such a system would raise privacy and accountability concerns since a borrower would have to explain his or her repayment situation to an employer, she said. not sure i understand this -- meaning whether they would make payroll deductions and/or pay money directly to servicers, so they would have info about which employees had loans, etc.? say that? dl**because the employer would have to know when you need loan forgiveness/ms -- ***say that? dl
Several researchers on Monday also questioned whether income-based repayment programs were properly structured as they exist now.
Beth Akers of the Brookings Institution and her colleague, Matthew Chingos, sought to estimate the long-term costs of the programs for borrowers and taxpayers. They found that the cost to taxpayers of allowing borrowers to pay off their loans over the 20- or 25-year periods accounts for about one-quarter to one-third of the programs' cost. The loan forgiveness provisions, meanwhile, account for half of the costs. Under the programs, the government forgives any remaining balance after 20 or 25 years.
The loan forgiveness aspects of income-based repayment, they argue, are not critical to providing a safety net that protects borrowers and, in fact, produce perverse incentives for students to take on more debt.
That is a concern that has been raised before. The Obama administration last month called for some changes to income-based repayment programs. Its fiscal year 2015 budget proposes trimming some of the benefits that accrue to borrowers under the income-driven plans, including caps on the amount of debt that is forgiven and extending the payment period for some borrowers with high debt loads.
The House Republican budget released earlier this month by Representative Paul Ryan of Wisconsin similarly calls for cuts in the benefits for income-based repayment plans.
The Obama administration has sought to better publicize and boost enrollment in the existing federal income-based repayment programs. About 11 percent of all federal borrowers are currently enrolled in such repayment plans.
Education Department officials have streamlined some aspects of the online application for income-based repayment and last fall sent emails to about 3 million borrowers to notify them about income-based repayment options. James Runcie, the department official who oversees federal student aid, told Congressional lawmakers last month that the email campaign had resulted in almost 150,000 applications for the programs.It's Nintendo download time, North America, and this week brings you various goodies for your latest systems. The Wii U eShop features a new downloadable title that you probably spotted two days ago, the first Virtual Console release — sort of — on the system, and 3DS has a mixture of new and old offerings to tempt you. Wii and DSi are neglected this week, unfortunately. So, let's get to the detail.
Wii U download software
The Cave (SEGA, $14.99) — An eagerly anticipated release on the Wii U platform, not least because it's the first new download-only release of 2013, this title is a puzzle adventure game with a lot of credentials and promise. You choose three of seven characters — multiple playthroughs are encouraged — to explore a variety of areas, all against the backdrop of plenty of wit and dark storytelling. Unfortunately, for all of its charms and seductive presentation, we feel that the gameplay and design falls short, as our review of The Cave explains.
Wii U Virtual Console
Balloon Fight (Nintendo, $0.30) — Although the full Virtual Console doesn't launch until Spring, the Trial Promotion means that you can buy — not rent — one classic NES or SNES title a month for just 30 cents. Kicking off this promotion for its first month is Balloon Fight, a reminder of the primitive early days of NES, albeit with some Wii U specific features included. Our updated review will be with you very soon, but in the meantime you can also check out our Wii Virtual Console Balloon Fight review.
Wii U retail download
Funky Barn (505 Games, $29.99) — A launch day retail release in stores, this farm management title is best known by some for the shenanigans on its Miiverse community, no doubt due to its name. It has its quirks and, despite the trolling it suffers on the social platform, is a competent game let down by a high-price tag and relative dearth of content, as our Funky Barn review argues. We'll update the price for the download as soon as possible.
3DS download software
Cocoto Alien Brick Breaker (Bigben Interactive, $4.99) — This title promises to renew an arcade classic, which as the name suggests is the good old-fashion brick breaking mechanic of deflecting balls/projectiles as skilfully as possible. With five planets to travel through along with upgrades to your shield and weapons, we'll see whether this is an old concept done well in our upcoming review.
3DS Virtual Console
Super C (Konami, $4.99) — The second NES entry in the Contra series — though naming conventions were confusing — is now available on the go, which sets you up nicely for some classic run and gun action whenever the fancy takes you. It's classic action that's well done, but you can read our thoughts on why that's a good thing in our Wii Virtual Console Super C review, and we'll be fighting through the handheld release for a fresh outlook soon.
3DS retail download
Tom Clancy's Ghost Recon: Shadow Wars 3D (Ubisoft, $29.99) — It may have a clumsy title, but this game was one of the finest offerings worth considering when the 3DS launched in March 2011. Despite its lack of hype and attention it delivers a lengthy, engrossing campaign of turn-based strategy gaming, with three difficulty levels and extra challenge missions for those that get hooked in. We recommended it very highly in our Tom Clancy's Ghost Recon: Shadow Wars 3D review.
3DS retail demo
Brain Age: Concentration Training (Nintendo, free) — The Brain Age series was a pivotal part in the success of DS, attracting a broad range of gamers to the system. Nintendo will no doubt be hoping to repeat history with this fresh release that focuses on short exercises to sharpen up your concentration skills. This free demo should get you warmed up before the full release.
So there you have it, a good variety of options for those with Wii U and 3DS systems, and a rare instance of both DSi and Wii missing out. Let us know what, if anything, you'll be spending your money on in the poll and comments below.Socks the Cat Rocks the Hill is a platform video game developed by Realtime Associates for the Super Nintendo Entertainment System. The game stars Socks, the real life presidential pet of the Clinton family during Bill Clinton's tenure in office. Originally scheduled for release in the fall of 1993, Socks the Cat experienced delays until it was ultimately canceled due to the closure of publisher Kaneko's U.S. branch in the summer of 1994. The game was complete however, and review copies were still distributed to gaming publications. A prototype cartridge of the SNES version eventually entered the hands of private collectors, and a Kickstarter campaign to fund a relaunch of the game was successfully funded and originally anticipated a July 2017 release but it was delayed until February 1, 2018. Its ROM image was soon released to the public.
Set in Washington D.C., Socks the Cat Rocks the Hill follows the title character as he makes his way past spies, politicians, and the news media to warn the Clinton family of a stolen nuclear missile launch device. The game makes heavy use of political satire, including bosses designed as caricatures of former U.S. presidents and other political figures. Nintendo reportedly liked the game despite their censorship policies during the era which condemned games with political content. The political satire was also praised by critics, although the game was otherwise found to be average.
Synopsis [ edit ]
The game begins with Socks observing foreign spies stealing a nuclear missile launch unit in the basement of a foreign embassy.[1] He embarks on a journey through eleven stages through Washington D.C. landmarks like The Pentagon to return to the Oval Office in the White House and alert the Clinton family.[2][3] Throughout the game, Socks must overcome the likes of foreign spies, politicians, the United States Secret Service, and the news media.[3] The bosses are caricatures of political figures, such as Gerald Ford, Jimmy Carter, and Ross Perot.[2][4] In one situation, Socks must push Millie the dog, pet of former president George H. W. Bush, out the front door to avoid Arab terrorist felines.[5] Also, Richard Nixon calls in bomb raids and Ted Kennedy is seen driving a car on a bridge.[6]
History [ edit ]
Socks the Cat features caricatures of political figures, such as features caricatures of political figures, such as Richard Nixon
Kaneko originally planned two entirely different games to feature Socks, one for the Super NES to be developed by Realtime Associates, and the other by an undisclosed developer for the Genesis.[6] The SNES and Genesis games were both occasionally referred to as Socks the Cat Rocks the House in some early publications; however, this title would later refer to the Genesis game only.[5][6] The "Socks the Cat" license was not owned by the Clinton family, but rather a fan club known as the Presidential Socks Partnership.[7] Kaneko purchased the license from the fan club, with some of the profits given to The Humane Society of the United States and the Children's Defense Fund, one of Hillary Clinton's favorite charities.[8]
Socks the Cat was first unveiled and demonstrated by Kaneko on June 2, 1993, at the Consumer Electronics Show in Chicago.[6] The first release window provided was for fall 1993, although the game was delayed until January 1994 and then later pushed to June.[1][3][6][9][10] Shortly before its scheduled release that summer, Socks the Cat was canceled due to the closure of Kaneko's U.S. division. Although Nintendo's censorship policies during the late 1980s and early 1990s condemned games that had "subliminal political messages or overt political statements", Nintendo reportedly liked the game.[6][11] Former Realtime Associates employees have stated the game was finished. One former developer, David Warhol, stated the game "was very irreverent...maybe it's better it didn't come out after all!"[6]
Some time after its cancellation, a prototype copy was sold by a former Kaneko employee to video game collector Jason Wilson.[12] In 2011, a five-minute video was uploaded to YouTube showing gameplay from the cartridge, giving proof of the game's existence.[12][13] In 2012, Wilson sold the game to collector Tom Curtin for the same amount as a "decent used car". The sale was made in part because Curtin wished to release the game. He acquired the rights to the "Socks the Cat" trademark in 2015 and planned to launch a Kickstarter crowdfunding campaign to fund a release of the game.[12] The campaign was launched on October 10, 2016 and finished 110% funded on November 8, 2016, the same day as the 2016 US presidential election (in which Hillary Clinton was the Democratic nominee). The campaign anticipated a 2017 release;[14] the game finally released on February 1, 2018.[15]
Reception [ edit ]
Although never released, Socks the Cat Rocks the Hill was reviewed by multiple publications who generally saw it as an average platformer albeit with excellent boss design and political satire. Nintendo Power found the boss characters to be humorous but criticized the poor controls.[1] GamePro also praised the bosses and the satire, but were more critical with the flat graphics and poor sound. They provided scores of 3.0 for graphics, 2.5 for sound, 3.5 for controls, and 3.5 for "fun factor" (out of 5).[2] Nintendo Power believed poor controls made the game challenging, but GamePro found the game easy and thought the controls "take practice but prove effective."[1][2] Electronic Gaming Monthly dubbed it "a cute run-and-jump, claw the enemies game."[16]
Notes [ edit ]
^ Electronic Gaming Monthly's individual scores were 7, 6, 6, 5, and 5.[16] individual scores were 7, 6, 6, 5, and 5. ^ Nintendo Power's individual review scores were 3.4, 3.2, 3.1, and 3.1.[1] individual review scores were 3.4, 3.2, 3.1, and 3.1.A Calgary mother is hoping a photo of her lying on a hospital bed with her dying son will help steer others away from using the deadly drug fentanyl.
"My son was not an addict, he made a mistake that cost him his life," Sherri Kent wrote on the Facebook post, which has been shared more than 86,000 times.
The photo shows the distraught mother lying on a hospital bed and holding the hand of her 22-year-old son, Michael Kent, who is intubated and appears to be unconscious.
"They made me a spot on the bed where I could lay with my son and talk to him," she said.
"This is where I told him I was still proud of him."
Michael lived for the last several years in the B.C. Interior, Kent told CBC News on Sunday, first with his father in Vernon, before moving recently to his sister's place in Kelowna.
The day before he overdosed, Kent said Michael and his sister were running errands when they ran into a man they'd met a few weeks earlier who offered Michael drugs, which his sister forced him to decline.
The next day, however, while his sister was taking a nap, Kent says Michael left the house to meet up with the man once again.
VIDEO | How to use a naloxone kit for a fentanyl overdose
"They went to the store just down the street from where my son was living and this gentleman had told my son he had some really strong heroin," she said.
The pair took the drugs in the store's bathroom, with Michael overdosing.
Sherri Kent with her son, Michael, at a happier time. Michael died of a suspected fentanyl overdose in March. (Facebook)
"[The other man] got all sketched out and messed up and left my son in the washroom," she said.
"About 20 minutes later, he was too scared to go back and check on my son … so he ran for the people who own the store to unlock the door and that's when they found him. He was already blue in the lips. By the time the ambulance got there he was in cardiac arrest."
Michael was rushed to hospital where he was placed on life support. Kent drove there to be with him and Michael was taken off life support and died in hospital on March 21, one week after overdosing. Kent also made the choice for Michael to be an organ donor, helping five other people.
Calgary mom broken over son's fentanyl overdose 0:39
"It was one of the hardest things I've ever had to deal with in my life," she said. "Believe me, it was the worst days of my life."
Kent believes the overdose happened after a period in which her son had abstained from drug use, other than marijuana, for four months.
The results of toxicology tests are still pending, but Kent says doctors told her Michael's death was likely the result of a fentanyl overdose because of the number of cases being reported.
Making naloxone kits readily available — a drug that can be injected to temporarily reverse an overdose of fentanyl or other opioids — will help reduce the number of deaths, Kent said.
Sherri Kent shared a photo of her lying beside her dying son, Michael, because she hopes it will steer others away from using fentanyl. (Mike Symington/CBC)
"I recommend anybody who has friends or anybody that does do drugs to get one of these," she said. "They give you the time you need to get medical help."
Kent described her son as a kind and trusting person.
"He was friendly to a fault," she said. "It didn't matter who you were or what you were, or where you lived, Michael had a compassion for everybody, he'd give you the shirt off his back, he was that type of child."In 2006, it seemed that the Final Fantasy series had found its next evolution in Final Fantasy XII. After long years of development, Final Fantasy XII for the PlayStation 2 offered what looked like the next single-player experience for the series. It had open environments, a political story, and played like an offline MMO. We know now this supposed evolution was not to be. Final Fantasy XIII went in entirely the opposite direction with mostly linear corridors and a heavily scripted experience. Even this evolution was largely ignored, being passed over for the fully action RPG approach being taken for the upcoming Final Fantasy XV. The Final Fantasy series has yet to fully reinvent itself and has become lost in various experiments.
But perhaps Square Enix gave up on the Final Fantasy XII style too early. Final Fantasy XII in a lot of ways was the experiment that worked best. They did not understand just how ahead of its time the game was when they decided to stumble forward into other design dead-ends. With Square Enix recently announcing an HD remaster of the game titled Final Fantasy XII: The Zodiac Age, it seems this is the perfect time to go back a decade and examine the game that offered a path that Final Fantasy could have taken.
Battle System
In Final Fantasy XII, the decades-old series staple of random encounters transitioning into battle screens was replaced by an open, sprawling experience where you could see your enemy in the distance and choose to engage them or not. This system was nicknamed the “Active Dimension Battle” system. Combat was no longer placed on set rows with the party trading |
for ensuring the Obamacare exchange web sites functioned as promised. (We all know that buck stops long before it arrives at the Oval Office.)
The Lesson of Monday: Obama Doesn’t Know What to Do Yet, So He’s Spinning
Unfortunately for those Americans who are really interested in signing up on the exchange sites, he glossed over the depth and breadth of the current troubles, giving a speech that sounded more like a State of the Union address with small-business examples and reading letters written to the White House.
Howard Kurtz:
Obama’s speech yesterday was not the mea culpa some had predicted. He vowed to fix what he called “kinks” in the system, but generally delivered an upbeat defense of the program.
As liberal Washington Post blogger Ezra Klein tweeted in mid-address, “So far, this seems weirdly similar to the speech Obama would’ve given if the exchanges were working fine.”
But they’re not working fine, and White House reporters pressed Jay Carney aggressively about what the president knew, when he knew it and whether the administration owes the country an apology. (During the shutdown, you’ll recall, the press corps didn’t ask the president a single Obamacare question at a news conference.)
The New York Times, which has been doing solid reporting on Obamacare’s problems, dropped this latest bomb: “Federal contractors have identified most of the main problems crippling President Obama’s online health insurance marketplace, but the administration has been slow to issue orders for fixing those flaws, and some contractors worry that the system may be weeks away from operating smoothly, people close to the project say.”
The editors of USA Today are unimpressed:
You can’t help but wonder: Where was all this frantic effort in the three-and-a-half years from the time Obama signed the health law to the day the exchanges opened on Oct. 1? Because that might have helped avoid the unforced error that is raising doubts about the administration’s ability to manage other pieces of the complex law...
Denial and evasion haven’t worked, so the administration seems finally to be trying a smidgeon of candor. The person most visibly in charge of the mess, Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius, told The Wall Street Journal last week that the system needed five years of construction and a year of testing, but instead got “two years and almost no testing.”
Really? There were no such warnings in advance, suggesting she wasn’t on top of the situation.
On Monday, Obama argued that the dysfunctional websites are the equivalent of broken cash registers in a store filled with appealing goods. Once they’re fixed, shoppers will be happy.
So far, there’s no way to know whether he’s right because the administration remains mostly clammed up. It won’t say how many people have enrolled. It won’t fully detail the problems. And it hasn’t identified key subcontractors who botched the $400 million start-up, or the team brought in for repairs.
Of course they’re going to clam up. This is an administration whose entire national-security team went along with blaming a terror attack on September 11, 2012, on a YouTube video for a couple of days. They’ve more or less managed to wait out the IRS scandal, the NSA scandal, Fast and Furious, the Department of Justice targeting AP reporters and James Rosen, Attorney General Eric Holder’s potential perjury, James Clapper’s potential perjury, and every other scandal that’s come down the pike.
Obama has never encountered a problem he couldn’t spin or distract his way out of: Jeremiah Wright, the crappy data on stimulus.gov (bit of foreshadowing, huh?), the runaway spending of the General Services Administration’s luxurious conferences, Solyndra, Lisa Jackson’s “Richard Windsor” secret identity...
Obama’s never had to say, “My team and I screwed up, and I’m sorry.”
When Obama didn’t downplay, problems, he ignored them.
For the vast majority of Americans — for 85 percent of Americans who already have health insurance through your employer or Medicare or Medicaid — you don’t need to sign up for coverage through a website at all. You’ve already got coverage. What the Affordable Care Act does for you is to provide you with new benefits and protections that have been in place for some time. You may not know it, but you’re already benefiting from these provisions in the law.
Absolutely no acknowledgement of developments like this:
Health plans are sending hundreds of thousands of cancellation letters to people who buy their own coverage, frustrating some consumers who want to keep what they have and forcing others to buy more costly policies.... Florida Blue, for example, is terminating about 300,000 policies, about 80 percent of its individual policies in the state. Kaiser Permanente in California has sent notices to 160,000 people — about half of its individual business in the state. Insurer Highmark in Pittsburgh is dropping about 20 percent of its individual market customers, while Independence Blue Cross, the major insurer in Philadelphia, is dropping about 45 percent.
The twin promises, “If you like your plan you can keep your plan; if you like your doctor, you can keep your doctor” were key to passing this monstrosity. If Obama had said, “Some of you will be forced to give up your current plan and your current doctor,” this thing never would have gotten 200 votes in the House.
But there’s nothing Obama can say on that without admitting he made a promise he couldn’t keep. (“It reached its expiration date.” — the 2009 version of me.) So he’s just going to try to wait it out, and hope that the new tech guys can work a miracle.Something I’ve noticed as I’ve gotten more and more into my training as an athlete is that I have a tendency to make some fairly unladylike noises when I’m really getting after it. I noticed this first when I broke 1:45 in the half marathon earlier this year. When I picked up the pace in my last mile, I was groaning audibly with each stride. I’m sure I sounded like a bullfrog in heat, but I couldn’t help it – it just happened. It also happens when I push myself in the weight room. On Sunday, I was finishing this crazy-pants workout that included ten sets of ten pushups, and for maybe the last fifteen of them, I was grunting from the exertion. Sometimes the audible grunts actually help me exert more power than I would have otherwise had I stayed silent. I doubt my bar would have come off the floor when I tried to deadlift 135 pounds last week had I not made some noise while trying to make it happen.
It occurred to me once while I was groaning my way through a set of bench presses that I was making these guttural, almost animal noises in front of several strange men, which is not something I’m in the habit of doing. As I thought about it some more, I realized that I’m not really in the habit of hearing any women make noises like this, in the weight room or otherwise. On the other hand, I’m pretty sure I’ve heard almost all of the men who are regulars at my gym make noise while lifting, and sometimes they get incredibly loud, too. If any of them have been told that proper gentlemen don’t grunt like rutting boars while bench pressing, it certainly hasn’t seem to have taken root in their minds.
It didn’t really bother me or cause me to change my behavior, which is not surprising, seeing as though I have no compunction about spitting or shooting snot rockets while I’m running. (Yes, this is gross. I am aware.) Despite all of the imploring I received as a young girl to act more “ladylike,” I still find myself behaving in ways that would appall whoever decided on the Official Standards of Ladyhood back in the 1800s. Instead, I made a mental note of the curious ways in which gender norms burrow themselves into even the tiniest, most seemingly inconsequential aspects of our lives, and then I moved on.
But alas, the rest of the world has a way of dragging me back to those gender norms and pushing them right in my face. This time, it’s the Women’s Tennis Association and their newly-announced plan to curtail the ‘excessive’ grunting of female players. Everyone is weighing in on this, including former tennis players like Billie Jean King and Martina Navratilova (who see nothing wrong with the plan) to bloggers at Jezebel and Bloomer Girls (who say the plan is sexist).
First, let me admit that the first reaction I had was, “Fine, maybe it will put an end to all of the bitching about the women and their yelping.” It feels like almost every conversation that has taken place about women’s tennis in recent years has made some comment on the noises some of the players make when they hit the ball. So there’s part of me that’s so over this conversation and so ready to move on that I think, OKAY FINE DO IT ALREADY AND SHUT UPPPPP.
And here’s another admission – I also find some of those noises pretty damn annoying. My husband is a big tennis fan so we watch a lot of the Grand Slams, both for men and women, and some of the women really do get very loud, to the point where I almost start laughing, it’s so ridiculous. That said, guess what else I find annoying? I find it annoying when Tiger Woods has pouty-boy temper tantrums on the green. I find it annoying when Rafael Nadal spends half his time on the court excavating his shorts from his butt cheeks. I find it annoying when ball players spit ribbons of tobacco juice. A post at the Jane Dough reminded me about the wretched invention known as the vuvuzuela, which is just one of many obnoxious noisemakers gifted upon the world by sports fan culture. And I’m sure there are people out there who find it revolting that I spit when I run. But just because something is annoying to me doesn’t mean it necessarily ought to be banned from sport.
But I’m not so much interested in whether or not this debate is sexist – that ground has been well-trod already by many an intelligent lady, and really, unless they are administering a similar noise limit for the men, I don’t see how anyone could claim it isn’t. What I’m really interested in is why so many people find the sounds of a woman making guttural noises during physical activity to be so viscerally repugnant. A reader sent me the link to a post by Katy Waldman at Double XX, in which she lays out the answer in three big, blinking letters: SEX.
If female players sounding their barbaric yawps on the Wimbledon green prove sooo distracting, perhaps the better question is: Why?…Because of sex. A woman grunting on the tennis court sounds like she’s having a baby or having sex. And not very ladylike sex—primal, bestial, no-holds-barred sex, the kind that stodgy Wimbledon-goers are loathe to imagine in their country club.
This actually holds up with my observations of some online communities, where people have compared the sounds of a women’s tennis match to the sounds of porn. (In which case, I’m wondering what kind of porn exactly are they acquainted with? One that involves whistles and applause and color commentary? Intriguing.) I actually thought about that while bench-pressing once, that oh my god, those guys probably think these are my sex noises, and I immediately felt ashamed and embarrassed. The reality is that most likely the men around me were way too involved in their own lifts to pay me any mind, but I’m also being honest when I say that this precise thought crossed my mind.
(Edited to add that a [deleted] comment from a classy individual just further served to make this point by asking why she doesn’t “get a job in a cathouse” if she’s so anxious to grunt. Thanks for making my point for me, Mr. Drive-by Dudebro!)
This is how thoroughly we women have been sexualized, that we cannot make the kind of noises that come with physical exertion without it being associated with sex. In fact, everything about our bodies has been sexualized in one way or another. If we groan during sport or we breast-feed in public, we are criticized for making people think about sex. If we talk openly about things like menstruation and poop and farts, then we are criticized for making people not want to think about sex.
Think about what it means to be ladylike and all of the adjectives that go along with it: elegant, cultured, classy, sophisticated. To be successful at being feminine means being successful at being private, keeping your body’s natural functions behind closed doors and never letting anyone know they exist. It means to be constrained, that you do not let your legs spread wide in public transportation and you do not make noises that are harsh on the ears. It means presenting a polished, shiny surface to the world at all times, one that allows others to project whatever they wish onto you while never showing too much of your true self.
A woman who grunts…well, that is about as unladylike as it gets, don’t you think? She’s not caring too much about her self-presentation, she’s not absorbed with presenting a classy front, she’s letting the world see that she is engaged deeply with hard, physical labor. And really, as Waldman notes, we don’t really have any cultural space for female expressions of physical exertion outside of sex and childbirth. Consequently it seems weird and disconcerting when it does actually happen. I mean, even I noticed when I was making those kind of noises in public and I felt awkward about it, and I should know better!
Women have done such a good job of embracing the strictures of femininity that our adherence is held up as proof of our innate nature, like we aren’t capable of making ugly, weird noises as a matter of biology or something equally silly. And then when we actually do find ourselves making ugly, weird noises during sport or working out, observers can’t possibly imagine that this is how our bodies and minds actually work. No, we must be doing it on purpose with the intent of being distracting and – gasp! – cheating.
The sports world is already on high alert for any sign of female athletes exerting “unfair” advantages over their competitors by failing to be adequately feminine. Women are already considered suspect if they are too strong or too fast or too tall or have voices that are too deep. Female athletes are already facing all kinds of artificially imposed limits on the size of their muscles (as in bodybuilding competitions) and their natural hormonal levels (as with the International Olympic Committee’s recent sex testing standards). Now, it looks like we can add “making too much noise” to the things female athletes have to worry about.
AdvertisementsStephan Jukic – February 13, 2015
Now that 4K TVs are becoming more the rage every passing month and start to take up the majority of the factory floor space of their manufacturers, they’re also pushing aside the previous king of the home entertainment pile, the HDTV.
They’re not quite there yet and most of the TVs in any big electronics store are still only HD sets but at least the manufacturers are gearing up for majority UHD development –LG alone predicts that 60% or more of its new TVs in 2015 will be 4K models.
As is often the case when a new technology starts to really supersede an older one, the 4K movement means some excellent deals and overall lower prices for HDTV sets across the board.
It’s a safe bet that many sellers and manufacturers will practically be giving away their HD televisions, especially in the next couple years as 4K TV production really ramps up to full volume.
At this year’s CES, for example, not one of the big brands in TV technology showcased a single new 1080p HD TV. The entire show (as far as TVs went) was about 4K and anything that relates to 4K in some way.
Because of this, as of 2015 and into 2016 and beyond, you should easily be able to find some truly excellent discounts on even the best HDTV sets that you’ve always possibly wanted but didn’t quite want to splurge on.
And there will also be some great TVs with great coming out too, even if the 4K models offer the best specs of all. For example, Roku has announced that it will definitely be including al of its new and existing streaming technologies in a whole range of 2015 HDTVs. The same goes for many of the other content providers out there.
Furthermore, many of the same smart TV features and other software entertainment apps will be just as available in HD models as in 4K versions, so aside from the lower resolution and a few other things we’ll get to in a moment, you’ll be getting much of the same quality as your 4K owning counterparts in a much more affordable form.
Even more enticing is the fact that formerly cutting edge HDTV features that once cost a fortune will now be cheaper than ever. So if you always wanted one of LG’s expensive HD OLED TVs in your living room, it’s soon going to be a great time to go for it as the 4K line of LG OLED models eclipses its HD predecessors.
Then there is also the content issue offsetting the benefits of 4K TVs: 4K content is still quite a ways from being extremely practical and common and even the biggest sources of it, the streaming services like Netflix, require levels of high-speed internet connectivity that a majority of homes don’t have. Thus, even most 4K TV owners will still be doing most of their content viewing in HD, even if it is slightly improved HD thanks to 4K TVs’ internal “upscaling” engines.
In other words, getting that now cheaper new HDTV that you always wanted comes with surprisingly few downsides relative to going for 4K ultra HD technology right now.
However, there is one drawback of sticking with HDTV, even if you buy the newest model on the market: The really innovative new display technology that’s coming out this year is almost exclusively being reserved for the manufacturers’ 4K models.
So, if you’re interested in new developments like quantum dots, more advanced OLED panels, extraordinary thinness and High Dynamic Range, you’ll only be able to get a taste of them with a 4K ultra HD television.
Story by 4k.comPresident Obama’s budget, to be released next week, will limit how much wealthy individuals – like Mitt Romney – can keep in IRAs and other retirement accounts.
The proposal would save around $9 billion over a decade, a senior administration official said, while also bringing more fairness to the tax code.
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The senior administration official said that wealthy taxpayers can currently “accumulate many millions of dollars in these accounts, substantially more than is needed to fund reasonable levels of retirement saving.”
Under the plan, a taxpayer’s tax-preferred retirement account, like an IRA, could not finance more than $205,000 per year of retirement – or right around $3 million this year.
Romney, Obama’s 2012 opponent, had an IRA several to many times that amount, leading to questions about how the former Massachusetts governor was able to squirrel away so much money in that sort of retirement account.
More from The Hill
• Right, left pan Obama budget plan
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• FAA delays air tower closures until June
The president’s budget, expected Wednesday, has several revenue-raising proposals that come as Democrats and Republicans continue to spar over whether more tax increases are needed to reduce deficits.
Obama’s framework also includes higher taxes on cigarettes, as a way to pay for expanded access to pre-kindergarten. Congressional tax writers in both parties and both chambers are currently examining the code in hopes of a broad tax-reform package.If the moon is up, there’s a good chance Joseph Taylor is on his ham radio, using a homemade antenna in his backyard to bounce signals off the moon’s pockmarked face. It’s a skill Taylor began cultivating in 2003, shortly before he retired from Princeton University, where he used radio waves to probe the secrets of pulsars, the spinning, magnetized neutron stars that emit bursts of radiation with clocklike regularity.
The work earned Taylor and his Princeton colleague Russell Hulse the Nobel Prize in physics in 1993, for detecting a new kind of pulsar that shed light on the nature of gravity. In his Nobel lecture, Taylor said that scientific goals motivated him, but so did his affinity for “a good intellectual puzzle, and the quiet satisfaction of finding a clever solution.”
The same attitude has driven Taylor, now 74, to spend his retirement moon bouncing. “It’s possible, but it’s difficult,” he says. “If youWhether or not religion is dying is one of those questions adored by both fans and foes of religion alike, and now they have a new study on that very question. But before either group starts popping any Champaign corks, they should take note. The study, conducted by scholars from the University of Arizona and Northwestern University, and presented at a meeting of the American Physical Society suggests that religion may be dying in nine countries. The study projects the extinction of religion in Australia, Austria, the Czech Republic, Canada, Finland, Ireland, New Zealand, the Netherlands and Switzerland.
While not studied, the trend line in the United States has been interpreted in similar ways by other scholars, most recently because of polling conducted for the American Religious Identification Survey, in which the fastest growing religious group in America was the “nones” i.e., people indicating that none of the categories offered by the study fit how they would describe themselves when it came to religion.
Before religion foes begin celebrating however, it’s worth noting that these studies make a giant conceptual error – one which confuses the death of religion with the end of religion and religious affiliation as we know them. There is plenty of evidence for the latter two phenomena, but the fact that people are doing religion differently doesn’t mean that religion is going extinct.
These trends forecast the eventual extinction of the current array of religious options, but do not forecast the extinction of what might be termed a religious sensibility, which already exists for many people independent of typical religious categories. The trend may upset those of us who are attached to particular traditions and institutions because those really might die out, but there is even reason for us to take heart.
None of our faiths has been here forever, and according to most of them, each is an improvement over what preceded them, so it’s likely that if these traditions should actually die out, they too will be replaced by potentially superior alternatives. I am not a super-sessionist who believes that whatever comes last is best. I am simply suggesting that if religion as we know it does go extinct, there is reason to believe that it will be replaced by religion as we do not know it yet, and that it may well be an improvement over the versions we currently have.
Of course, even if that process is unfolding, it will be, like most evolutionary processes, quite slow, so nobody reading this is likely to confront the actual death of the tradition to which they are currently attached.
Also worth noting is that while traditional religious affiliation and attachment is declining in some parts of the world – the northern and western regions of the planet, it is clearly on the rise in points south and east, such as Africa and China. Could these shifts be part of a much larger trend?
It may be that in all of these places, both where religion is in decline and where it is on the rise, what’s happening is that people are insisting on the expansion of those options which have defined their spiritual and religious possibilities until now.
The real story emerging here is not the potential extinction of religion, but the explosion of choice which people increasingly feel is their right. This seems to be a trend which affirms human dignity – something which is supposed to be sacred for religionists and non-religionists alike —and therefore worthy of celebration.
As the study’s authors’ observe, “The model predicts that for societies in which the perceived utility of not adhering is greater than the utility of adhering, religion will be driven toward extinction.” Isn’t that how it ought to be?
No faith can succeed if it does not work in the lives of the faithful. This study just reminds us, particularly those of us connected to organized faith traditions, that we must never lose sight of that fact, and if we do, we probably deserve to go extinct anyway.
Brad Hirschfield is the author of "You Don’t Have to Be Wrong for Me to Be Right: Finding Faith Without Fanaticism," and president of Clal-The National Jewish Center for Learning and Leadership.Washington
I shall be honest with you. Let me be frank. I am worried about the Clintons.
They are that magical couple about whom most of Washington’s commentariat have been in agreement ever since John F. Harris wrote his definitive book, The Survivor. In that 2005 book he wrote that the Clintons have been “the two most important political figures of their generation.” The pundits believed this throughout the 1990s, when Bill Clinton was impeached and both Clintons were linked to one scandal after another. The pundits believed it too throughout the 2000s, when the Clintons were making millions in dubious undertakings. And they even believed it in recent years: in the months leading up to the 2008 nomination, when Hillary lost to a community organizer; and in the years 2015 and 2016, when she lost again, this time to a man who never held political office. Yet now I am really worried about the Clintons, and I have never been what you might call a big fan.
Start with Bill. He is losing his hair and possibly his teeth. He looks like mere skin and bones. He has not been seen at his old haunts for a long time — my agents have been on the lookout. At first I thought Bill might be patching things up with Monica. One never knows. I always thought they made a cute couple, or rather I imagined them to make a cute couple. I really never saw them together except on a rope line, she wearing a chic beret, he, a tie that later became property of the Independent Counsel, if memory serves. Now she is the CEO of an anti-bullying camorra, which might serve as a front for Bill if his foundation ever runs aground. Would Hillary object if Bill were to raise money for Monica’s group? I cannot imagine it, especially if Hillary were to get a cut of the take.
Yet this is mere speculation on my part. What we do know is that Bill has been out of the headlines for months, and when an energetic paparazzo does snap a picture of him he is no longer wearing those snazzy gym shorts of his White House days or munching on a greasy Big Mac. When we see him now he looks like he could use a walker. Obviously recreational sex is not as salubrious as the therapist Hugh Hefner told us in the 1960s. Think of today’s woebegone Bill Cosby, disporting in yesteryear at the Playboy mansion.
As for Hillary Clinton, she is not holding up well at all. I thought she would have been a gracious loser. After all, as I have alluded to, she is not unfamiliar with losing and losing to a relative political newcomer to boot. Why could she not say, “Well done, Donald?” Or, “Serve the country well.” Or, “Call on me anytime.” Or, “Perhaps in 2020 we will nominate a younger candidate, say Elizabeth Warren, or why not Chelsea?”
There are a lot of possibilities out there among the Democrats and many, like Hillary, come from the misandry wing of the party. Dear reader, you do not know what misandry means? Well, if you know what misogyny means — a person who hates women — you ought to know what its opposite is. Its opposite is misandry — a person who hates men. Anyone familiar with Hillary’s top ten reasons why she lost to Donald Trump has heard her use the word “misogyny.”
Recently speaking to a credulous gathering of distraught supporters, Hillary explained that along with such enormities as the Russians, James Comey, “voter suppression,” and “unaccountable money flowing in against me,” there was “misogyny.” The misandry wing of the Democratic Party is increasingly making its voice heard, and in the last election Hillary spoke for all of them.
Of course, I guess, that Hillary has good reason to hate men. Yet not every woman in America comes with a Bill Clinton problem or an Anthony Weiner problem, a John Edwards problem, or an Eliot Spitzer problem, or a Gary Hart problem and, forget not, Teddy Kennedy, a VERY big problem. There is adultery in both parties, but in Hillary’s party it is rampant, and with it comes a lot of misandry.
Yet, as I say, now I am concerned for both Clintons and even Chelsea. Chelsea seems to think that she has, in her genetic endowment, Bill’s gene for politics. Chelsea, if I may call you Chelsea, ignore this temptation. You are your mother’s child. You have her charm, her gift for couture, and so forth and so on. Also you are fantasizing along with your parents that American politics has not changed. It has. When Donald Trump beat Hillary he opened up a whole new chapter in American political life. Bill and Hillary, your time has come and gone. Retire to a health spa. To lift a line from the Meyer Lansky stand-in used in The Godfather Part II, “good health is the most important thing… more important than money… more important than power.”
All along, Lansky would have been an appropriate mentor for the Clintons.Luke Shaw joined Manchester United from Southampton in the summer
Manchester United defender Luke Shaw has sustained an ankle ligament injury, but will only be out for a "few weeks", according to manager Louis van Gaal.
Some reports suggested the 19-year-old would be out for as long as six weeks with the injury picked up in Saturday's 2-1 Premier League win at Arsenal.
"There are no serious complications," said Van Gaal.
"He has sustained an ankle ligament injury. He will be out for the next few weeks because of this."
He added: "Last time I said something about injuries it was not interpreted so well. So, Manchester United Twitter, pay attention."
Van Gaal was referring to the confusion surrounding the injury to midfielder Daley Blind, who last week was thought to be out for six months with a knee injury after a tweet by the club's official account.
The Dutchman. who later clarified that his compatriot would spend six to eight weeks on the sidelines, said on Friday: "I gave Blind a holiday and he came back on Monday.
"He has to exercise and practise every day as an injured player has to train more than the fit players."
The United boss also confirmed that striker Radamel Falcao, who has not played since 20 October, and defender Marcus Rojo, who has missed four weeks, could feature in Saturday's Premier League game against Hull City at Old Trafford.
Van Gaal on United's injuries
Falcao is on loan at Manchester United from French club Monaco
Falcao, who has not completed a full 90 minutes since joining United in September, is returning from a calf problem, while Rojo dislocated his shoulder in the defeat by Manchester City.
Their availability eases an injury list that includes Shaw, Blind, defenders Rafael, Phil Jones and Jonny Evans and midfielder Jesse Lingard.
"We have to wait and see until the last training session of course. It's always difficult to say but we have good news, yes.
"Maybe Falcao can come back in the 18, maybe Rojo can come back in the 18. That's it."
Van Gaal on the top four
United climbed into the top four for the first time this season with last weekend's 2-1 win at Arsenal.
"We are still fourth so I am happy but we have to be at least fourth in the end of the season and not now.
"Now is not so important. We have to improve our playing style and beat our opponents more easily."
Van Gaal on Bruce
Saturday's meeting with Hull sees Van Gaal take on City boss Steve Bruce, who won three Premier League titles as a United player.
The game at Old Trafford will be Bruce's 700th as a manager.
"I have seen Bruce playing at Manchester United. He was very firm, a leader. Players who are leaders often become a manager and he is."0
When Steven Soderbergh quit filmmaking for (approximately) two and a half years, he made an interesting comment about wanting to direct big-budget projects. Soderbergh, a proven box-office draw with his Ocean’s Eleven franchise, has often been called in to discuss big action spectacles and sci-fi adventures, but he’s never been handed the reins, largely because of the control over creative decisions and editing which producers and studios require for all big-budget projects. This wouldn’t be such a problem if it wasn’t clear that many producers and higher-ups at studios have absolutely no interest in genuine creativity, artistic ambition, or even movies in general. Money and fame, on the other hand, they know quite a bit about, but even then, not as much as people in those chairs should.
So, it was at once a disappointment and not a huge surprise that, according to The Playlist, Soderbergh, following a screening of Haywire and a Q&A at Brooklyn’s Nitehawk Theaters, admitted that he had been approached to helm a James Bond movie. In fact, they asked him about it twice. Here’s what he said exactly:
“Over the years, I’ve been in conversations…I’ve been approached twice about doing a Bond film. And it never quite got anywhere. And [‘Haywire’] in some ways, was my opportunity to do what I would do with a Bond movie.”
If that’s the case, can someone please, pretty please, let him direct the new one? Haywire is, without a doubt, one of the ten best action films to be released this decade, decked out with sublime transitions, a fantastic cast, and some of the best fight scenes to ever be put to film, even in the age of The Raid. And look, I get it, it’s really important that James Bond movies be just exciting enough to not to put me to sleep, in the name of the franchise’s unconvincing classiness, but c’mon!
Soderbergh went on to talk about his attempts to make a Haywire sequel, and even a Haywire TV show, but that neither developed that far because the world is a cold, horrible place. He also discussed how getting “fired” from Moneyball – which still turned out to be a pretty great movie – led him to scramble to find a new project, which turned out to be Haywire, after being inspired by seeing Gina Carano fight in an MMA match. Finally, he spoke about his long-gestating director’s cut of Kafka, his largely unseen fictional whatsit that stars Jeremy Irons as the famed author. The film is likely to be released by The Criterion Collection when it’s finished, but Soderbergh is still working on it. In fact, he seems to be always working on something, which is good for us dedicated cinephiles and fans of thoughtful TV. Here’s what he had to say about Kafka:The inhabitants of Cottbus, Germany have criticized the transfer of American tanks through their city. While speaking with Rundfunk Berlin-Brandenburg radio station, they called the move a "provocation" and demanded an end to the confrontation with Russia.
© REUTERS / Fabian Bimmer Germany Counts Cost of Biggest US Military Shipment to Europe Since Cold War
One of the city's residents noted that tanks going to the East "horrified him" and reminded him of his childhood when columns of German soldiers moved towards the western border of the USSR.
He believed that Warsaw's statements about Moscow's possible "aggression" are "clearly exaggerated."
"I do not believe that Russia would attack Poland," the man told the radio station.
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The US tanks have been transported toward Polen today as well. Here at Cottbus train station.
Another respondent said that Germany hasn't even tried to maintain dialogue with Russia. He said that the military build-up near the Russian border is "wrong" and called it a "provocation."
Another Cottbus resident demanded that Germany's "so-called friends" should "get out" of German territory.
"I do not know how long Putin will just watch all this. We must develop a friendly dialogue. We do not need a confrontation," the man said.
Wenn Ami-Panzer von Deutschland durch Polen auf Russland rollen, interessiert das keinen. Aber wehe, w. Russland das umgekehrt machen würde. — Garion Coyote (@GarionCoyote) 12 января 2017 г.
No one is interested when American tanks are moving from Germany through Poland to Russia. But what if Russia would do it visa versa.
@weidenkatzl @puffyka81 2000 Panzer und 5000 Soldaten aus den USA über Deutschland an die russische Grenze!!
Der totale Wahnsinn!!! — Horst Hövels (@HovelsHorst) 26 декабря 2016 г.
2,000 tanks and 5,000 soldiers from the USA via Germany to the Russian border!! A total madness!!!
Ob die 2000 US-Panzer in Deutschland GEGEN Russland oder GEGEN Deutschland stationiert werden…werden wir bald sehen. pic.twitter.com/MLY0tLhlEV — DerDerDaIst (@aotto1968_2) 17 декабря 2016 г.
We soon will see whether the 2000 US tanks stationed in Germany are AGAINST Russia or AGAINST Germany…
On January 6, 87 Abrams M1A1 tanks, 20 Paladin artillery vehicles and 136 Bradley fighting vehicles arrived in the German port of Bremerhaven. The United States also plans to deploy 50 Black Hawk, 10 CH-47 Chinook and 24 Apache helicopters, as well as 2,200 personnel. The newly-arrived military equipment will be distributed across Bulgaria, Estonia, Germany, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland and Romania for training, exercises and maintenance.
As a pretext for its military build-up in Eastern Europe, the US has used claims of alleged Russian military interference in Ukraine, which Russia has repeatedly denied. The military equipment is supposed to be a part of NATO's mission to contain alleged "Russian aggression" against Baltic States and Eastern European countries.Writers on the Range I have a lot in common with the Bundys. Here’s what I’d like to say to them.
Like the Bundy brothers now illegally occupying the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge near Burns, Oregon, I |
placed players who saw at least one game at the position in 2016.
*Quiet, musicians of the baseball world. I know there’s a decent chance that a ringer exists or that the orchestra would simply proceed without the oboist. The fact that the very idea of this happening in a professional orchestra is so ludicrous only makes this better, because in how many forms of entertainment other than baseball can people be so out of place?
Pitcher: Miguel Montero
Of all the times a position player took the mound in 2016, none looked quite as odd as catcher Miguel Montero. Sure, others like Ruben Tejada ended up with worse numbers, but unless Jumbo Diaz is around it’s rare for a guy as stocky as Montero to pitch.
No one can ever question Montero’s desire to play. After Willson Contreras was called up, Montero's playing time dwindled as the Cubs didn't have enough starts to go around with David Ross also in the mix. Even though Montero's performance had declined, he was disappointed.
This July 3 game may have symbolized Montero’s frustration. Ross got the start behind the plate and Joe Maddon used Contreras in left field. The Mets rocked Jon Lester, and with the score 11-1 in the sixth Maddon waved the white flag. This is typically when the backup catcher goes in to give the starter a rest. Contreras had started 13 of the last 14 games, with eight coming at catcher. It would have been a reasonable time for Maddon to give Montero a chance.
No dice. Contreras simply moved to catcher, with Matt Szczur taking his place in the outfield. Maybe when Maddon asked for a position player volunteer to pitch, an exasperated Montero sarcastically said, “Well it’s probably my only chance to play at this point.”
So there he was for an inning-and-a-third, working out of Joel Peralta’s jam and facing Jacob deGrom in an elusive position player pitching vs. pitcher pinch-hitting matchup (Montero won by inducing a fly ball). Sure, he gave up a run when the Mets pieced together four hits in the eighth, but he did his job. Perhaps at the moment Montero finished the eighth, it briefly encouraged Maddon to give a start to the man who saved the bullpen.
Then Contreras led off the ninth with a bomb to left field. He started the next day. Montero was on the bench.
Catcher: Juan Graterol
There can be feel-good stories on the All Out-of-Position Team, particularly since all of the MLB catchers this year were actually catchers. I’m sure Juan Graterol is a lovely guy, but he's not really a major league-caliber catcher. And yet …
Way back in September of 2005—still the Allard Baird era—the Royals signed Graterol as a 16-year-old out of Venezuela. Before long, it was clear that he was pretty much a non-prospect. He spent six years in the lowest levels of the minors, at one point almost splitting what limited time he had between first base and catcher.
By the end of 2011 he'd yet to play more than a couple months above Low-A despite being 22 and had just finished a dismal season in which he hit.195/.255/.235 in 58 games. There would have been no shame in throwing in the towel. Graterol decided to persevere, and he was rewarded with a.301/.338/.393 season at High-A in 2012.
It was still a long way to the majors, though. Graterol hit minor-league free agency after 2014, and at age 25 he only had seven Triple-A games to his name. He joined the Yankees and became their organizational catcher, spending time in Charleston, Tampa, and Scranton. He was on the move again at the end of 2015, but so was a higher-up who liked Graterol.
Former Yankees executive Billy Eppler became the Angels’ general manager in October of 2015, and a few months later he invited Graterol to spring training. The team decided to stash him at Triple-A Salt Lake City, one step away from the majors. And after 11 years toiling in the minors, he caught a break.
Geovany Soto was placed on the DL with inflammation in his knee. He tried to come back a few times during the season to no avail. So that bumped Graterol up the depth chart and actually gave him a brief cameo with the Angels in July, though he did not appear in any games. With Soto still unavailable in September, Graterol was recalled to be the third catcher. It said more about the state of the Angels in 2016 that Graterol was a major leaguer, but it was true nonetheless:
"I even surprised myself," Graterol said. "I really made it. Wow. This is unbelievable."
Graterol’s first career at-bat was on September 2, 2016, about 11 years to the day that he signed with the Royals. He doubled off Arquimedes Caminero.
Baseball can be pretty cool sometimes.
First base: Brian McCann
The veteran catcher had played a little bit of first base before, so the position wasn't completely foreign territory when he made three appearances there for the Yankees. Given the fact that their first basemen were dropping like Hunger Games tributes in the first half, Joe Girardi appreciated any help he could get. Infield prospect Rob Refsnyder would have been a good pick for this nod too, since he had exactly zero games of minor league experience at first base before suddenly needing to make 21 big-league starts there in 2016.
McCann earned his spot here with one gem of a quote in spring training. After 2015 rookie/fan favorite Greg Bird was doomed to season-ending shoulder surgery in January, some folks had the idea that perhaps they could start Gary Sanchez at catcher and find a way to give McCann time behind the plate and at first base, where he could back up Mark Teixeira.
McCann shot that idea down pretty quickly with some brute honesty:
McCann sounded as enthused as a high schooler talking about homework when asked if he'd be open to trying the position out this season. "I don't think they want me over there … I don't think–I don't move too good. I don't think they want that."
Point taken.
Second base: Anthony Rizzo
Rizzo is an outstanding defensive first baseman and one of the best players in the game at that position. Maddon was confident enough in his abilities that he used Rizzo in more of a second base role on some bunt plays. Eventually, opponents complained, forcing Rizzo to have to actually switch gloves with the second baseman when Maddon wanted to use this shift.
So because Rizzo had to change gloves, he was officially registered as a second baseman for one play. Give Maddon credit, as he used this strategy again in Game 1 of the Division Series. Anthony Rizzo is officially a postseason second baseman, too.
As seen in this clip, the gambit didn’t even hurt the Cubs at first base, where Javier Baez perfectly handled David Ross’ throw, nailing Conor Gillaspie on a pickoff. It was the Cubs’ year.
Third base: Jeff Francoeur
May we all live our lives like Jeff Francoeur playing the last inning of the year at the hot corner, where he had never played in 15 professional seasons.
Regular third baseman Martin Prado was Don Mattingly’s choice to manage the season finale, and he removed himself after two plate appearances. Derek Dietrich took two more while manning the position before Francoeur pinch-hit for him in a one-run game in the seventh. He struck out with runners on base, and rather than figuring out some other defensive alignment Francoeur just played the eighth inning at third base. Because why not? Meaningless baseball is fun.
Only one ball even went close to his vicinity in the inning:
No, that was nowhere near reachable, but good job, good effort by Frenchy.
Shortstop: Jose Altuve
Maybe this is actually too perfect and Jose Altuve can’t be out of place at a position that literally has “short” in its name. Regardless, Altuve is entrenched at second base and until this year, he had played precisely one game in his 10-year professional career at shortstop: one inning in 2010 with his Venezuelan winter league team.
An emergency situation popped up this year. On June 9 against the Rangers, Carlos Correa took an awkward final step to first base on a ground out and was forced to leave the game. It was the fifth inning of a 4-2 game, so manager A.J. Hinch had to feel like Altuve could legitimately play the position despite his inexperience. The Astros ended up losing by a score of 5-3 but it was no fault of Altuve, who smoothly handled both of his chances at shortstop.
Left field: Shelby Miller
April seems so carefree in hindsight, especially for Miller himself. Back on April 24, Miller had four bad starts under his belt, but no matter how poor they went they were just four starts. There was plenty of time left for him and the Diamondbacks to turn it around!
On that day, Arizona played a tense 13-inning game against the Pirates that saw the teams combine to use an incredible 43 players. The Diamondbacks staged a rally off the Pirates' bullpen, coming back from down four in the eighth to tie it up on a ninth-inning blast by Paul Goldschmidt. Pittsburgh briefly pulled ahead by the two in the 12th only to see Arizona tie it up again in an inning that included a pinch-hit appearance by Zack Greinke and Miller scoring the tying run as a pinch-runner.
Neftali Feliz stranded the winning run at third with a pair of strikeouts, and Arizona was forced to press on with a severely limited roster. So Miller ran out to left field to man the position, and to be fair he acquitted himself pretty well:
Not a bad play off the carom! It wasn’t Miller’s fault that Evan Marshall got smacked around for another two runs. The Diamondbacks went on to lose 12-10, as their last two batters were both pitchers who struck out as the tying run (Miller made the final out). If the whole pitching thing doesn’t work out, he can try to pass as a left fielder.
(Honorable mention to the times that Joe Maddon used the old Waxahachie Swap with Travis Wood, moving him to left field for a few batters, only to bring him back to the mound.)
Center field: Kris Bryant
Maddon did everything he could to get as many Cubs onto this team as possible. There are few better methods of clinching a spot than shoehorning your MVP third baseman into center.
Bryant did, in fact, make a handful of appearances there last year (even starting a game), but this still feels quite deserved given how much more prominent a name Bryant made for himself in 2016. He remained a team player through and through, so with both Jason Heyward and Albert Almora removed from the game against the Marlins on June 25, Maddon felt that his best outfield alignment was Bryant in center, Contreras in left, and Chris Coghlan in right.
As he does in all aspects of life, Mr. Steal Your Girl easily handled the challenge of center field. The nice running catch above was his only chance. Given how Maddon handles his players, it would not be a shock to see Bryant face chances there again in 2017. The only non-catcher/pitcher position he's yet to check off is second base, so perhaps that will be the 2017 All Out-of-Position Team favorite.
Right field: Mark Trumbo
Yes, Mark Trumbo led the American League in home runs and turned out to be an absolute steal for the Orioles on a one-year deal.
Yes, Mark Trumbo playing 95 games in right field allowed Buck Showalter to squeeze even more playing time from Chris Davis and Pedro Alvarez, who combined for 60 homers on their own.
No, Mark Trumbo playing the outfield will never not be funny.Ferrari’s defeat to Mercedes in both Formula 1 championships this year was down to a combination of “technical issues and driver error”, according to CEO and chairman Sergio Marchionne.
Ferrari entered 2017 hopeful of ending its eight-year championship drought, and made a strong start to the year after adapting well to the overhauled technical regulations for the new season.
Three victories in the opening six races saw Ferrari lead both championships after Monaco, with Sebastian Vettel retaining his advantage in the drivers’ standings through to the Italian Grand Prix in September.
Vettel’s hopes of winning a fifth world title faded across the course of the three Asian flyaways, with a first-lap crash in Singapore and a spark plug issue in Japan forcing two retirements. An engine problem also left Vettel last on the grid for Malaysia, costing him a chance of a victory.
Lewis Hamilton was crowned world champion for a fourth time in Mexico last weekend, wrapping up the title with two races to spare for Mercedes.
Ferrari chief Marchionne refused to put the title defeat down to misfortune, instead picking reliability and driver error as being the two costly weaknesses for the team, appearing to reference the clash between Vettel, Ferrari teammate Kimi Raikkonen and Red Bull’s Max Verstappen in Singapore.
“I don’t believe in bad luck. Ultimately it’s a reflection of the way in which we manage these businesses,” Marchionne said during a conference call with investors on Thursday.
“It was a combination of especially in the second half of the season between technical issues and driver error, or driver misjudgment.
“As we get close to the end of the season, we’ve now got two races left to complete. As you well know it’s impossible and it was almost an impossible task at the last race on Sunday to think that we could recover at least the drivers’ title.
“I think we’ve learned a lot. I think it’s a painful way of learning it. I think the second half revealed some structural weaknesses in the manner which we are managing this business, which are going to get rectified and hopefully 2018 will be a much better season.”
While Marchionne was disappointed to have seen Ferrari’s run without an F1 title extend into another year, he is encouraged by the team’s performance through 2017 ahead of a renewed championship bid next season.
“I remind everybody who asks me this question – and I’m probably the most critical of the way in which we manage our F1 activities – that if I’d asked anybody at this time last year as to how well we would have done in 2017, I couldn’t have gotten a buyer for the idea that we would be that far advanced in the first half of the season,” Marchionne said.
“So we have done well given our starting point. We were unable to finish the task. It’s a 2018 objective now.
“We regret not having done better, but the car is there. It is in my view probably the best car on the track today.”
Follow @LukeSmithF1This article comes to us courtesy of SF Weekly's The Snitch.
By Chris Roberts
San Francisco city officials indefinitely suspended the city's medical marijuana dispensary permitting program on Wednesday, according to the Department of Public Health.
Pending permits had been on hold since December, after a ruling in a state appeals court case halted similar permitting programs across California. That case was appealed to the state Supreme Court, and during the appeal, the city could resume processing permits, a spokesman for the City Attorney told SF Weekly last week.
But the city reversed its decision today. All medical cannabis dispensary permit applications are on hold indefinitely, according to Jim Soos, an assistant director of Policy and Planning with the city Department of Public Health, until the city can "receive assurance that it is in compliance with state and federal law."
DPH staff made the decision to put all permits on hold in consultation with the City Attorney's Office, which provides legal advice to all city departments, he said.
"We're waiting for more clarity from the state on our ability to issue permits," said Soos, who added that the federal Department of Justice's recent closure of five permitted dispensaries also weighed on the city's decision. "Until the Health Department can sort out the criteria driving the [Justice Department]'s actions, it will not be issuing permits."
A year ago, the city had 27 licensed dispensaries, with up to a dozen more applying for permits. Since then, five permitted San Francisco dispensaries have closed after receiving letters from Melinda Haag, the United States Attorney for the Northern District of California. The letters informed the dispensaries' landlords that they were in violation of federal law, and were subject to forfeiture of their property and up to 40 years in prison if the dispensaries didn't close.
Jack Gillund, a spokesman for Haag, said the office had no comment.
The city was among the first in California to begin issuing permits to medical cannabis dispensaries in 2005, after the Board of Supervisors passed the Medical Cannabis Act, legislation authored by then-Supervisor Ross Mirkarimi.
San Francisco's medical cannabis dispensary program had been on hold following a state court of appeals ruling on Pack vs. the City of Long Beach. The court ruling said that a city issuing permits for medical marijuana by itself was a violation of federal law.
The state Supreme Court said Wednesday it would hear an appeal on the case. During the appeal, permits could start being processed again, the City Attorney said last week. A spokesman for the City Attorney's office said earlier on Wednesday that that legal advice offered last week has not changed.
It is not immediately clear what influenced the city's change of heart. Matt Dorsey, a spokesman for City Attorney Dennis Herrera, said the office could not offer further comment, citing attorney-client privilege.
Sources inside the medical marijuana community are speculating that Haag's office may have threatened San Francisco city officials with a lawsuit, in a manner similar to threats of a lawsuit issued to Mendocino County over its permitting process. That permitting process was canceled Tuesday.
It is also unclear who will issue legal advice to San Francisco on its ability to issue permits. In a letter sent to lawmakers last year, Attorney General Kamala D. Harris said that the Legislature must offer more clarity on what the state's medical marijuana laws allowed. A spokesman for Harris was not able to immediately comment Wednesday when contacted by SF Weekly.View 3 Photos
Much to the Detroit Three's relief, Congress is not only en route to approving the $25 billion loans it authorized last year, they're doing it quickly. The House of Representatives passed the bill today in a landslide 370-58 vote. The Senate is expected to approve funding for the loans next week, and President Bush is expected to sign the bill into law.
The loans were approved as part of a much larger spending bill that will keep the government running until the next president introduces his budget next year and includes $7.5 billion to get the loan program started. The loans were actually authorized in December 2007, but not funded. They've been criticized as a bailout of the automotive industry, but backers don't see it that way.
"Some critics will call this loan package a bailout. It is not. These loans amount to a little more than one percent of the real bailout -- the one the Bush administration wants for Wall Street at a cost of $700 billion to taxpayers," said Representative John Dingell (D-MI). "The loans to the automakers will cost about $7 billion and will be repaid to the taxpayer at a profit. The auto direct-loan package is a good deal for auto workers and a good deal for taxpayers."
While the funding of the loans is a win for automakers, it's not as much as they were hoping for. Recently, lobbyists from the automotive industry have been trying to convince Congress to double the loans to $50 billion, but were unsuccessful. Failure to get the loans increased isn't a big surprise, though, as automakers conceded recently they'd be willing to settle for the original amount if it got the loans approved. Automakers were also hoping to get restrictions placed on the use of the loans loosened up, but failed to do so. As the bill is currently worded, the loans can be used only to pay for the retooling of plants that will lead to cars that are 25% more efficient than current models. The bill also imposes strict new fuel economy standards for the 2011 through 2020 model years. Still, members of the auto industry are happy that the loans are getting through before Congress takes a break for the election, which would've delayed the process by months.
Source: Automotive News (Subscription Required)Hillary Clinton threw a barrage of stinging one-liners at Donald Trump on Thursday. But at the heart of her speech was one powerful question for voters: “Do we want his finger anywhere near the button?”
In an address that slammed Trump on everything from what Clinton called his bigotry toward Muslims and Mexicans to his talk of torturing terrorists and executing their family members, nothing was so grave as Clinton's implication that a Trump presidency might end the 70-year global taboo against the use of nuclear weapons.
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“This is not someone who should ever have the nuclear codes,” Clinton said. “It’s not hard to imagine Donald Trump leading us into a war just because somebody got under his very thin skin.”
At a time when Clinton is road-testing lines of attack against the businessman who sometimes seems immune to traditional political rhetoric, Democrats say the nuclear issue could be especially potent, touching on some of the deepest fears voters have about their own security.
Clinton is not the first to raise the question, however, and it remains to be seen whether she will succeed where Trump’s GOP rivals failed.
In Clinton’s telling, Trump isn't just temperamental and prone to impulsive fights—he's dangerously cavalier about nuclear weapons and their potential for death and destruction on a mind-warping scale.
"This is a man who said that more countries should have nuclear weapons, including Saudi Arabia," Clinton said.
Clinton also recalled Trump’s quip about a potential conflict between Japan and North Korea: “If they do, they do. Good luck, enjoy yourself, folks.”
“I wonder if he even realized he’s talking about nuclear war,” she marveled.
Clinton also reminded listeners that Trump “refused to rule out using nuclear weapons against ISIS, which would mean mass civilian casualties.”
The power of invoking nuclear weapons is well diminished from the terrifying heights of the Cold War, conceded Democratic pollster Jeremy Rosner, who recalled the infamous 1964 campaign ad Lyndon B. Johnson’s campaign ran against Barry Goldwater implying that his aggressive anti-communist policies might lead to nuclear conflict with the Soviet Union. In the ad, the image of a little girl plucking petals from a flower is suddenly replaced with a mushroom cloud in what became known as the “Daisy” ad.
But, Rosner said, the nuclear question is still among the simplest and most powerful ways to focus voter attention on a candidate’s fitness to be president.
“It’s an effective card,” Rosner said. “If you go back to 1964 and the Daisy ad, it’s a well-established idea that if someone is extreme the most dangerous manifestation of that is what they would do as commander in chief.”
There is some evidence to suggest that Clinton already has the better part of the argument. When Fox News asked voters in mid-May whom they trust more with “decisions about nuclear weapons,” the former first lady and secretary of state came out ahead of Trump by 11 points, 49-38.
Trump has said contradictory things about nuclear arms. During a December primary debate, he said the U.S. must be "extremely vigilant and extremely careful when it comes to nuclear," adding that "the biggest problem we have is nuclear proliferation, and having some maniac, having some madman go out and get a nuclear weapon."
More recently, Trump has seemed to shrug his shoulders at the idea that more countries might acquire nuclear arms in the near future, something he said in a CNN town hall in April "is going to happen anyway." He has even shown clear support for admitting certain new members to the nuclear club: “Wouldn't you rather in a certain sense have Japan have nuclear weapons when North Korea has nuclear weapons?” he asked during the CNN event. (Also at the forum, Trump flatly stated that he does not favor a nuclear-armed Saudi Arabia, contrary to Clinton's assertion Thursday.)
Clinton is hardly the first to fret in public about Trump's potential proximity to the nuclear "football," the briefcase carried by a military aide who travels with the president containing communications equipment that allows him to authorize a nuclear launch. Marco Rubio warned against handing “the nuclear codes of the United States to an erratic individual.” Jeb Bush said that he had “grave doubts” about entrusting Trump with America's atomic arsenal. And Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal fretted against entrusting "such a hothead with the nuclear codes."
Rosner added that the question of foreign conflict has more salience since the Iraq War, which has left swing voters "expressing a lot of worry about a Republican tendency to'shoot from the hip' and not think through the use of force. That obviously goes far beyond nukes, and gets to fears of getting involved in another foreign war without clear purpose or outcome."
That fear has dogged Republicans for decades.
In 1980, aides to Ronald Reagan were sensitive to Democratic charges that their candidate, most famous for being a Hollywood actor and derided as a flake by his critics, might blunder into World War III. One memo from Reagan strategist Richard Wirthlin warned of voter fears that Reagan "would be too quick to push the nuclear button" and urged him to talk more about peace and safety.
"We must position the Governor, in these early stages, so that he is viewed as less dangerous in the foreign affairs area," Wirthlin wrote.
After Clinton's Thursday broadside, Donald Trump's aides may be thinking the same.The federal government's monthly deficit expanded to $3.2 billion in October, about $700 million higher than the same month a year ago.
According to the latest data released by the federal government on Monday, much of the increase can be attributed to the implementation of the Family Tax Credit and the doubling of the Children’s Fitness Tax Credit.
Those were two tax cuts the government announced this fall that will retroactively cover the entire 2014 tax year. As it stands, Ottawa reckons the cost of those moves will ultimately reduce government revenues by about $1.6 billion over the ten months between January and October — although the final tally won't be known until Canadians pay their income taxes in the spring and Ottawa can properly quantify the impact.
"Absent this adjustment, there would have been a deficit of $1.6 billion in October 2014," the government said Monday.
All in all, Ottawa took in revenue of $19.8 billion during the month, down $0.2 billion, or 0.9 per cent, from October of last year. At the same time, expenses were $20.8 billion, up $0.6 billion, or 3.1 per cent, from October 2013's level.
Revenues from corporate taxes, non-resident income taxes, excise duties, GST revenues and EI premiums all increased. But Ottawa also spent more, as transfer to individuals, other levels of government and direct program expenses were also higher.
Ottawa's fiscal year begins on April 1. So far for this fiscal year, Ottawa has posted a budgetary deficit of $4 billion, compared with a deficit of $12.8 billion reported in the same period last year.
"The government remains on track to balance the budget in 2015," the Department of Finance said in the release.Story highlights Police are trying to determine whether a crime was committed
The unit belonged to a former associate medical examiner
The contents were sold at auction last week
The body parts were stored in formaldehyde in various containers
For $900, the winning bid at a Pensacola storage auction got the contents of Unit B12 -- and a police investigation.
Police say body parts belonging to more than 100 people were found stored in formaldehyde inside the unit, in plastic containers, specimen cups, trash bags and even a 32-ounce Styrofoam cup from a convenience store. Some of the containers had cracked and leaked, police said.
The discovery was reported to police Friday after the purchaser of the unit began going through the items, said George Klages, manager of Uncle Bob's Storage.
Investigators know the unit was rented by Michael Berkland, a former associate medical examiner, but they're now trying to figure out if a crime was committed, said Capt. David Alexander of the Pensacola Police Department.
He said authorities have made some attempts to reach Berkland, who worked for the Medical Examiner's Office between 1997 and May 2003, when he was fired for failing to complete autopsy reports in a timely manner.
Berkland, who is no longer licensed in Florida, was also at one point a private pathologist, Alexander said. Families would sometimes contact him for second opinions about autopsy decisions that had been rendered, he said.
Police said Klages told them Berkland rented the unit from April 8, 2009, until it was auctioned August 22. He said Berkland was late on rental payments several times during the lease but usually paid right before the unit contents were to be auctioned.
The storage unit also contained office furniture and other property.
Police say the remains are believed to be from autopsies Berkland did between 1997 and 2007 at funeral homes in Pensacola, Tallahassee, Fort Walton Beach and Panama City. Some of the containers had labels with names and autopsy dates but others did not.
The remains are now with the Medical Examiner's Office. The Pensacola Police Department said it is not releasing the inventory because some of the decedent families may not be aware of the investigation.
The State Attorney's Office and Medical Examiner's Officer are also taking part in the investigation.Stoinis' crushing cameo seals victory
Victorian Marcus Stoinis has been added to Australia's ODI squad for the ongoing VB Series against Pakistan, which continues in Perth with the third match on Thursday.
Stoinis replaces fellow allrounder Mitch Marsh in the Australia squad, with the Western Australian – who was yesterday named in Australia's Test squad for the Qantas Tour of India next month – struggling with an ongoing right shoulder complaint that has restricted his ability with the ball.
Quick Single: Lynn, Marsh injured as Aussies ring changes
Stoins will play for the Melbourne Stars in their KFC Big Bash match against the Brisbane Heat on Tuesday night before travelling to Perth on Wednesday with Adam Zampa, who has been released from the national squad to play in the same match.
Stoinis feels full force of Johnson's fury
Stoinis was recently dropped from the Stars side but returned against the Scorchers last week and promptly made an unbeaten 40 to guide his side to victory at the WACA Ground.
The allrounder, 27, has played one previous ODI, against England in September 2015, while he also represented Australia A in last year's Queensland-based Winter Series, scoring a first-class hundred against South Africa A.
Stoinis has struggled for runs in all formats this summer, passing 50 just once from six attempts in the Matador One-Day Cup, and managing a best of 32 from seven innings in the Sheffield Shield.
In the BBL, his 40no against the Scorchers added to scores of 18no, 12no and 1 so far this season.
With the ball, the right-armer has taken one wicket for the Stars and five for the Bushrangers in the Shield, while he also claimed an impressive nine wickets in the Matador Cup at 26.66.
Stoinis's inclusion is another blow for incumbent Test allrounder Hilton Cartwright, who debuted in Baggy Green in Sydney at the beginning of January after being part of Australia's ODI squad against the Black Caps last month, in which he carried the drinks without earning a cap.
Quick Single: Six that missed out for India squad
Cartwright was yesterday excluded from Australia's Test squad for the upcoming tour of India, with the injured Marsh and spin options Ashton Agar and Glenn Maxwell preferred as the allrounders.After the American company’s drawn out receivership proceedings, Erik Buell Racing seems like the brand everyone has forgotten about. Posting a press release to its Facebook page today though, EBR says it has some interesting projects in the works.
To unveil for the 2017 model year, EBR is teasing an urban street bike that is “quick, dark, and low”; meanwhile for the 2018 model year, EBR says it will debut a sub-$10,000 motorcycle platform.
There also seems to be some movement on the 1190 platform, presumably with model updates to the RX and SX sport bikes, and the 1190AX adventure bike could finally be coming to market.
Taking these news items in turn, we can start with speculation about what motorcycles could meet the criteria of being “quick, dark, and low” in the urban street bike segment.
An all-new machine is likely too big of an ask from the American brand, so our first guess would be to see something built off the 1190 platform. Whether that means just using the 72° v-twin engine in a different chassis, or the whole rolling machine, is up for debate though.
I have to admit to being stumped on this announcement, especially when considering the position of the company when it closed and where it is now rebooted, so I’ll be curious to see what comes forth at the annual trade shows.
Erik Buell Racing’s goal of making a sub-$10,000 motorcycle platform for 2018 is perhaps easier to decipher and understand. It is easier to woo dealerships when you have a full-line of motorcycles to offer.
Add into that mix the growing divide on who can afford motorcycles of a certain value (cash vs. credit), and there’s a strong argument to push for models below the $10,000 mark.
Truthfully, the price break happens closer to $6,000 to $8,000, and we have see price-focused bikes like the Yamaha FZ-09 selling very well. It makes sense that EBR would follow suit, though hopefully sub-$10,000 means closer to $8,000 than it does to $9,999.
As for continuing to develop the 1190 platform, that might be a mixed bag. There are a lot of people in the motorcycle industry that would like to see what an EBR 1190AX looks like, and there’s also some precedent from the Buell Ulysses that such a machine could be a success, relatively speaking.
Updates to the EBR 1190RX and EBR 1190SX sport bikes though are likely necessary to keep the bikes relevant against the competition, but EBR also does so at its peril. That might be a story for a different post though.
Source: EBRIn this document, while defining many military and geopolitical aspects, Italy was entrusted the administration of the Free Territory of Trieste Between 1947 and 1954 Trieste was under the control of the Allied Military Government.After 1954, the role of the Italian State was restricted to manage, on behalf of the United Nations, the city and the Port of Trieste; not a sovereignty, but, the Treaty says, an “administration.” The Free Territory of Trieste, according to the pact, should have — among many special features granted by the UN Security Council — also its own flag, and use a local currency system. In fact, an independent State in which Italy would only play a role as temporary administrator.According to the Free Trieste Movement, a political organization that asks for the application of the Treaty of Peace and other post-war international agreements, none of these special features have been ever honored over the years by the Italian Governments. The Movement sent a claim addressed to the Italian State, the United Nations and the European Union Although the story seems at first sight only a political oddity (and when it comes to Italy oddities are habits), in fact the documents proving the existence of this anomaly are consistent and have never been challenged. The United Nations, while dealing with the case, have not yet decided to provide a clear and ultimate official response.In this regard, the regional public TV broadcaster RAI of Friuli -Venezia Giulia, the Italian region where Trieste is located, claims to have sent an email with a request for clarification to the United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, and have had received a terse response (one line) in which the UNO Secretary spokeswoman Morana Song says that "the United Nations Secretariat considers Trieste to be an integral part of Italy." Informed about the communication, the Movement leader, Roberto Giurastante, said that “this is not an official statement.” It seems that, at the moment, the Italian authorities, taken aback by the initiatives of the Free Trieste Movement, don't have legal means to refute the thesis of the independent territory. And the UN has not yet officially responded to the requests submitted by the Movement.So much hesitancy is understandable. On the one hand the geographical position of Trieste and its port is strategic: the far north of the Adriatic Sea is the perfect gateway to Central and Eastern Europe, and many Nations would have considerable advantages in the use of preferential customs procedures offered by Trieste Free Port. The cosmopolitan nature of the area would encourage many activities of international scope. On the other hand, if indeed the United Nations stated definitively and unequivocally the legal status of the Free Territory of Trieste, it would probably fire considerable diplomatic matters.About 5,000 people on 15th September 2013 rallied in Trieste to ask that international agreements are respected in order to ensure the independence which, they claim, although always guaranteed on paper, has been forgotten for 60 years.It is perhaps time that the UNO Security Council takes a decision once and for all and unequivocally to settle definitively a story that is likely to trigger confusion and uncertainty.Karl Gustav Hilding Hammar, commonly referred to as K. G. Hammar, (born 18 February 1943) is a Swedish clergyman. He was Archbishop of Uppsala, head of the Church of Sweden, from 1997 to 2006.[1] During his tenure as archbishop he was a highly divisive figure, who gained strong support from some and drew heavy criticism from others, and he oversaw the separation of church and state in Sweden on 1 January 2000. He holds a PhD and is the author of several books on theology.
Career [ edit ]
His father a priest, he was ordained priest in the Diocese of Lund in 1965, at the age of 22. From 1972 to 1975 he worked as a teacher at Trinity Theological College in Singapore. He returned home |
to its sticky afterbirth: how it was a certifiable box-office disaster, and not only because of star Kilmer notoriously flexing his unpleasant selfdom all over the set, or Marlon Brando’s off-putting antics (marking the first of two films on this list which suffered under Brando’s hefty strangeness), but because original director Richard Stanley’s vision for the H.G. Wells novel was squashed in favor of more typical industry fare. As an account of Hollywood weirdness, cast and crew stories from the production delight, but as a condemnation of wasted creativity, the film reads like an obituary for originality.
2. Jodorowsky’s Dune (2013)
Director: Frank Pavich
Here’s a “what-if” documentary that, from the onset, like the sign over Dante’s depiction of Hell, tells you to abandon all hope. This it does in the swaggering anecdote of Nicholas Winding Refn, who claims that he is one of very few people on Earth to have ever “seen” Alejandro Jodorowsky’s never-filmed version of the seminal Frank Herbert sci-fi tome. One drunken night after dinner at Jodorowsky’s abode, the Spanish auteur supposedly pulled out a bound coffee-table-sized book of the unmade film’s complete storyboard, proceeding to narrate the film to the hushed, tipsy Refn. Face it, both Refn and the documentary declare in that moment: Jodorowsky’s Dune will never happen. So just move on already.
This is how the bulk of Jodorowsky’s Dune, the documentary detailing the doomed adaptation, unfolds: we “watch” unmade Dune through Jodorowsky’s oral history, how he obsessively sublimated the hero’s journey at the heart of Herbert’s story into a quest he felt he was taking for the future of visual storytelling. Nothing less would suffice. And, yup, you read that right: his intensity was so unyielding, so complete, that among other batshit stunts, he forced his own son to undergo years of extensive physical and mental training, practically abusing the adolescent in order to get the boy “ready” to play the messianic Paul Atreides.
And from there we’re left with rich imaginings and even richer resentment, mostly because, if we’re supposed to take Jodorowsky’s word for it, we’ve been robbed of a truly life-changing cinematic experience. Instead, we got a stinking facsimile of what Jodorowsky had planned: David Lynch’s cult curio of an adaptation, a certain kind of failure in its own right.
Again, this is just one man’s hubris talking, and by now we should accept that such monumental films require equally monumental minds behind them. Yet, where the documentary succeeds most is in flipping that whole “what-if” scenario on its head. What if the world is better off because Jodorowsky’s Dune was never made? Not only did the fruits of Jodorowsky’s ultimate failure, we’re told, bear the seeds of actual films like Alien, Blade Runner, and, some would say, Star Wars, but the sheer magnificent absurdity of Jodorowsky’s vision may have meant a financial and creative disaster bound to have taken its whole braintrust down with it—not to mention psychologically scar Jodorowsky’s kid in the process.
3. Overnight (2003)
Directors: Tony Montana, Mark Brian Smith
While Jodorowsky’s Dune is one of many examples that, through chronicling the artistic struggles of a director ahead of his or her time, throws into relief the dysfunction inherent to the Hollywood machine, Overnight claims that maybe Hollywood isn’t so bad after all.
Overnight follows writer/director Troy Duffy as he whines his way through the long uphill slog of making his first film, The Boondock Saints, a debut initially backed by Hollywood heavyweights but abandoned after Duffy revealed himself to be an impossibly uncooperative clown. Today, it’s no surprise that The Boondock Saints hasn’t aged well; in the 15 years since its release, the world seems less apt than ever to stomach its rampant homophobia, misogyny, and idiotic soundtrack—so much so that even its original cult apologists (this author included) have all but admitted it’s a bro’s wet dream best laundered from our collective consciousness.
Overnight does nothing to defend Boondock’s legacy, instead documenting Duffy’s rise to and fall from fame while he spent an inordinate of time, money, and family members’ patience attempting to get his debut through the system that shunned him. The documentary paints Duffy as exactly the kind of guy who you’d imagine would make a film like Boondock Saints: loud, vulgar, petulant, dumb, just … so dumb. There’s really nothing positive to say about him after witnessing his self-immolation, except maybe that he got what he deserved. And if what he deserved was to squander the goodwill of a surprisingly tolerant Hollywood, so much so that Harvey Weinstein notoriously “blacklisted” him, then Overnight is perfect proof that maybe dreams really do come true.
4. Kingdom Come (2011)
Directors: Paiman Kalayeh, John Lyons Murphy
Daniel Gillies’ path toward making—and funding—debut Broken Kingdom is one well-trod by any aspiring filmmaker trying to beat out a name for him or herself in the dense jungles of an industry hopelessly loyal to Hollywood gentry and practically no one else. Kingdom Come, predictably then, can be merciless in its portrayal of Gillies’ repeated stumblings, but it’s when directors Paiman Kalayeh and John Lyons Murphy incorporate interviews with well-known names, people who, despite their successes, have faced similarly suffocating obstacles, that the documentary seems to paint an altogether hopeless picture of the once encouraging dreamscape of Hollywood. Though Gillies does live to see his film finished, whether it adheres to his original vision or not hardly matters: Kingdom Come considers its very existence a miracle for which Gillies should thank the heavens.
5. Hearts of Darkness: A Filmmaker’s Apocalypse (1991)
Directors: Fax Bahr, George Hickenlooper, Eleanor Coppola
There’s no movie industry machine to fault for Francis Ford Coppola’s own personal brand of apocalypse, just the immensity of the production itself—self-financed by the director—and his relentless need to make Apocalypse Now his crowning artistic achievement. This means that Coppola’s surreal Vietnam odyssey, which reached a whopping 265 days of principal photography, was, somewhere in the director’s brilliant, anxiety-riddled mind, his definitive statement on what it took for any human being to make a massive piece of art like Apocalypse Now. The experience was, as he tells a crowd at the very beginning of the making-of doc Hearts of Darkness, not about the Vietnam War; it was the Vietnam War.
Far from an exaggeration, Hearts of Darkness spends 90 minutes defending that initial statement, and after millions of dollars, a heart attack, a number of psychological collapses, serious drug abuse, a rebellion in the Philippines, threats of suicide, and endless rewrites to John Milius’s almost-legendary script, the audience might be hard-pressed to disagree with Coppola’s assessment. In fact, one wonders—along with practically everyone involved—if Apocalypse Now was even worth the trouble, despite a respectable awards showing and suitable box-office returns. Because at the heart of all that turmoil was an impenetrable something that Coppola spent nearly a year trying to find. In the end, just like in the Joseph Conrad novel upon which the film was based, it’s hard to tell if Coppola ever found what he was looking for.Yasri Khan is the second Green Party politician to resign in acrimony this week.
During an interview with a female reporter from the TV4 broadcaster on Tuesday, Khan placed his hand over his heart instead of shaking her hand in greeting.
"People can greet each other in different ways. The most important thing is to show respect by seeing each other, to meet each other… to respect each other," Khan said during an interview with state broadcaster Swedish Radio.
Khan, also the general secretary of the organization Swedish Muslims for Peace and Justice, has faced strong criticism from within his party since the incident.
"It is unacceptable. You can't have a man in the party who can't greet women in the same way you greet a man. I'm upset," Stina Bergström, a Green Party parliamentarian, told Swedish tabloid Aftonbladet.
In interviews with Swedish media, Khan lashed out at his critics and said that the debate, and his fellow Muslim Green Party member Mehmet Kaplan's resignation, had caused him to run out of energy.
"In today's political climate, I wonder if politics is right for me, and if I want to be a media circus clown," he told the Nyheter24 news site.
READ ALSO: Boys in handshake row seek Swiss citizenship
Earlier this week, former housing minister Kaplan resigned from government after media published old footage of him making controversial remarks about Israel's politics towards Palestinians.
The former Green Party minister said there were "similarities" between the persecution of Jews by Nazi Germany and the everyday lives of Palestinians.
It has not been a good week for the centre-left party, the junior partners of Sweden's ruling coalition. On Tuesday its co-leader and deputy prime minister, Åsa Romson, landed herself in hot water after using the Swedish word for 'accident' (which can also mean'misfortune') to refer to the September 11th terror attacks.
"Let there be no doubt: the attacks on the World Trade Center in New York City on September 11th 2001 were one of the most vile acts of terror and disastrous violations of the open, free and democratic society in modern history," she later told The Local in an attempt to clarify her words.
"We refuse to let terror set the agenda. Not then, not now. We must not let extremism cloud our judgement or fall to the low point where immigrants or muslims are collectively blamed as a result of the acts of extremists."The future of the Ukrainian revolution will be discussed during a popular meeting which will be held by the Right Sector on Tuesday in Kiev, Dmitry Yarosh, leader of the movement, announced. He also said the Ukrainian government is incapable of carrying out real reforms.
A popular meeting which will be held in Kiev by the Ukrainian nationalist Right Sector movement on Tuesday should bring Ukrainians the prospect of further changes in their country, Dmitry Yarosh, leader of the organization, said.
Earlier, the Right Sector announced it would organize a meeting at Maidan Nezalezhnosti (Independence Square) in central Kiev on July 21.
"For us, the truth is that the maidan revolution has not yet ended. The recent events in Mukachevo revealed unfinished revolution processes," Yarosh stated on the official Facebook page of the Right Sector. "We’re holding the popular meeting to give people an idea on the current state of revolution in the country. It is about the rule of the people as well as legitimization of volunteer activities, support for the volunteer movement, and reforms."
"The old team which is now in power is incapable of carrying out social reforms. I’m saying about the president as well as the government and parliament," he added.
On July 11, Right Sector members exchanged fire with local police. The incident left four people killed and 14 injured, including law enforcement officers. The attackers ran away and hid in the mountains.
© AFP 2018 / SERGEI SUPINSKY Armed Ukrainian Ultranationalists Are Ready to March on Kiev – German Media
Right Sector supporters staged numerous protests across Ukraine, including Kiev, over the Mukachevo shootout. Activists are demanding the resignation of country’s Interior Minister Arsen Avakov and commanding police officers in the Zakarpattia Region.
Four people with Right Sector insignia have been arrested in the Mukachevo shootout case.
The Right Sector was formed as a coalition of nationalist and neo-Nazi organizations at the end of 2013. The organization has played a major role in violent clashes with police, and played a key role in escalating last year's violence in Kiev which culminated in the February 2014 coup.
In November 2014, Russia’s Supreme Court blacklisted Right Sector as an extremist organization and banned its activity in Russia. Earlier, Russia launched a criminal case against Yarosh for public incitement of terrorism.Politically correct censorship rears its ugly head in Montreal — our new billboard has been banned, after pressure by City Hall, and out of fear of a backlash from Muslims, and even the dictatorship of Saudi Arabia.
Click here to donate!
For months we’ve had a billboard right across from Montreal’s City Hall pushing back at their Liberal mayor, Denis Coderre, for his opposition to the proposed Energy East pipeline. That pipeline would bring ethical oil from Alberta, all the way to New Brunswick, where they currently import conflict oil from OPEC dictatorships.
We initially put up a giant billboard that said, in French, “You don’t want oil from Alberta and Saskatchewan? Fine — then no equalization payments from oil.” And it promoted our French-language website, RienDePlus.ca, which means, "no more."
Well, that sparked quite a fuss in Montreal — every newspaper covered the billboard, very favourably. I think they really hadn’t thought of that point before. Coderre himself was scrummed by Montreal reporters about it.
But we weren’t done.
We put up a second billboard in the same place. And this one poked fun at Coderre’s claim that he deeply, truly cares about the environment. It says, in French, “Sorry, Alberta, Denis Coderre prefers sewage pipes to oil pipes — but keep sending equalization payments”.
That’s a reference to Coderre dumping billions of liters of raw Montreal sewage into the river — this from a guy who claims he’s against a state of the art pipeline, because he loves the environment so much.
Quebec Liberals love equalization payments from Alberta and Saskatchewan oil. But they refuse to let that oil pass through in a safe, state-of-the-art pipeline, called Energy East. As if they don’t drive cars or fly jets in Montreal.
Of course they do — they just prefer oil from OPEC dictatorships, like Saudi Arabia.
And that’s the message of our new billboard:
In English, that means "when Denis Coderre says no to the Energy East project, he’s saying yes to sharia oil exported by OPEC.”
And then there's a picture of the king of Saudi Arabia.
To reiterate, we’ve been paying this billboard company, called Outfront Outdoor, thousands of dollars. Not just for Montreal billboards, but for a couple in Toronto too.
So, everything’s fine. We pay all our bills. Our ads are political, but they’re not obscene or illegal in any way.
But when we went to them with our latest billboard, they refused to run the ad. They ripped up our contract.
We asked them why, and they told us: they are afraid of offending Muslim activists and even the Saudi dictator himself.
But the billboard company also told us that Montreal’s city hall was pressuring them to stop running our ads — and if they continued, their business might be in jeopardy. Liberal politicians might not give them any more permits.
In the video above you can see the e-mails and hear the phone call where the billboard company told me we’re forbidden from criticizing the Saudi king — and that Liberals were threatening their business. It’s shocking. But somehow not surprising.
But I live in Canada, not Saudi Arabia, and not some banana republic where Liberals can threaten businesses.
We have free speech here. We’re allowed to criticize the King of Saudi Arabia, or the Liberal mayor of Montreal.
We’re going to run this billboard in Montreal, even if I have to literally stand on the street corner and hold up the poster myself.
If you want to help us pay for the advertising, then please click here to contribute to our ad campaign!
If Quebec Liberals like Denis Coderre hate these billboards, then I want to do more of them.
I don’t want to waste money suing the mayor for his threats, or suing Outfront Outdoor for breach of contract. I just want the ads to go up.
I estimate an average billboard in Montreal is about $2,000 dollars. Radio ads would be about a hundred bucks each.
Visit CutThemOff.ca now, and help me fight back.
Denis Coderre isn’t my mayor. And Queen Elizabeth is my monarch — not some desert dictator like “King” Salman. Let’s fight back against these sharia leftists.
Click here to donate!
P.S. Were we doing anything wrong? I checked — with one of Canada’s leading media lawyers, Stuart Robertson. He’s been a senior lawyer for just about any major media outlet you can think of. I asked him to study our billboard, and write an opinion letter — is the billboard defamatory? Does it violate anyone’s privacy, like the King of Saudi Arabia? Does it violate hate speech laws, or even the Canadian Code of Advertising Standards?
No, no, no, and no. The billboard is fine. You can see his three-page letter below:If you would like to see more articles like this please support our coverage of the space program by becoming a Spaceflight Now Member. If everyone who enjoys our website helps fund it, we can expand and improve our coverage further.
NASA says engineers are diagnosing the source of “anomalous readings” during a recent vibration test of the sensitive optics and sensors at the heart of NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope.
In a status report posted to the JWST mission website, officials wrote that the anomalous accelerometer readings produced no visible signs of damage to the observatory, which engineers are stressing with a specially-crafted vibration rig to ensure it can survive the rigors of launch.
The test center is located at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Maryland, where technicians and engineers have spent the last several years putting together the telescope’s 18 gold-coated beryllium mirror segments and assembling JWST’s instrument bay.
“During the vibration testing on December 3 … accelerometers attached to the telescope detected anomalous readings during a particular test,” NASA said in a status update. “Further tests to identify the source of the anomaly are underway. The engineering team investigating the vibe anomaly has made numerous detailed visual inspections of the Webb telescope and has found no visible signs of damage.”
NASA said engineers are trying to pinpoint the cause of the unexpected measurements, but officials offered no further details about the nature of the issue in the online status report.
Engineers have also conducted a “low-level vibration of the hardware to measure its responses, and are comparing the results with data obtained prior to the anomaly,” NASA said.
The component of the observatory undergoing vibration testing is called the OTIS, which includes JWST’s optical mirrors and the science module containing the telescope’s four main instruments.
NASA plans to complete vibration and acoustic testing on the telescope at Goddard. Both types of tests will ensure the structures, detectors and mirrors can withstand the conditions of launch.
The telescope will then go to NASA’s Johnson Space Center in Houston next year for a thermal vacuum test, which will subject the core of JWST to the extreme temperature it will encounter in space.
From there, the observatory’s science section will travel to a Northrop Grumman facility in Redondo Beach, California, for attachment to the spacecraft bus and sunshield, which will supply power, communications, pointing and thermal control to the telescope.
JWST is an infrared successor to NASA’s famed Hubble Space Telescope, promising previously unseen views of the proto-universe, the earliest galaxies and stars after the Big Bang, and data about the conditions on potentially habitable worlds orbiting other stars.
Engineers planned to run deployment tests on the telescope’s foldable wings before and after the vibration and acoustic tests at Goddard to make sure the critical deployment mechanisms are undamaged.
Precision checks of the curvature of the mirror segments, each about the size of a coffee table, after the shake and sound tests will verify the telescope’s optics are still up to the job. Alignment checks are also planned.
The telescope is buttoned up in launch configuration for the testing at Goddard.
Once launched from French Guiana aboard a European Ariane 5 rocket in late 2018, the observatory will head off to the L2 Lagrange point nearly a million miles (1.5 million kilometers) from Earth.
A report by the Government Accountability Office earlier this month said NASA has about six months of schedule reserve to meet JWST’s target launch date in October 2018.
The mission is expected to cost NASA around $8.8 billion, but contributions from international partners in Canada and Europe, which is providing JWST’s Ariane 5 launcher, will push the project’s total cost upwards of $10 billion.
Email the author.
Follow Stephen Clark on Twitter: @StephenClark1.This article is about the generic term describing governmental and official involvement in cyber policing. For the phenomenon of vigilantic acts taken through the Internet, see Internet vigilantism
Internet police is a generic term for police and government agencies, departments and other organizations in charge of policing Internet in a number of countries.[1] The major purposes of Internet police, depending on the state, are fighting cybercrime, as well as censorship and propaganda.
Canada [ edit ]
Several attempts have been made to introduce tools that would allow law enforcement and security agencies to eavesdrop online communications without a warrant, the latest of which was bill C-30, tabled in February 2012[2] which was abandoned because of strong public opposition.[3]
Estonia [ edit ]
The Computer Emergency Response Team of Estonia (CERT Estonia), established in 2006, is an organization responsible for the management of security incidents in.ee computer networks. Its task is to assist Estonian Internet users in the implementation of preventive measures in order to reduce possible damage from security incidents and to help them in responding to security threats. CERT Estonia deals with security incidents that occur in Estonian networks, are started there, or have been notified of by citizens or institutions either in Estonia or abroad.[4]
India [ edit ]
Cyber Crime Investigation Cell[5] is a wing of Mumbai Police, India, to deal with computer crimes, and to enforce provisions of India's Information Technology Law, namely, The Information Technology Act, 2000, and various cyber crime related provisions of criminal laws, including the Indian Penal Code, and the Companies Act of India subsection on IT-Sector responsibilities of corporate measures to protect cybersecurity. Cyber Crime Investigation Cell is a part of Crime Branch, Criminal Investigation Department of the Mumbai Police.[6]
Andhra Pradesh Cyber Crime Investigation Cell[7] is a wing of Hyderabad Police, India, to deal with Cyber crimes.
Indian Computer Emergency Response Team (CERT-In) also deals with Cyber Security. "Cyber Police", the Hi-Tech Crime Enquire Cell of the Kerala Police.[8]
Netherlands [ edit ]
Dutch police were reported to have set up an Internet Brigade to fight cybercrime. It will be allowed to infiltrate Internet newsgroups and discussion forums for intelligence gathering, to make pseudo-purchase and to provide services.[9]
People's Republic of China [ edit ]
It has been reported[10] that in 2005, departments of provincial and municipal governments in mainland China began creating teams of Internet commentators from propaganda and police departments and offering them classes in Marxism, propaganda techniques, and the Internet. They are reported to guide discussion on public bulletin boards away from politically sensitive topics by posting opinions anonymously or under false names.
Chinese Internet police also erase anti-communist comments and posts pro-government messages. Chinese Communist Party leader Hu Jintao has declared the party's intent to strengthen administration of the online environment and maintain the initiative in online opinion.[11]
Thailand [ edit ]
Banner in Bangkok, observed on the 30th of June 2014, informing the Thai public that 'like' or'share' activity on social media could land them in prison.
After the 2006 coup in Thailand, the Thai police has been active in monitoring and silencing dissidents online. Censorship of the Internet is carried out by the Ministry of Information and Communications Technology of Thailand and the Royal Thai Police, in collaboration with the Communications Authority of Thailand and the Telecommunication Authority of Thailand.[12]
On 29 April 2010, Wipas Raksakulthai was arrested on charges of lèse majesté following a post to his Facebook account criticizing King Bhumibol.[13] In May 2011, Amnesty International named him a prisoner of conscience."[14]
United Kingdom [ edit ]
The Internet Watch Foundation (IWF) is the only recognised organisation in the United Kingdom operating an Internet 'Hotline' for the public and IT professionals to report their exposure to potentially illegal content online. It works in partnership with the police, Government, the public, Internet service providers and the wider online industry.
United States [ edit ]
See also [ edit ]
Internet service provider
Forum moderator, an Internet forum user who enforces the forum's rulesA hearing for five Grundy County High School football players who have been charged with attempted aggravated rape will be closed to the public.
An order from the Tennessee Supreme Court said the media had requested to cover the Monday morning arraignment, but that would not allowed since the five are juveniles.
Also, the Grundy County High football game that had been set for Friday night was called off.
The charges were brought in connection with a "hazing" incident against a 15-year-old freshman.
The incident happened early Wednesday morning in the high school fieldhouse.
Head football coach Casey Tate has been suspended from coaching at Grundy County High due to the arrests. Assistant Coach Greg Brewer will move up to head coach.
Grundy County Sheriff Clint Shrum said a senior and four juniors were involved. The victim was held down while being assaulted with the metal handle of a dust mop.
Sheriff Shrum said one of the students had a phone and captured the incident on video. The cell phone has been sent to the TBI.
The students are to be on house arrest until their first court appearance.
Dave McGovern, assistant district attorney, said it was too early to know if the cases will be transferred from Juvenile Court to adult court.
Sheriff Shrum said the incident happened prior to 6 a.m. The assistant coach alerted authorities as soon as he learned of it shortly after noon.On April 24 the Tony Awards announced that the categories of Best Sound Design of a Play and Best Sound Design of a Musical will be reinstated starting in the 2017-2018 season.
Over the last 18 months, the Tony Awards Administration Committee conducted an in-depth review of these categories as well as all of the 24 competitive categories. This review was conducted in consultation with industry professionals including several sound designers. As a result, the Committee developed a plan to address previous concerns related to adjudicating these categories.
Starting next season, Best Sound Design of a Musical and Best Sound Design of a Play will be reinstated to the list of competitive Tony Award categories with a new voting process. In addition, it was determined that for similar reasons, the category of Best Orchestrations will adhere to this same new voting process. The Tony Nominators will nominate for these categories as in the past. However, voting on the winners of the three categories will now be the responsibility of a subset of the overall voter pool based on their professional affiliation.
The American Theatre Wing’s 71st Annual Tony Awards, hosted by Kevin Spacey, will air live from Radio City Music Hall on the CBS Television Network on Sunday, June 11, 2017 (8:00-11:00 PM, ET/delayed PT). Or stream the Tony Awards live across platforms with the CBS All Access subscription service. (Live stream is available in select markets. Visit CBS.com/allaccess for details.) The Tony Awards are presented by The Broadway League and the American Theatre Wing.
The Nominations for the 2017 Tony Awards will be announced live, by Tony Award winner Jane Krakowski and 2016 Tony Nominee Christopher Jackson, on May 2, 2017, from The New York Public Library for the Performing Arts at Lincoln Center, in a webcast on TonyAwards.com.
For more information on the Tony Awards, visit TonyAwards.com and Facebook.com/TheTonyAwards and follow @TheTonyAwards on Instagram, Twitter, and Snapchat.Walks into police station with the organ, and her children.
By Sreekanth A Nair
A 30-year-old woman chopped off the genitals of her brother-in-law when he tried to rape her. She then walked into the Churhat police station in Sidhi district of Madhya Pradesh with the organ, along with her three children. She alleged her brother-in-law tried to rape her several times.
The accused brother-in-law committed suicide near the house before the police and medical services arrived.
According to police, the husband of the woman, Vimlesh Koul, is working in Nashik, Maharashtra and she lived with her brother-in-law Sanju Koul, in Narhai village of Sidhi district. Sanju tried to rape her several times. When he tried to have forcible sex with her on Thursday, she cut off his genitals with a sickle.
Police said that when he tried to rape her, she faked consent and then cut off his organ. The incident happened at around 4.30 in the morning and she walked into the police station at 8.30 AM.
The body of Sanju was found hanging from a tree near their house when the police reached there with medical aid.
The police have registered a case of attempt to murder against the woman.
“He allegedly committed suicide because of humiliation…Her parents-in-law didn’t come to know about the incident as the entire incident took place early in the morning and also because Sanju didn’t make any noise,” town inspector, Churhat, Arti Chourate, was quoted as saying by The Hindustan Times.
“The accused woman is shaken…due to the entire episode. She is presently in the village. We have registered a case against her under section 307 and will soon take her in our custody,” he added.
The police also informed that Kamlesh is mentally stable, has a clear idea of what she has done and has no regrets.
On last Wednesday, some unknown people had cut off a 24-year-old man’s genitals in Bhopal.Authorities in Europe today kicked off a fresh wave of scrutiny over Google’s privacy policy and called for changes to be made in how Google manages user data, describing Google’s scope as “too large”. But they also stopped short of saying Google is acting illegally in how it manages privacy or demanding a change in its wider policy. France’s data protection authority, the Commission Nationale de l’Informatique (CNIL), today published a list of recommendations for the company in the area of user privacy, following an investigation that began earlier this year.
It will be worth watching to see how effective today’s report is: Google has three to four months to comply with these recommendations; otherwise it may face sanctions. Quite possibly that might also lead to escalated investigations, but there are, at this point, no fines or even demands that Google actually change its privacy policy.
Because the European Union acts in a “harmonized” way, those recommendations have been endorsed by data protection commissioners in several other countries. In all, some 29 regulators have backed the recommendations, including non-EU members Croatia and Lichtenstein. This is actually the first time that all of them have backed a single policy like this, the CNIL noted in the press conference today.
The investigation was sparked after Google changed its privacy policy, completing the process in March and combining some 60 different policies across its different online services — search, Gmail, YouTube, Google+, and more — into a single user privacy agreement. Google currently does not give users an easy way to opt out of that policy. The CNIL says that acting in coordination with the other regulators in the group of 29, it sent two questionnaires to Google, in April and June, but that its responses were not satisfactory.
In Europe, some of Google’s practices are actually running afoul of existing regulations, so the practical recommendations point to this area. (These, it should be pointed out, were leaked to Reuters yesterday.)
In a press conference today, Isabelle Falque-Pierrotin of the CNIL presented the findings and recommendations to Google: they include suggesting making it clearer to users how their personal information — that includes location data and credit card data — may be used.
One example the CNIL gives has to do with credit card information and what a user enters in a “trivial” content search: “Confidentiality rules do not make difference in treatment between a trivial content search and the number of credit card or telephone user,” it writes in its report. “All these data can be used interchangeably for all the purposes mentioned in rules.”
The recommendations largely relate to actions that speak to Google’s core business: advertising. It suggests that Google needs to better explain to users how their data is collected from different services and collated, and provide a way to opt out of this if a user chooses to do so.
Google, like many others working in online advertising, is looking for ways to better target ads to users, and part of the way that they do this is by monitoring your web activity and then serving ads that are relevant based on that. Companies like Google have always maintained that they use anonymized data when doing this, but the fact remains that your data continues to be mined.
The implications of this, of course, go much wider than Google, although since Google currently is the biggest of the Internet companies making money from online ads, it is the most obvious target.
It will be interesting to see how Google reacts to this report. Again, the company has not been accused of any illegal activities, and it has four months to put in some changes. Today’s recommendations therefore could be a first step in getting Google to change its practices before the scrutiny does reach higher levels of enforceability. And it would be probably a good PR exercise for the company to respond in a positive way.
And although there is no legal rider today, that doesn’t mean that the recommendations will not result in action from Google. Last month, Facebook had its own run-in with data protection authorities — in its case in Ireland, where it too was given “recommendations” for changes to put in place with its privacy policy. There, Facebook has worked with the DPA to implement those changes covering how users can access and delete their Facebook data, and going so far as to even (temporarily) shelve its Tag Suggest feature to automatically identify and tag faces in photos.
We are reaching out to Google for comment and will continue to update this story as the press conference progresses.
Update: Peter Fleischer, Google’s global privacy counsel, has given us an initial response, highlighting that there is no illegality noted in today’s findings, and possibly implying that it may not be changing anything any time soon:
“We have received the report and are reviewing it now. Our new privacy policy demonstrates our long-standing commitment to protecting our users’ information and creating great products. We are confident that our privacy notices respect European law.”Prep Time: 10 minutes
Cook Time: 20 minutes
Soups are a must-- whatever the season. They keep your energy levels high by lending your body boosts of valuable nutrients. This healthy, wholesome, and flavor-packed soup is ideal for quick weeknight meals if you prepare a batch ahead of time, and so scrumptious that it will change the way your family sees soup! Corn and other vegetables used here can often be more locally sourced this time of year, so let's get cracking!
INGREDIENTS:
Four ears of corn (cut off the cob)
One red bell pepper, diced
One little onion, chopped
Spinach
A large handful of mushrooms, sliced
Two cloves garlic, chopped
Three celery stalks, diced
One tablespoon sesame oil
3/4 teaspoon curry powder
Two cups unsweetened non-dairy milk
One teaspoon red pepper flakes
One can coconut milk (approximately 5 oz)
One cup water
Lime juice of one lemon
Salt & cracked pepper to taste
DIRECTIONS:
STEP 1: Heat oil in a large soup pot over medium high heat.
STEP 2: Once the oil is hot, sauté the onions until they become translucent.
STEP 3: Add the celery, garlic, corn, bell pepper, and mushroom to the mixture and cook a few minutes more.
STEP 4: Now add the coconut milk, curry powder, unsweetened non-dairy milk, red pepper flakes, lime juice, water, sand alt and pepper to taste and cook on medium heat for at least ten-twenty minutes or until the entire mixture is thoroughly heated through.
STEP 5: Add the spinach and cook until it is softened to your liking.
STEP 6: Taste the soup to gauge if you want to add any flavors by upping the spices. Serve with lime wedges to accentuate the flavor.
*You can also serve this soup with some crispy fried or baked bread to soak up the juices. Enjoy!
Photograph Courtesy: Flickr.Solar eclipse of June 1, 2011 Partial from Tromsø, Norway Map Type of eclipse Nature Partial Gamma 1.213 Magnitude 0.601 Maximum eclipse Coordinates Times (UTC) (P1) Partial begin 19:25:17 Greatest eclipse 21:17:18 (P4) Partial end 23:06:57 References Saros 118 (68 of 72) Catalog # (SE5000) 9532
A partial solar eclipse occurred on June 1, 2011. A solar eclipse occurs when the Moon passes between Earth and the Sun, thereby totally or partly obscuring the image of the Sun for a viewer on Earth. A partial solar eclipse occurs in the polar regions of the Earth when the center of the Moon's shadow misses the Earth. This eclipse is the second of four partial solar eclipses in 2011, with the others occurring on January 4, 2011, July 1, 2011, and November 25, 2011. The eclipse belonged to Saros 118 and was number 68 of 72 eclipses in the series.
The eclipse was special since it occurred around midnight in Utsjoki, Finland, in Finnmark, Norway, and in Murmansk Oblast, Russia partially obscuring midnight sun.
Visibility [ edit ]
Animated path
Gallery [ edit ]
End of the eclipse seen from Tromsø, Norway
Related eclipses [ edit ]
Solar eclipses 2011–2014 [ edit ]
This eclipse is a member of the 2011-2014 solar eclipse semester series. An eclipse in a semester series of solar eclipses repeats approximately every 177 days and 4 hours (a semester) at alternating nodes of the Moon's orbit.[1][Note 1]
Metonic series [ edit ]
The metonic series repeats eclipses every 19 years (6939.69 days), lasting about 5 cycles. Eclipses occur in nearly the same calendar date. In addition, the octon subseries repeats |
crew worked on the car during the red flag. At Kansas in the elimination race, Johnson was entering as the spot to advance with a 7-point advantage but advanced after finishing 6th and getting 5 points in Stage 1 and staying out before the end of Stage 2 and finishing 10th, getting 1 stage point, and even though he spun a few times, he got by a big wreck involving Chase Drivers Matt Kenseth and Jamie McMurray and finished the race in 11th place, advancing to the Round of 8. Unfortunately his performance slipped in the third round. He finished 12th at Martinsville, but had tire problems at Texas which slipped him to finish 27th and had a chance to win at Phoenix but blew a tire just one lap before the end of Stage 2 which put him in the garage and ended his day and he was eliminated in the round of 8. Johnson would go on to finish 10th in the final standings.
2018 [ edit ]
Johnson's Speedweeks did not go smoothly, wrecking in each of his three races. At the Advance Auto Parts Clash, he was wrecked on the last lap by Kyle Larson; this was the seventh year in a row he failed to finish the Clash. Johnson qualified third for the 2018 Daytona 500, but had to go to a backup car after wrecking in his Duel. On lap 59 of the Daytona 500, he got caught up in a wreck started by Ryan Blaney, and Ricky Stenhouse Jr., which also involved his teammate William Byron, Erik Jones, Daniel Suárez, Trevor Bayne, and Ty Dillon and ended up 38th. Since then, Johnson struggled throughout the 2018 season with only two top-fives and eight top-10 finishes by the time he barely made the Playoffs for the 15th season in a row. Johnson's only great run off the season came at the Charlotte Roval race where he ran in the Top 10 for must of the day and battled Martin Truex Jr. for the win on the final lap, but he locked his brakes on turn 17 and spun out of control, taking Truex out with him in the process while Blaney passed them to win the race. Johnson finished eighth, and as a result of a three-way tie with 0 points, he was eliminated in the Round of 16. Johnson would go on to score only one more top-ten finish afterwards and wound up a career-worst 14th in the final point standings, winless for the first time in his illustrious career along with equaling his career-low 11 top-ten finishes for the second season in a row.
On March 14, 2018, Lowe's announced they would no longer sponsor the 48 car at the conclusion of the 2018 season. In October, it was announced that Johnson and his long time crew chief Chad Knaus would part ways at the end of the season, ending a 17-year partnership, the longest in NASCAR history. Johnson will be paired with JR Motorsports crew chief Kevin Meendering in the 2019 season. On October 28, 2018, Hendrick Motorsports announced that Ally Financial signed a two-year deal to sponsor the No. 48 team starting in 2019.[77]
On November 26, 2018, Johnson participated in a motorsports cultural exchange with two-time Formula One champion Fernando Alonso at Bahrain International Circuit, where both drivers compared their respective race cars.[78][79]
2019 [ edit ]
The 2019 season started on a positive note for Johnson, as he won the 2019 Advance Auto Parts Clash after contact between him and Paul Menard sent Menard spinning while battling for the lead and triggering "The Big One" on lap 55 right before the rain arrived. It was also the first race with new sponsor Ally Financial and crew chief Kevin Meendering. He followed it up by finishing 8th in the first duel race. In the Daytona 500, Johnson ran up front most of the race, but when he came to pit road with around 40 to go, a car spun behind him and hit him in the left rear. The contact ripped off the left rear quarter-panel. He recovered to finish 9th after being 2 laps down. [80]
Race of Champions [ edit ]
Johnson first raced in the Race of Champions in Europe in 2002. He was eliminated in the first runoff by then world rally champion Marcus Grönholm of Finland but he and Jeff Gordon and Colin Edwards racing as Team USA won the teams' championship. He returned to the event two years later but lost the quarter finals 0–2 to Mattias Ekström of Sweden who was DTM German Touring Car champion that year.
Johnson entered the 2006 event but did not start due to injury received just days before the race.[81] He still attended the event to cheer for teammate Travis Pastrana. In the 2007 event Johnson was eliminated before the quarter-finals by F1 driver Sébastien Bourdais of France.[82][83]
In 2004, he began his Grand-Am career in the Rolex 24 at Daytona, where he finished eighth. He also entered the event one year later, which his team, Howard-Boss Motorsports, finished second. Two years later, he entered two events, which were both held at Daytona International Speedway. During the races, his team finished 9th and 19th. In 2008, Johnson moved to Bob Stallings Racing with Alex Gurney and Jon Fogarty to race in the 2008 Rolex 24 at Daytona, where the team finished second. One year later, he returned with GAINSCO/Bob Stallings Racing for his fifth Rolex 24 appearance. During the race, his team finished seventh. He returned to the team in 2010, to race in the Rolex 24 and Sahlen's Six Hours of the Glen.[84] During the Rolex 24 at Daytona his team finished 21st,[85] while at Watkins Glen the team finished sixth.[86] He returned to the Rolex 24, in 2011 where his team finished 15th.[87][88]
Personal life [ edit ]
Johnson (center) with his wife Chandra and President Barack Obama in 2011
Johnson was born on September 17, 1975[3] in El Cajon, California,[89] the son of Catherine Ellen "Cathy" (née Dunnill) and Gary Ernest Johnson.[90][91] He has two younger brothers, Jarit and Jessie. Both have made professional off-road racing starts in the TORC: The Off-Road Championship.[92] Johnson attended Granite Hills High School,[93][94] while he raced motorcycles during the weekends. He was a varsity water polo player, diver, and swimmer, and graduated in 1993. The number 48 is retired from all sports teams uniforms at his school and Johnson was inducted into the school's Athletic Hall of Fame.[95] Johnson lives in Charlotte, North Carolina[3] like many other NASCAR drivers. He is married to Chandra Janway, the two having known each other since 2002.[96] They have two daughters, Genevieve and Lydia.[97][98]
The Jimmie Johnson Foundation [ edit ]
The Jimmie Johnson Foundation was launched by Johnson and his wife, Chandra, in 2006. The foundation helps children, families, and communities in need. In 2007, Johnson opened Jimmie Johnson's Victory Lanes in Randleman, North Carolina, which is a four-lane bowling alley for campers at Pattie and Kyle Petty's Victory Junction Gang Camp. The foundation supports several charities, including Habitat for Humanity, Hendrick Marrow Program, Make-A-Wish Foundation, and Victory Junction. Every year, it holds a golf tournament in San Diego,[99] which raises money for K-12 public education. Since the beginning, the tournament has raised a total of $8 million to help fund several projects. During 2009 and 2010, the foundation awarded $1.5 million for the Education Champions Grants program. The money is given to public schools in California, Oklahoma, and North Carolina. It helps fund basic needs, such as technology, outdoor classrooms, playground construction, and reading programs. The foundation has also assisted the American Red Cross with disaster relief efforts.[11][93][100]
In 2014, Johnson joined the Ban Bossy campaign, as a spokesperson advocating leadership in young girls.[101][102][103][104]
Career achievements [ edit ]
Awards and honors [ edit ]
In 2000, People recognized Johnson as one of their "Men in the Fast Lane."[105]
Johnson has won the Driver of the Year Award five times (2006, 2007, 2009, 2010, 2013). In 2009, he became the first racing driver to win the Associated Press Male Athlete of the Year Award in the United States.
Johnson was ranked No. 1 on Forbes.com's list of "Most Influential Athletes" for two consecutive years (2011, 2012).
In 2018, Johnson received the fourth-annual Byrnsie Award, named after the late Fox NASCAR broadcaster Steve Byrnes, during FS1's RaceDay prior to the running of the Toyota/Save Mart 350 at Sonoma Raceway.[106]
Records and milestones [ edit ]
With 83 career points-paying victories, Johnson is the winningest active driver, sixth place among the all-time NASCAR Cup Series winners; he is also ranked third among those who have competed during the sport's modern era (1972–present).
Johnson is the all-time winningest Cup Series driver at the following tracks:
Johnson has won a Cup Series race at every track on the schedule except at Chicagoland Speedway, Kentucky Speedway, and Watkins Glen International.
Johnson is the only driver to have qualified for the NASCAR Cup Series playoffs every single year since its inception in 2004. He also holds the record for the most consecutive and total playoffs appearances, with 15.
In popular culture [ edit ]
Film and television appearances [ edit ]
Johnson made an appearance as himself in the 2005 film Herbie: Fully Loaded, commenting on Herbie's sunroof as unusual for a stock car to have, and his car is also briefly seen from Herbie's POV.
Johnson starred in an episode of the television series Las Vegas in 2005.[107]
Johnson starred in an episode of the HBO reality television series 24/7, titled "Jimmie Johnson: Race to Daytona". Cameras followed him from January 2010 to the 52nd Daytona 500 held on February 14.[108]
Johnson appeared on The Ellen DeGeneres Show during its tenth season in 2013. Fresh off his second Daytona 500 victory, Johnson challenged host Ellen DeGeneres to a go-kart race.[109]
On November 19, 2013, Johnson became the first professional athlete to co-host ESPN's flagship news show, SportsCenter.[110]
In 2015, Johnson appeared on the series Repeat After Me and voiced a lobster named Jimmie on the animated kids show Bubble Guppies.
Magazines [ edit ]
Johnson has appeared on the cover of several magazines, including NASCAR Illustrated;[111] Sports Illustrated;[112][113] Men's Fitness;[114] and Success.[115]
Music video [ edit ]
Johnson makes a cameo appearance as a pilot in the music video for The Avett Brothers' "Ain't No Man," the lead single from the album True Sadness (2016).[116]
Video games [ edit ]
Johnson's Cup ride, the No. 48 Lowe's Chevrolet, is featured on the covers of NASCAR Racing 2003 Season and NASCAR The Game: 2011.
Johnson and Hendrick Motorsports teammate Jeff Gordon are featured on the cover of NASCAR 06: Total Team Control, highlighting Team Control, the main addition of the game.[117] Johnson is also one of the six cover drivers of NASCAR Kart Racing.
Johnson is featured in the 2011 racing video game Jimmie Johnson's Anything with an Engine.
Johnson is featured as a playable driver in Forza Motorsport 6, via the NASCAR expansion pack.[118] The expansion features twenty-four paint schemes from the 2016 Sprint Cup Series season, including Johnson's No. 48 Lowe's SS.[118] Johnson, along with Chase Elliott and Kyle Busch, provide commentary in the expansion as the "voices of motorsport."[118] Johnson and Elliott also had roles in developing the expansion.[119]
Motorsports career results [ edit ]
NASCAR [ edit ]
(key) (Bold – Pole position awarded by qualifying time. Italics – Pole position earned by points standings or practice time. * – Most laps led.)
Monster Energy Cup Series [ edit ]
Daytona 500 [ edit ]
Year Team Manufacturer Start Finish 2002 Hendrick Motorsports Chevrolet 1 15 2003 10 3 2004 6 5 2005 2 5 2006 9 1 2007 21 39 2008 1 27 2009 7 31 2010 3 35 2011 23 27 2012 8 42 2013 9 1 2014 32 5 2015 2 5 2016 26 16 2017 24 34 2018 35 38 2019 17 9
Nationwide Series [ edit ]
Craftsman Truck Series [ edit ]
1 Ineligible for series championship points.
Rolex Sports Car Series [ edit ]
Daytona Prototype [ edit ]
(key) Bold – Pole Position. (Overall Finish/Class Finish).
International Race of Champions [ edit ]
(key) (Bold – Pole position. * – Most laps led.)
See also [ edit ]
References [ edit ]
Citations [ edit ]
Further reading [ edit ]Because of similar symptoms of depression, bipolar disorder and borderline personality disorder may be misdiagnosed or confused with one another.
In a new study, researchers reveal the distinct differences between bipolar and borderline personality disorders in order to better treat both.
An individual with bipolar disorder has cyclical changes in mood, energy and activity levels that range from deep depression, to mania or hypomania. A person with borderline personality disorder has trouble regulating emotions and thoughts, and has impulsive and reckless behavior and unstable relationships with others.
The findings reveal that patients with borderline personality disorder are more likely to have additional disorders and also more likely to have experienced childhood trauma than those with bipolar disorder. They may also experience longer and more severe episodes of depression.
The study involved interviewing 268 participants between 1995 and 2012. Of these, 62 participants were diagnosed with bipolar II depression and 206 participants were diagnosed with major depressive disorder with co-occurring borderline personality disorder (MDD-BPD).
Depressive episodes are a considered a part of bipolar disorder, but depression is a separate disorder that can co-occur with borderline personality disorder.
All the participants were between the ages of 18 and 68, and could only have one of the two disorders — not both. They also had to meet the official criteria for experiencing a major depressive episode at the time of the interviews.
The findings showed that the average age of the patients in the MDD-BPD group was 33 years old, versus 37 years old in the bipolar group. The MDD-BPD patients were also less likely to be married. For both groups, the average age of onset was below 20 years old.
Between the two groups, there were no major differences in race, education level, gender, the average number of psychiatric hospitalizations or amount of time spent away from work during the previous five years.
Furthermore, 38 percent of the MDD-BPD group was diagnosed with three or more non-personality disorders (anxiety, mood and eating disorders) compared to 26 percent of the bipolar group.
Thirty percent of the MDD-BPD group was diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder compared to 10 percent of the bipolar group.
Patients in the MDD-BPD group also had longer depressive episodes, were more depressed overall, had a harder time doing day-to-day activities, and had significantly more childhood trauma events — especially physical neglect — than the bipolar group. This group was also more suicidal, with twice as many MDD-BPD participants as bipolar participants reporting three or more suicide attempts.
The only factor found to be more common in the bipolar group was having an immediate family member with a history of bipolar disorder.
The lead author of this study was Mark Zimmerman, M.D., from the Department of Psychiatry at Rhode Island Hospital and the Department of Psychiatry and Human Behavior at Brown Medical School.
Source: Journal of Clinical Psychiatry
Illness sign photo by shutterstock.
Study Probes Distinctions Between Bipolar, Borderline Personality DisorderAccording to CNBC, Tag Heuer will unveil its Android-powered smartwatch on November 9th at the LVMH building in New York City. The watch will cost, wait for it… $1,800 dollars.
Several months ago, Tag Heuer announced that it would be launching a smartwatch based on Google’s Android Wear OS in a venture with Intel in order to compete with the Apple Watch. With Apple pushing ahead in the luxury market, particularly in watches priced under $1,000, Tag Heuer feels like they can compete with something more luxurious than typical stainless steel Apple Watch.
CEO of LVMH, Jean-Claude Biver, told CNBC earlier this year that he believes the Apple Watch could boost the timepiece industry and even showed praise to the Apple-Hermes deal because it shows that the smartwatch has “cracked the luxury market.”
We were a little bit concerned about the price, because we’re going to sell it at $1,800 … and now we are quite reassured because Apple is telling us we can sell at $1,500 or even more.
Interestingly, Biver told CNBC that it would be “ridiculous” to try and chase Apple, but believes they have something great on their hands given their partnership with Google and Intel. Rumors of the watch in the past suggested that it would carry a $1,400 price tag, would last for 40 hours, and would even have upgradable components.
It won’t be long before we find out how ridiculous an $1,800 smartwatch is, if it is ridiculous at all.It started as a branding campaign for a Dutch bank, but the results are eye-catching.
A team of software programmers and art experts in the Netherlands have joined forces to create a computer-generated painting in the style of the great 17th-century artist Rembrandt.
Unveiled this week in Amsterdam, the fruit of their efforts – a three-quarter-view portrait of a man with a fallen ruff collar – is not just a digital image but was printed in 3-D, with brushstrokes and canvas texture like a real oil painting.
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"It's a virtual re-enactment of what you see in a Rembrandt painting," said Joris Dik, a professor in materials in arts and archeology at Delft University of Technology.
Prof. Dik, who acted as an adviser on the project, had previously made a 3-D reproduction of a genuine Rembrandt.
The latest project, dubbed The Next Rembrandt, began as a brief from the Dutch bank ING to the Amsterdam branch of the J. Walter Thompson ad agency.
ING had long been an arts sponsor in the Netherlands and sees itself as an innovator in financial services. "They asked us to create a brand image campaign for them, to show their innovative spirit in their sponsorship of culture and arts," said Jesse Houwling, digital director at J. Walter Thompson.
Mr. Houwling said his ad agency was inspired by a British medical artist who used ancient skulls to create a 3-D model of what could have been the face of Jesus.
The agency decided then to focus on Rembrandt, an iconic artist for the Dutch. The agency's technology director, Emmanuel Flores, partnered with a trio of programmers, Rembrandt experts and developers at Microsoft. It took 18 months to produce the portrait.
While not revolutionary, The Next Rembrandt project's results are impressive, said Craig Kaplan, a computer-graphics professor at the University of Waterloo.
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Because it is not clear how much human intervention was required to fine-tune the final results, "my instincts tell me that this work does not represent a fundamental breakthrough. … However, it is a highly effective application of known techniques in the pursuit of a specific goal," Mr. Kaplan said in an e-mail interview.
Mr. Flores said the methods they developed could be a stepping stone toward creating algorithms to restore or authenticate paintings.
Painting by numbers 1011100110
Handout
To develop algorithms that could create a Rembrandt-like work, the team first had to gather data about the master's works, scanning and analyzing 346 paintings attributed to him.
While Rembrandt is famous for some group paintings such as The Night Watch or The Anatomy Lesson of Dr. Nicolaes Tulp, commissioned portraits were more common. Focusing on them would maximize the data available. The developers thus settled on a typical painting as being a portrait of a white man with facial hair, facing to the right (women's portraits faced to the left).
They then extracted features from similar portraits to use as building elements for their virtual painting.
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The first big challenge, Mr. Flores said, was generating a set of Rembrandt-like facial features that was not generic-looking.
If the computer had merely amalgamated, then averaged the measurements for all the noses, eyes and mouths of the original portraits, "you will have a blurry image," Mr. Flores said.
They had to design algorithms that mapped the colours and locations of facial pixels, so they could identify those that were recurrent and more relevant.
"So in the end, what we came out with was what, from a statistical perspective, represented the typical set of features used by Rembrandt."
At one point, the team went through a tryout phase where they printed an array of partial faces with varying colours and shapes.
Handout
After the subject was fully formed, the next challenge was to determine the overall lighting, the background and colour gradients of the virtual painting, which was still a two-dimensional image at the time, Mr. Flores said.
Rembrandt was famous for his skillful use of light and dark, to the point that his name is used to designate a classic setup in portrait photography, where one side is illuminated, along with a small inverted triangle of light on the subject's shadowed cheek, opposite the light source.
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The final hurdle was creating a 3-D reproduction, with its own topography. They turned to Prof. Dik and Delft University, who had previously made a high-resolution scan of a Rembrandt work, Saul and David, then made a 3-D reproduction of it last year.
The Next Rembrandt simulation came out of a special printer, with 13 layers of ink layered on top of each other.
"They not only created the colours of a virtual Rembrandt but they also created the texture of the surface. It's not a flat surface, you see the painting's cracks. You see to some extent the texture of the canvas. You see the brushstrokes," said Prof. Dik.As Edinburgh prepare to run out for the first time on to the new hybrid surface at BT Murrayfield, there are just two changes to the starting XV who overcame Munster, 14-13, in the Guinness PRO12 opener at Thomond Park last Friday night.
Sam Beard moves from centre to right wing while Nick McLennan graduates from the bench to partner him on the left wing.
Meanwhile lock Anton Bresler, scrum half Grayson Hart and centre Joaquin Dominguez come on to the bench.
Head coach Alan Solomons is under no illusions of the task in hand on Friday evening (12 September, kick-off 7.35pm), while underlining the importance of backing up last weekend's performance.
He said: "I've got a lot of respect for Connacht and we know we're going to have to deliver a really good performance.
"Unfortunately neither Tim Visser nor Dougie Fife are available this week but on the positive side, it's good that Anton Bresler has a chance to come off the bench.
"Mike [Coman] took a knock in the game against Munster and wasn't able to train until Thursday so it's prudent that he starts off the bench.”
Prop Alasdair Dickinson, who celebrates his 31st birthday today [11 September] and retains his place in the starting side, while encouraged by last weekend's win is fully focused on Friday.
He said: "It was an awesome feeling as it's a tough place to win but we have to put it behind us.
"It's been a tough pre-season but the boys are in incredible shape and we proved that last weekend. The performance was a credit to the staff.”
Dickinson is steeling himself for an equally tough encounter come 7.35pm on Friday.
"Connacht are notoriously hard to beat, incredibly physical and never give up. It's our first game of the season at home, we're all looking forward to it and ready for the challenge.”
Moving onto the wing from last weekend's centre spot, Sam Beard is eager to run out in front of the home support this Friday.
He said: "Last week's win has given us a boost going into this match – we really appreciate the home support and are hoping to get a good crowd tomorrow night.”
Tickets are available to purchase in advance (£20 adult, £10 concessions) or on the night (£25 adult, £10 concessions) while a variety of Season Pass options are available [http://www.edinburghrugby.org/book-tickets/season-tickets]
Edinburgh Rugby team v Connact, Friday 12 September, BT Murrayfield, kick-off 7.35pm
15 Jack Cuthbert
14 Sam Beard
13 Phil Burleigh
12 Andries Strauss
11 Nick McLennan
10 Tom Heathcote
9 Sean Kennedy
1 Alasdair Dickinson
2 Ross Ford (Captain)
3 John Andress
4 Fraser McKenzie
5 Ollie Atkins
6 Tomas Leonardi
7 Hamish Watson
8 Cornell Du Preez
Substitutes
16 James Hilterbrand
17 Rory Sutherland
18 W P Nel
19 Anton Bresler
20 Mike Coman
21 Sam Hidalgo-Clyne
22 Grayson Hart
23 Joaquin Dominguez
Where to watch
Edinburgh Rugby centre, Matt Scott, will be providing match analysis, alongside commentator Hugh Dan MacLennan, for Friday's opening season home fixture against Connacht. The match will be shown live on BBC Alba (from 7.30pm) with the game repeated on Saturday (13 September) at 11pm.
Alternative commentary is available via the red button for this live coverage. Viewers watching via a Virgin TiVo box should press the info button and navigate to the 'alternative commentary' button.
Sky Sports will be showing highlights of the match via their online digital platform early next week. Highlights from all matches televised by Sky will be available on Sunday nights while highlights from their non-televised matches will be published online shortly thereafter.
Notes to Editors
During last Friday night's win over Munster, wingers Tim Visser suffered a dead leg and Dougie Fife took a knock to the knee. Full back Greig Tonks sustained a groin injury during the captain's run prior to the team setting off for Ireland. All are being monitored by the medical team this week.
Meanwhile Grant Gilchrist – the eight-times capped Scotland lock – returned from captaining his country on the summer tour with an ankle complaint that did not sufficiently recover following a period of rehabilitation. The player had a 'clean up' operation on the injury last month and is expected to return to rugby by the end of the month.
Back-row Roddy Grant, who sustained a shoulder injury in the club's 11-10 pre-season defeat to Leicester Tigers, is expected to return within the next fortnight, while hooker Stuart McInally is currently rehabilitating an ongoing ankle complaint. Schoolboy signing, back row Jamie Ritchie, is being treated for a shoulder knock, centre Michael Tait is rehabbing a knee injury and winger Damien Hoyland is being monitored after a calf strain.
Hooker George Turner continues his recovery from concussion while lock Alex Toolis is being monitored following a knee injury last month.
Jamie Farndale's training session knee injury last month required an operation, with the player's rehabilitation period expected to be around six months.
International back row and centre pair, David Denton and Matt Scott, continue their longer-term recovery as scheduled.MADISON TOWNSHIP, Ohio -- Authorities arrested a man they say started an early-morning fire that destroyed a clubhouse at a Lake County country club.
Paul Forner, 51, of Chardon is accused of setting the March 12 blaze that left Madison Country Club in ruins. U.S. Marshals and Madison Township police officers arrested Forner on Monday.
Forner is in custody at the Lake County Sheriff's Office on charges of aggravated arson and disrupting a public service. If convicted, he could face up to 11 years in prison, officials said.
Information on Forner's upcoming court appearances was not immediately available.
It took about 24 fire departments from three counties to battle the massive blaze, which broke out about 1 a.m. Nobody was injured, but crews were evacuated at one point because the structure was unstable.
Officials say the building, which housed the clubhouse facilities and dining room, was almost 100 years old. Lake County records show its appraised value as $323,580.
The owner of the country club, Rollin Cooke, is in negotiations with his insurance company in regards to rebuilding the clubhouse, said Randy Klammer, Cooke's attorney.
"Rollin was devastated the day the club burned to the ground," Klammer said. "It was one of his greatest passions and he's heartbroken to hear about the arrest today."
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Keeping mum about past misbehavior is out these days for the country’s elected officials and judges, if they want to keep their jobs.
4 January 2017
Two members of the Albanian parliament and a mayor were removed from office last week for failing to declare criminal accusations and convictions in foreign countries.
The three denied any wrongdoing and said they would appeal the decision by the Central Electoral Commission.
The decision was based on a year-old law barring anyone who has committed or been convicted of a criminal offense or misdemeanor in Albania or abroad from holding public office, Reuters reported.
Another law set to take effect this week could result in an exodus of judges and prosecutors to escape scrutiny of their pasts, some analysts say.
Albania has faced a barrage of criticism from the European Union for its perceived high level of official corruption and close ties between politicians and judges.
The three sacked officials are accused of not revealing convictions and investigations against them dating back to the mid-1990s. Kavaje Mayor Elvis Rroshi (pictured) failed to reveal what prosecutors said was a conviction for gang rape in Italy, using multiple identities in Switzerland, and being detained in Zurich in a drug case.
The commission said lawmaker Shkelqim Selami failed to declare his one-week detention in Brindisi, Italy over human trafficking in 1994, and fellow deputy Dashamir Tahiri allegedly did not reveal a nine-month jail term in Italy for driving with a false license, Reuters says.
The electoral commission was to decide this week whether to bar the three from future public office, Balkan Insight reported.
Since the requirement that officials submit declarations of their criminal activities took effect last year, around 500 names had been passed to prosecutors for further verification, a source in the prosecution office told Balkan Insight.
The new law that goes live this week could weed out judges and prosecutors with dubious pasts, or merely those who don’t want their affairs scrutinized by the authorities, Balkan Insight writes in a separate story.
The much-debated law requiring judicial officials to be vetted for their integrity and professionalism was cleared to take effect when the Constitutional Court on 22 December dismissed objections from the opposition Democratic Party and a judges’ union.
The law establishes two bodies to vet judges and prosecutors, check their assets, and carry out background checks for any links to crime.
The director of the Albanian Institute for Political Studies, Afrim Krasniqi, said some judges might resign to avoid the checks and publication of their financial data and professional records.
Albania finally passed a judicial reform law last July after discussions with EU and U.S. diplomats persuaded the opposition Democrats to support it.
The United States and EU also pushed the authorities to apply the ban on politicians with criminal records. The U.S. Embassy in Tirana welcomed the removal of the three politicians, Reuters said.
Compiled by Ky KrauthamerThe previous section of frame was so rusted through it was dangerous to drive on. It contained huge holes and both the shock mounts and rear leaf spring hangers had either rusted free or would do so on the next large bump. I was advised to find another toyota frame and weld on a new rear section, but between not feeling confident in my welding and not wanting an additional ty truck in my driveway, I took a less conventional approach. Up at my local public works shop I found an abundance of scrap sign post (galvanized!) from when they cut posts to length (instead of purchasing 8 foot posts they purchase 10 foot posts and lob off 2 feet -thats government work for you). They came in two different widths, and one width was the EXACT interior dimension of the truck frame. From there I hammered post down the tube, shimmed it in place with wedges I made from taking a wall off of a sign post, and bolted it onto the frame. From this I was able to stagger sign post into the same curvature of the previous frame. I bolted the sign posts metal to metal on the insides of the tubes on interval, and when finished, through bolted top to bottom on interval. No nut went on w/out a lock washer. I also plated the inside w/ scrap aluminum to keep the pieces from shifting. For the cross bracing I used pressure treated wood. I felt this was alright since it would primarily be subjected to horizontal stress and not have to support any weight, it also allowed for ease of lag screwing on a gas tank hanger. The front leaf spring hanger bolted easily onto the sign post. My old rear leaf spring hangers were rusted useless so I made new ones out of a shot of sign post, a bolt, and some self lubricating board. The brake lines I never actually disconnected throughout the whole project and worked around them, and screwed the box back to the frame when I was finished. I had to do some work with the fuel sending unit, but I won't go into detail on that w/out supporting pictures. Once I took it off blocks I was working on, I could not believe how strong it felt. Ten times better than the old frame, and just as good as any ordinary frame.18 December 2014 - for immediate release
Transport for London has published its consultation report on the upgrade to Cycle Superhighway 2 (CS2) between Aldgate and Bow roundabout.
The consultation, which ran from 23 September to 2 November, showed 95% of respondents supported protected space along the route - yet despite this overwhelming support, LCC believes that Transport for London has watered down the plans, which will compromise cycling safety.
After opposition from Whitechapel Market, plans for a segregated cycle track on this section of the route have been axed. Instead, cyclists will be expected to leave the protected cycle track and mix with buses and vans while passing the market - a daunting prospect for many people who cycle, or who would like to start cycling.
There are currently no hours of operation signed for the eastbound bus lane (picture). Other bus lanes in this area only operate for three hours in the morning and three hours in the afternoon. At best there will be minimal benefit for safe cycling for 25% of the day. Parking is allowed from 7pm till 7am.
Where the cycle superhighway disappears on the original plans, leaving no protected space for cycling opposite the council-owned Ocean Estate, Tower Hamlets Council have invited Transport for London to speak with them about purchasing land to enable reallocation of space for cycling, but at a later date.
LCC's Campaigns Manager Rosie Downes said "When this consultation opened we welcomed the proposed protected space as long overdue, but we stated that gaps in the segregation, where cyclists are expected to mix with heavy, fast moving traffic, are unacceptable. So we're disappointed to see that rather than addressing this problem, the plans now offer even less protection for cyclists.
"This is a route on which six cyclists have died since it became a cycling superhighway in 2011. The Mayor of Tower Hamlets, Lutfur Rahman, and every other local politician have called on Transport |
Co Offaly, last night.
It is believed to date back to the 1050 BC.
Photographs of the sword have been examined by Dr Andy Halpin, assistant keeper of Irish Antiquities at the National Museum.
“The sword found in the river Shannon near Banagher is a Bronze Age sword that dates back anywhere from between 1050 to 1500 BC,” he said.
“It most likely to be 3500-years old.”
The Shannonside Sub Aqua Club previously discovered Viking and Celt Swords from the Shannon.
“We know that there is a lot of historical evidence of Viking activity on the Shannon in the 9th and 10th centuries, however from the 10th century onwards, there is also evidence that Irish kings especially Brian Boru had ships on the Shannon,” Dr Halpin added.
Mr O Ruairc, a Banagher native, stumbled on the artifact during a routine search and recovery exercise.
The experienced diver said he was over the moon to discover such an important piece of Irish history.
“Two of my diving buddies who are also members of Shannonside Sub Aqua Club have recovered period swords from the river Shannon over the last number of years so I’m delighted to have eventually have found one myself,” he said.
The National Museum of Ireland are currently exhibiting a 1000-year-old Viking sword that was also found Banagher in 2012 as part of an exhibition to commemorate the Battle of Clontarf at the National Museum of Ireland. The exhibition runs until the end of December at its Museum of Archaeology on Kildare Street, Dublin.
The driving club announced its latest historic find on its Facebook page last night.
“We struck lucky again!!!!!” it said.
“This time, it was Micheal O Ruairc’s turn to find a period sword from the River Shannon.
“He picked himself up a pristine 3,500 year old Bronze Age Sword.
“The National Museum should really consider giving our divers a full time position in their underwater unit.”
Online EditorsIt makes more sense to invest in renewables, efficiency and storage than spending billions on Hinkley Point C
In the 21st century, the UK will have to supply itself with power that is affordable, reliable and clean. But in almost every way, the proposed Hinkley Point C nuclear power station offers only expensive and risky solutions from the 20th century.
A nuclear power station is about as useful in solving the dilemma as a 20th-century nuclear weapon is in ending a 21st-century guerilla insurgency, because a ground-level energy revolution is taking place. The old regime of large, centralised power plants is being replaced a smart, efficient and widely distributed network, powered by increasing amounts of renewable energy.
Theresa May set to give conditional approval for Hinkley Point C Read more
If that sounds radical, it’s not – it’s just how the internet works to provide fast and reliable communications. If it sounds like a hippy dream, it’s not – New York State’s energy plan has embraced it in order to deliver 50% renewable electricity by 2030 and a 23% cut in energy use by buildings. In the UK, this government aims to improve the energy efficiency of just half the homes retrofitted by the last one.
If you think New York State is alone in its thinking - it’s not. Bodies including the government’s own National Infrastructure Commission (NIC), the National Grid and industry group Energy UK all point to a smart system that is more secure, cheaper and faster to build and they all use the same word: “revolution”, while the International Energy Agency talks of a rapid “transition”.
The momentum behind the revolution is straightforward: cost. While renewable energy and other energy technologies are plummeting in price, nuclear power continues its historical trend of getting ever more expensive. Even if the UK negotiates a sharp cut in the subsidies for Hinkley, it still could not be built before 2026 at the earliest. By then, a capacity crunch will have hit the UK as old power stations close.
Hinkley puts a lot of generation capacity in one plan, which is very risky given the financial, legal and technical obstacles it faces. EDF, the French company leading the project, is taking on considerable financial risk, with Martin Young, an energy analyst at investment bank RBC Capital Markets, saying the project “verges on insanity”.
Court challenges – including from EDF’s own trade unions – abound and the fiendishly complex project has been described by one nuclear engineer as unconstructable. Two attempts to build the same reactor in France and Finland are miles over budget and behind schedule.
In contrast, energy efficiency could deliver six Hinkleys’ worth of electricity by 2030, according to the government’s own research. Four Hinkleys’ worth could be saved by increasing the ability to store electricity and making the grid smarter, with the latter alone likely to save billpayers £8bn a year.
Capturing and storing carbon from fossil fuel plants is also vital, but has received scant attention from the government compared with Hinkley. It would halve the cost of beating global warming, according to government’s own official advisers, but in November ministers abruptly canned its plan. The government will not be able to get out of the Hinkley deal, however. Once signed, the deal with EDF contains a “poison pill” which could leave taxpayers with a £22bn bill if a future UK government shuts down the plant.
The government has remained adamant that Hinkley, which could provide 7% of the UK’s electricity, is a vital part of a secure low-carbon future. But it is not just the idea of EDF’s partner, a Chinese state company, being involved that creates security fears. Nuclear power plants are prone to shutdowns, over safety concerns or even invasions of jellyfish into cooling waters as happened at Torness, in Scotland in 2011.
Closing down such a giant plant at short notice immediately puts the security of the nation’s electricity supply at risk. One back-up option recently favoured by the government is to deploy farms of diesel generators, which emit large volumes of carbon dioxide, ready to start up when needed.
Yet in a smart, distributed system, knocking out one wind turbine or solar panel is barely noticed by the grid.
The risk with Hinkley is that will it bring about the mutually assured destruction of both EDF and UK energy policy, with an expensive, hard-to-build reactor, in which the taxpayer will end up footing the bill.While the the Pirate Bay trial is recognized worldwide, historically only a handful of file-sharing cases have gone the distance in Sweden's criminal courts. Now, after making available just 44 music tracks via a file-sharing network, a 26 year old man is being lined up for prosecution. Sweden's Prosecution Office says that 'illicit' file-sharing is a "devastating social problem" so with the TPB convictions in hand, jail sentences will be considered more often in the future.
Following in the wake of last week’s failed appeal in the trial of The Pirate Bay operators and the confirmation of their jail sentences, Sweden’s Prosecution Office is warning that custodial sentences could be considered more often in future file-sharing cases.
Prosecutor Henrik Rasmussen, who is regularly involved in online infringement cases, said in an interview with Swedish media that in its ruling the Court of Appeal looked not only at the defendants cases, but at the issue of illegal file-sharing in general.
Noting that the Court referred to file-sharing as a “serious social problem”, he said that the decision to send the Pirate Bay’s operators to jail will affect how future file-sharing cases are viewed.
“If we have more cases of illegal file sharing we will discuss them in the same way, that it is a thoroughly devastating social problem,” said Rasmussen. “Therefore, jail sentences will be more widely considered.”
While the defendants in the Pirate Bay trial were convicted for a significant amount of copyright infringements, it seems that Swedish prosecutors are now looking at cases where infringements are relatively minor.
One case in hand involves a 26 year-old man from Uppsala, who last summer made 44 tracks available via a Direct Connect hub. After the music industry provided evidence to the authorities which it says proves the man shared the files, he will now be prosecuted for the alleged offenses.
“He risks a fine or imprisonment up to two years,” said Rasmusson. “I have not decided what I’m going to insist on exactly, but it is more likely to be a fine.”
So which variables does the prosecutor consider when presented with a case? What makes one man face a fine and another a jail sentence? We hope to be able to provide more details on this in the near future but in the meantime we spoke to Pirate Party Rick Falkvinge for his take. Not surprisingly, he’s unimpressed.
“This prosecutor is an anachronism and should resign. File sharing is a strong net positive to the community, and should not be a crime at all. I believe the future’s verdict against these regressive people is going to be quite harsh,” he told TorrentFreak this morning.
“If the government should interfere at all, it should rather be to hand out medals and incentives to people who share the most.”Cisco plans to invest US$10 billion in China, although its sales in the country are slumping due in part to persistent security concerns surrounding U.S. technology.
The investment marks a “new chapter” for the company, and it includes agreements with the Chinese government to expand in areas including research, and job creation, Cisco said on Wednesday.
The $10 billion investment will be made over several years, and will help spur technology innovation in the country, Cisco said, without further elaborating. It called the move a “renewed commitment” suggesting that the investment would be added on top of its existing operational expenses in China. Cisco could not be immediately reached for comment.
As part of the investment, the company has signed agreements with China’s National Development and Reform Commission, a high-level government agency, and with an association connected to the Ministry of Education.
Cisco has been in the Chinese market for over two decades supplying networking equipment, including what’s used in the country’s Internet infrastructure. But its business in the country has struggled in recent years due to “geopolitical challenges”, according to the company.
Following leaks about the U.S.’s secret surveillance programs, China has made cybersecurity a priority. As a result, the country is considering stricter regulations that could push U.S. tech firms out of the market.
In Cisco’s case, it also had to contend with competition from Huawei Technologies and ZTE, two Chinese companies that have become major players in the networking sector and are moving into enterprise services.
But even as China focuses more on cybersecurity, Cisco said on Wednesday it’s committed to the market. The company announced the investment as both its outgoing CEO John Chambers and incoming CEO Chuck Robbins met Chinese government officials.
Cisco will continue to “work closely” with the Chinese government and its partners to better meet demands for the market, Cisco’s head of the Greater China Owen Chan, said in a statement.
Back in 2007, Cisco made another huge investment in the country that reached $16 billion. Most of the money was geared toward doubling its manufacturing.
The market opportunity in China is huge. The country has over 600 million Internet users, and there’s a growing need for more data centers, and faster networking infrastructure.Get the biggest daily news stories by email Subscribe Thank you for subscribing We have more newsletters Show me See our privacy notice Could not subscribe, try again later Invalid Email
These shocking images lift the lid on Indonesia's dog meat industry – where stray pooches are beaten to death with hammers and served in curries for just £1.65.
Photographer Eko Siswono Toyudho took the graphic pictures after gaining access to a dog slaughterhouse in Jakarta through a friend who runs a dog meat restaurant.
The 37-year-old said stray dogs are bought for 150,000 to 250,000 rupiah (£8 to £14) depending on their size and chained up and fed rice and vegetables in a 'quarantine house'.
Eko said he witnessed dogs being beaten to death with hammers in the tourist hotspot before their meat was chopped up and cooked with'special spices' in the nearby restaurant.
The journalist, from Jakarta, captured the gruesome scenes on camera in September 2015 but has never released his photographs until now due to their shocking nature.
(Image: Eko Siswono Toyudho/Caters News)
(Image: Eko Siswono Toyudho/Caters News)
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But he claims both the slaughterhouse and dog meat restaurant – based to the east of Jakarta – are still running, with three to six dogs killed there each day.
Eko said: "I was able to gain access to the quarantine house because the owner of the dog restaurant is a close friend of mine, so he let me take the pictures.
"I witnessed the dogs beaten to death with hammers and left bleeding before being sliced up in order to be cooked.
WARNING: GRAPHIC IMAGES
(Image: Eko Siswono Toyudho/Caters News)
"Mongrel dogs are obtained from across West Jawa and Banten for 150,000 to 250,000 rupiah (£8 to £14) per animal, depending on their size.
"Each day, between three and six dogs are processed there to be made into a food named 'Saksang'.
"The flesh is cooked with special spices such as andaliman and asam gelugur before being served at special small restaurants for 30,000 rupiahs (£1.65) per portion.
(Image: Eko Siswono Toyudho/Caters News)
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"Dog meat is a typical cuisine from this area of Indonesia, and is much in demand.
"It is a traditional food for the Batak people from North Sumatera, who like it because it is part of their tradition. According to them, the meat is delicious.
"However, it can only be served in certain dishes and restaurants, and is sometimes hidden from the menu.
"Both the quarantine home and the restaurant are still open now."
(Image: Eko Siswono Toyudho/Caters News)
Eko claims the dogs bought by the 'quarantine house' are mongrels taken from the streets of West Jawa and Banten.
In his heartbreaking images, dogs can be seen chained up in the 'quarantine house'.
More graphic photos show the animals lying dead and their bodies placed in baskets with their fur singed off.
(Image: Eko Siswono Toyudho/Caters News)
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His final images show what appears to be the dog meat being cooked before curries are made using the flesh.
Eko said the dog quarantine is based on demand, and during the wait to be killed the dogs are given human food like rice and vegetables.
He said: "My photos show dogs in the quarantine zone before being cooked for food. I captured the beginning of the process until the end, when the animals are served as food to eat for dog meat lovers.
"I decided to take these photographs because as a journalist I feel it is my duty to tell the story.
"As an animal lover I feel it's a pity to see this kind of activity, but there is nothing I can do about it to stop it.
(Image: Eko Siswono Toyudho/Caters News)
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"Maybe by telling the story, it will raise awareness with the public.
"I understand people from Western cultures will find this practice upsetting and horrifying, and I hope there will be more done to condemn this kind of activity – but it is their tradition.
"I just feel pity for the dogs beaten to death, but hope my pictures speak for themselves."
Pressure group Dog Meat Free Indonesia believe every year millions of dogs are transported through Indonesia to fuel the dog meat trade – some of which are stolen family pets.
They believe seven per cent of the Indonesian population eat dog meat but say the trade threatens the health of the whole country by contributing to rabies outbreaks.OTTAWA - For some senators, the auditor general's scrutiny of their expenses sent them hurtling right into the Mike Duffy dimension.
Just 16 months after many of them voted to suspend the former Conservative senator over his contested living and travel expenses, some of them are now invoking his trial as they push back against Michael Ferguson's highly critical report.
The living expenses, the trips to funerals, the office contracts and the poor record keeping — many of the details in the auditor general's report find an echo in the trial of the suspended senator down the street at the courthouse.
Duffy has pleaded not guilty to 31 charges of fraud, breach of trust and bribery in connection with his office, living and travel spending. Ironically, his own lawyer has moved to include previous Senate audits into evidence at the trial.
One of the central areas revolves around the nearly $90,000 Duffy claimed for living expenses for his longtime Ottawa-area home, while declaring a cottage in Prince Edward Island as his primary residence. Fellow senators Patrick Brazeau and Mac Harb face similar charges.
The Senate's internal economy committee responded to the scandal with a report in 2013 saying that if a senator lived primarily in the capital region, he or she shouldn't be claiming expenses.
But it would seem that report is a distant memory now. Some senators quoted directly from the Duffy trial in their letters back to Ferguson, which were included in Tuesday's audit report.
In particular, they seemed to hang on the testimony of former Senate law clerk Mark Audcent, who said during the early days of Duffy's ongoing trial that there were no real criteria for what constitutes a primary and secondary residence.
Ferguson's team, meanwhile, refers to "normal" travel patterns, and "substantive presence" in a home. Ferguson said his office based its decisions on the Senate committee's 2013 view of residency.
"The auditor general is applying a test that was rejected by the former law clerk in order to reach a conclusion that is not supported by my clear and many attachments to my province while I was a member of the Senate," fumed former Liberal senator William Rompkey, who had $3,134 in living expenses questioned.
Fellow retired Liberal senator Rod Zimmer, who is red-circled for $47,132 in living expenses alone out of a total of more than $176,000, suggests that the auditor general could be interfering in the Duffy trial by pronouncing on residency requirements.
"Will this be seen as prejudging the conclusion (Duffy judge) Justice Charles Vaillancourt will reach on the same matter, and what if Justice Vaillancourt does not agree with the auditor general's interpretation?" Zimmer writes.
Conservative Sen. Pierre-Hugues Boisvenu racked up $15,826 in living expenses, while the report found he was spending little time in Sherbrooke, Que.
"Sherbrooke was my primary residence under the rules of the Senate, the civil code of Quebec and income tax rules," Boisvenu responded.
Retired Liberal Sen. Sharon Carstairs was highlighted for $2,399 in living expense claims. Her response matched that of Duffy.
"There are no rules with respect to the number of days spent in the primary residence," Carstairs said. "Had such rules existed I would have fulfilled them as I did all other rules in the Senate."
Ferguson, meanwhile, said that his team didn't focus on rules, but rather the fundamental principles behind the Senate's rules — namely, that money be spent responsibly and for public business.
A Senate official who spoke on condition of anonymity Tuesday acknowledged that senators could find the residency issue caught up in two tracks — the Duffy trial and special arbitrator Ian Binnie, a former Supreme Court justice assigned to deal with the cases raised by the auditor.
When asked about that, government Senate leader Claude Carignan said that Binnie's decision on the cases he adjudicates will be the last word on Senate residency.
Carignan also said there would be no immediate suspension of senators, unlike in 2013, when the Senate passed a motion to oust Duffy, Harb, Brazeau and Pamela Wallin.
Instead, two senators' cases — Boisvenu and Liberal Colin Kenny — will be sent to the Senate ethics commissioner, and then possibly on to a disciplinary committee.
Also on HuffPostMarch 06, 2014 Drought Worsens in Malaysia and Thailand
By By Eric Leister, Meteorologist March 06, 2014, 2:19:27 AM EST
An extended period of dry weather across Malaysia and southern Thailand has led to water shortages, agricultural problems and an increase in wildfires.
The last measurable rainfall of more than 1 mm (0.04 of an inch) in Singapore was Jan. 12, when the city reported 18 mm (0.72 of an inch).
It has now been 50 days since the city recorded more than 1 mm (0.04 of an inch), making it one of the longest stretches for dry weather in the recorded history of the city.
For more perspective on the severity of the drought, Singapore has reported less than 75 mm (3 inches) of rain since Jan. 1, which is less than 20 percent of the normal 442 mm (17.39 inches) that falls through March 2.
The drought has begun to impact agriculture across both Malaysia and Thailand, including the crops of rice and rubber.
Drinking water shortages have also become a concern and could result in hundreds of thousands of people seeing their water supplies run dry in the coming weeks if rain does not return.
More than 2 million people are already subject to water rationing, according to Channel News Asia. That number is likely to rise in the coming weeks as rainfall remains sparse across the region.
Air pollution has become an issue in and around the Malaysian capital of Kuala Lumpur in recent days as a thick smog built over the city and air quality levels have risen to unhealthy levels.
RELATED:
Detailed Singapore, Forecast
Malaysia Weather Center
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A period of well below-normal rainfall is expected to continue through the middle of March, and any significant rainfall could take even longer to return. This weather pattern will likely lead to worsening conditions for people, livestock and agriculture.
Another rising concern is that a continuation of the dry weather already impacting the region will result in an increased risk for wildfires during the spring and summer months. Occurrences of wildfires have already been on the increase in the past few weeks, leading to some of the air quality issues across the region.
Report a TypoSmell that? Yes, that's the magnificent aroma of Washington trying to cover its ass now that its brilliant strategy of "arming human scum and shipping them into Syria by the Toyota-load" has failed miserably.
Here is Obama's Deputy National Security Advisor Ben Rhodes talking about the horrible moral dilemma Washington faced while arming random (but "moderate"!) weirdos in Syria:
Coincidence or fate? What’s strange is, I met with the Syrian opposition, and often they would argue that we should work with al-Nusra, who we know is Al Qaeda. And I’m sympathetic if you’re in a neighborhood where al-Nusra is defending you against Assad. You want us to work with them. But let’s say a U.S. president does that, and then al-Nusra is using weapons that we gave them against us. That’s something you never recover from, right?
"We didn't want to directly/indirectly aid al-Nusra — and even if we sometimes did, by accident, the'moderate' rebels made us do it!" We remember employing a similar line of argument... in first grade.
Yeah, it's really really strange that the "rebels" would ask Mr. Rhodes to arm Al Qaeda, especially when the rebels are already arming Al Qaeda with weapons provided by the Pentagon. Even stranger that al-Nusra commanders have stated, on the record, that the U.S. is "on their side". It's not our fault! The "moderate" rebels made us do it!
And we love the ending anecdote about sympathizing with Al Qaeda, who, after all, sometimes aren't terrorists, but actually noble freedom fighters protecting Syrians from Assad's savagery.
Furthermore, what kind of self-described "moderate" would want extremists to have TOWs and other advanced U.S. weapons? Doesn't that make the whole "moderate" thing a bit more tricky to navigate?
Washington's grand vision for Syria (a failed state that can be used to destabilize Iran and train psychos to send eastward, with their final destination being Russia) has failed. And the ass-covering begins.
Of course, the outgoing administration still clings to the transparent lie that they only worked with "moderates", who sometimes turned out to be throat-slitting maniacs. But, years from now, when Obama officials are called out on their bullshit, you can bet that this will be their go-to excuse for siding with actual, in-the-flesh terrorists:
"The'moderates' made us do it!"
These people are awful.Chairman Sir Michael Barber said the Office for Students will force institutions to allow diverse opinions to be heard amid concerns that some views are being shut down
Universities that tolerate curbs on free speech will face intervention, the head of the new student watchdog has warned.
Chairman Sir Michael Barber said the Office for Students (OfS) will force institutions to allow diverse opinions to be heard amid concerns that some views are being shut down.
The regulator was created this year in an effort to ensure universities are providing good value for money for students and the taxpayer.
Sir Michael said universities must allow every point of view to be heard – even if some are considered offensive to students.
‘To avoid discomfort is to retreat from freedom of speech: to run away from the good, the true and the beautiful,’ he wrote in Times Higher Education.
‘Instead, universities must help students develop the resilience and character needed to live with and benefit from being challenged.’
He added that ‘much of the most profound learning requires discomfort’.
Sir Michael’s comments follow a number of incidents in which students have banned speakers from their campuses over their allegedly offensive views.
He said some academics had voiced concerns that the OfS might place restrictions on what they said, but in fact the opposite was true. ‘Ideally, we will never have to intervene,’ he said.
‘But if we do, it will be to widen freedom of speech rather than restrict it.’As the Legislative Yuan’s Judiciary and Organic Laws and Statutes Committee reviewed the Marriage Equality Act bill last week, Kuomintang (KMT) legislators commandeered the chairman’s podium and filibustered their way into two agreements with the DPP (Democratic Progressive Party) caucus: that both parties will hold separate hearings on the matter, and that all revisions to the bill would be reviewed in committee before the conclusion of the current legislative session, with no further procedural interference permitted.
The emphatic shouts of groups opposing marriage equality outside the legislative chambers where the bill was being reviewed, along with the crushing disappointment and anger of LGBT groups upon learning of the outcome, set the stage for a confrontation of opposing values.
“Uphold traditional family values! Oppose legislative railroading!” Early on the morning of November 17, groups opposing gay marriage including Alliance of Taiwan Religious Groups for the Protection of Family (護家盟) and the Happiness of the Next Generation Alliance (下一代幸福聯盟) rallied thousands of people together along Jinan Road outside the Legislative Yuan. Dressed in white T-shirts, they raised signs in protest reading “Marriage and Family, Let the People Decide.” A few young students and some families with children could be seen among their ranks.
The protestors were mobilized mainly by Christian groups due to their belief that passage of the act would erode traditional family values. Three versions of the bill were submitted for review. In a departure from the established application of the Civic Code exclusively to heterosexual marriages, the Partial Revision to Articles of the Civic Code Pertaining to Family Relations, sponsored by DPP legislator Yu Mei-nu (尤美女) and endorsed by 48 legislators, stresses equal application of the code across same-sex and heterosexual marriages, as well as the rights of and responsibilities to the children involved.
In addition, the proposed bill dictates that parties entering into an adoption may not discriminate on the basis of sex, sexual orientation, or gender identity.
Respecting Differences
Following skirmishes both inside and outside the legislative chambers, the bill did not reach a qualitative reading.
Despite the appearance of going back to the drawing board, at no time in Taiwanese history has the legalization of marriage equality been so close at hand. Chen Yi-chien (陳宜倩), associate professor at the Shih Hsin University Graduate Institute for Gender Studies, says that, even if the bill did not come up for review, it nonetheless signifies that Taiwanese society has begun to seriously consider the possibility of same-sex marriage, attracting further attention and participation.
Tu Tsu-cheng (杜思誠), director of the Taiwan TongZhi Hotline Association’s Policy Promotion Department, echoed the sentiment, saying this is an opportunity for Taiwanese society to learn how to respect others’ differences.
In the fight for marriage rights, gay Taiwanese petitioned for a constitutional interpretation as far back as 1958. However, the government refused to support top-down efforts until 2003, when the Ministry of Justice amended the Basic Human Rights Law to assert that “homosexuals have the right to form a family and raise children,” a provision that never made it to the Executive Yuan. In 2006, a marriage equality draft bill proposed by Legislator Hsiao Bi-khim was blocked in the Legislative Yuan Procedure Committee.
Yu Mei-nu reintroduced the legislation in 2012, and the following year, Cheng Li-chun (DPP) added a provision on gay adoption. However, neither of these versions made it past committee discussion procedures.
In comparison to past Legislative efforts, the issue is attracting both more attention and greater controversy this time. Tseng Hsien-ying (曾獻瑩), spokesperson for the Happiness of the Next Generation Alliance, acknowledges that the rights of gay people must be safeguarded. However, as numerous structures are established upon the institution of heterosexual marriage, Tseng insists that changes should not be made directly to the Civic Code, the scope and influence of which is extremely broad. Instead, single laws should be amended. “If there are issues with your rights and privileges, then let’s talk about it and possibly change the laws,” says Tseng, who believes that such an approach would require less extensive legal revisions.
Tseng Hsien-ying also claims that the overarching purpose of the marriage structure “is to protect the next generation,” and that legalization of gay marriage, if passed, “would impact the heterosexual marriage order and color the next generation’s views on marriage and family.” Consequently, Tseng claims, the term or concept of “heterosexual” will vanish, and “traditional family values will be damaged.” Tseng says that the family plays an important basic function in society, claiming that mothers and fathers play different roles, and “children are better off growing up under a heterosexual marriage.”
Who Says Our Love Isn’t Real?
“We hope Taiwanese society not only notices the existence of the LGBT community, but what we want at this point is to own our own lives,” says Chih-liu Peng (彭治鏐), secretary general of the Taiwan TongZhi Hotline Association. By lives, this refers to enjoying the same rights as other citizens in regard to such everyday, practical concerns as healthcare, marriage, property and wealth inheritance, and adoption.
Cindy Su, CEO of the Lobby Alliance for LGBT Human Rights, married her partner in Canada in 2012. This year they had twins. “We were running out of time,” says Su. Although she has both parental and guardianship rights, there are no legal safeguards over her partner’s relationship with their children.
“How long must these families wait? Who says our love isn’t love? Who says our children aren’t children?” So asked a chorus of voices mixed with tears among the lesbian attendees at a gender rights group press conference.
Mixing rage and tears, many differing value systems clashed on the same day, reaching a cacaphonous crescendo on the Internet. “If society remains so polarized, even if the law passed today it would only be a miniscule beginning. The journey of mutual understanding between different gender identity groups is just beginning, with many more rights left to fight for,” said Chen Yi-chien.
The outcome of negotiations agreed upon amidst the conflict, which set the stage for something further, will depend on the result of the Legislative Yuan’s review of the bill during this legislative term. Whether or not Taiwan becomes the first country in Asia to enshrine marriage equality in its laws, it seems that more discussion will have to come first.
Translated from the Chinese by David TomanGarry Winogrand was one of America's most important postwar photographers. A traveling exhibition by the National Gallery of Art and the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art brings his work back to life.
In an exhibit simply titled Garry Winogrand, viewers are treated to a thorough retrospective of his photography, including some of the shots he never got around to printing. (When Winogrand died in 1984, the 56-year-old photographer left behind 6,500 rolls of undeveloped film.)
His work captures an America that wavered from post-WWII optimism to post-Vietnam despair. Born in the Bronx, his early work focuses on an energetic New York City. In the 1970s and up to his death, Winogrand explored the rest of the country, photographing the people and places he discovered in a way that expresses a far gloomier perspective. That despair is especially noticeable in some of his Los Angeles work from the 1980s.
Garry Winogrand is the first retrospective of the former commercial and travel photographer in 25 years. Starting at SFMOMA in 2013, the exhibit is currently at the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C. until June 8. Manhattan's Metropolitan Museum of Art will host in next, starting June 27.
"Richard Nixon Campaign Rally", New York, 1960 gelatin silver print framed: 45.72 55.88 cm (18 22 in.) Posthumous print made from original negative on the occasion of the Garry Winogrand exhibition organized by the National Gallery of Art and the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, courtesy Center for Creative Photography, The University of Arizona © The Estate of Garry Winogrand, courtesy Fraenkel Gallery, San Francisco
Left: "Park Avenue", New York, 1959 gelatin silver print overall: 32.7 x 21.7 cm (12 7/8 x 8 9/16 in.) framed: 40.64 50.8 cm (16 20 in.) National Gallery of Art, Patrons' Permanent Fund © The Estate of Garry Winogrand, courtesy Fraenkel Gallery, San Francisco. Right: Garry Winogrand New York, 1961 gelatin silver print framed: 50.8 40.64 cm (20 16 in.) The Museum of Modern Art, New York. Purchase and gift of Barbara Schwartz in memory of Eugene M. Schwartz © The Estate of Garry Winogrand, courtesy Fraenkel Gallery, San Francisco
"New York World's Fair", 1964 gelatin silver print framed: 40.64 50.8 cm (16 20 in.) San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, Gift of Dr. L.F. Peede, Jr. © The Estate of Garry Winogrand, courtesy Fraenkel Gallery, San Francisco
"John F. Kennedy International Airport", New York, 1968 gelatin silver print framed: 40.64 50.8 cm (16 20 in.) Collection of John and Lisa Pritzker © The Estate of Garry Winogrand, courtesy Fraenkel Gallery, San Francisco
"New York", 1968 gelatin silver print framed: 40.64 50.8 cm (16 20 in.) San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, Gift of Dr. L.F. Peede, Jr. © The Estate of Garry Winogrand, courtesy Fraenkel Gallery, San Francisco
"New York", 1969 gelatin silver print framed: 40.64 50.8 cm (16 20 in.) Collection of Jeffrey Fraenkel and Alan Mark © The Estate of Garry Winogrand, courtesy Fraenkel Gallery, San Francisco
"Albuquerque, New Mexico", 1958 [1957?] gelatin silver print framed: 40.64 50.8 cm (16 20 in.) The Museum of Modern Art, New York. Purchase © The Estate of Garry Winogrand, courtesy Fraenkel Gallery, San Francisco
"Los Angeles", 1980-1983 gelatin silver print framed: 40.64 50.8 cm (16 20 in.) The Garry Winogrand Archive, Center for Creative Photography, The University of Arizona © The Estate of Garry Winogrand, courtesy Fraenkel Gallery, San FranciscoEach week, Entertainment Weekly and Marvel are releasing a new SHIELD poster by a prominent artist for purchase at the Marvel shop as part of their “Art of Level 7″ promotion. So far we’ve seen posters featuring Raina, Sif, and Agent 33, but this week we’re getting a beautiful look at Skye’s mother, Jiaying.
The Dichen Lachman rendering is by Marguerite Sauvage, who has previously worked on Ms. Marvel and the Thor Annual and is a part of Janelle Asselin’s new Fresh Romance project. SHIELD EP Jeff Bell said of the poster,
[A]t Marvel, which has been traditionally such a dude company, one of the things we really pride ourselves on at Marvel’s Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. is that we have all these strong women characters and the diversity of those characters. We’ve have lots of strong women on these posters this year, with Sif and May and Jiaying and Bobbi…and I like seeing all that. And I just feel, aesthetically, certain ones feel more comic book and certain ones feel more illustrative. And I think there’s a little something for everybody.
Bell also says that he wishes they could have shown scars all over Jiaying on the show, the way Sauvage drew them here, and that the next few episodes of SHIELD will reveal “why she moved to the middle of nowhere, and why she wants to be left alone, and why she’s willing to go the lengths she goes to in order to protect her people.”
What do you think of the latest poster?
—Please make note of The Mary Sue’s general comment policy.—
Do you follow The Mary Sue on Twitter, Facebook, Tumblr, Pinterest |
."Britton Tavern is a large restaurant/bar/tavern located on Highway 37 in Fishers, Indiana.
Located in a large strip mall that includes a pet shop, nail salon, ethnic grocery, and more, Britton Tavern is a HUGE place with lots going on. From live music to trivia to who knows what else, it seems there’s an event here just about every night of the week.
The menu is pretty standard bar food—sandwiches, pizza, burgers, salads, and a steak or two. I’d probably not quite call it a gastropub (a term I really don’t care for!!) but I think most of the food is a cut above basic bar food.
For my dinner, of course, I chose the breaded tenderloin.
Hand breaded, this is a large sandwich and it’s got a lot of things going for it. The breading is nice and crisp, and the meat just tastes “fresh”. It is tender and has a nice flavor. It’s big enough to satisfy even the biggest appetite.
n my opinion, the breading was lacking in the seasoning department. While the sandwich was good, it thought it was just a tad bland. Just a little seasoning and it’d stack up against any sandwich in the area. Even with that caveat, I’ll give it a 4 out of 5. It’s nice and thick, hearty, and the breading is above average. I’d certainly order it again.
For my side, I chose onion rings, and those were amazing! As you can see–these are BIG onion rings. I don’t think that bigger is always better, but in this case, the rings have size AND flavor. I highly recommend them.
For her dinner, Holly chose the Cobb salad. This is a BIG salad – enough to make two meals. This is her go-to choice at Britton.
Britton Tavern is located at 14005 Mundy Drive in Fishers, IN. They’re online at http://www.brittontavern.co (and, yes, it *IS* co, not com) plus you can also find them on Twitter and Facebook.As a cardinal, Pope Benedict XVI and other Vatican officials did not punish or even hold a trial within the Catholic church for a Wisconsin priest who may have molested as many as 200 deaf boys, according to The New York Times.
The Times reports that despite warnings from "several" bishops to then-Cardinal Ratzinger about Father Lawrence Murphy, a priest at the St. John's School For The Deaf in St. Francis, WI, the Vatican chose not to act and ultimately allowed Murphy to go unpunished before his death in 1998. The Times reports:
In 1996, Cardinal Ratzinger failed to respond to two letters about the case from Rembert G. Weakland, Milwaukee's archbishop at the time. After eight months, the second in command at the doctrinal office, Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone, now the Vatican's secretary of state, instructed the Wisconsin bishops to begin a secret canonical trial that could lead to Father Murphy's dismissal. But Cardinal Bertone halted the process after Father Murphy personally wrote to Cardinal Ratzinger protesting that he should not be put on trial because he had already repented and was in poor health and that the case was beyond the church's own statute of limitations. "I simply want to live out the time that I have left in the dignity of my priesthood," Father Murphy wrote near the end of his life to Cardinal Ratzinger. "I ask your kind assistance in this matter." The files contain no response from Cardinal Ratzinger.
The Times acquired the correspondence and church files from the lawyers for five men who are suing the Archdiocese of Milwaukee over the abuse. A 2006 story by the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel detailed Murphy's violations:
The men's stories are similar. Murphy would call them to his bedroom in the school, or visit them in their dorm beds late at night, masturbate them and leave. Sometimes he would go on to other boys. Often he would say nothing. Sometimes when the boys saw him molesting other boys in the dorm room, they would cover their heads with their blankets, hug themselves tightly and weep. At times, he would take their confession in a second floor walk-in closet in the boy's dorm and molest them. "Murphy was so powerful and it was so hard," said Geier who was molested when he was in seventh grade and said he saw more than a dozen other boys molested. "You couldn't get out. It was like a prison. I felt so confused. Here I had Father Murphy touching me. I would be like, 'God, what's right?' " Geier said the boys received no sex education and had no idea what was happening to them. Some, he said, believed it must be all right because it was being done by a priest.
On Wednesday, the Pope accepted the resignation of Bishop John Magee, an Irish bishop, for his failure to report child-molesting priests to police. Last week, the Pope issued an unprecedented letter to Ireland addressing the 16 years of church cover-up scandals there. But he has yet to say anything about his handling of an abuse case in Germany.
In that case, Ratzinger approved the 1980 transfer of Rev. Peter Hullermann to a psychological treatment center to receive treatment for pedophilia. Ratziner, then a cardinal, was the archbishop of Munich and did not report Hullermann's alleged abuse of boys to German police.
Since January, more than 300 former Catholic school students and others have stepped forward with abuse claims and the church has seen it's poll numbers fall drastically.
According to Stern magazine, Only 17 percent of Germans polled said that they still trust the Catholic church, compared to 29 percent in late January, just before the first abuse cases there were made public.The star Republican congressman Kevin McCarthy was standing in front of a hardware store display of screws last month, recording the Weekly Republican Address. “Just as John Hancock,” he said into the camera, “boldly signed his name to the Declaration of Independence, so that even Britain’s King George could read it, I want to say this slowly, so there is no room for misinterpretation.”
The Kevin McCarthy who starred in the 1956 sci-fi fable Invasion of the Body Snatchers had died a few days earlier, at age 96. This one, the man who wrote the House Republicans’ new Pledge to America, paused to curve his mouth into an oval. “Our government has failed us. From the billion-dollar bailouts to the stimulus package,” he said, keeping his body still but tilting his head from side to side, “you cried stop.”
On the second page of its foreword, in between photographs of the Statue of Liberty and Mount Rushmore, his pledge likewise vows to permanently end bailouts. But since well before the official new blueprint, and even without considering the great vengeance and furious anger of the Tea Party wing, Republicans have been crusading against government support of Wall Street.
That hasn’t deterred Wall Street’s leaders, exasperated by a president who called them “a bunch of fat cat bankers,” flabbergasted by intricate new regulation and insulted that tax rates for the wealthy may go back to where they’d been before Bush. Beginning in February, when 17 of the top 25 federal beneficiaries of the industry were Republicans, financial industry money has seesawed neatly from left to right.
“What people care about is they want a more pro-business regime–that’s it,” one of the city’s most important hedge fund managers said in a very brief interview.
But between dread about sovereign debt, the housing market, unemployment, third-quarter losses and deflation–if not inflation, too–it does not seem impossible that another financial crisis could somehow happen again. And if Wall Street gets its way, it will have nudged into power a party that has deafeningly proclaimed the evils of government intervention.
Does Wall Street’s support of a party that’s openly pledged not to save them mean it has accepted it shouldn’t be bailed out again? Interviews with executives suggested not, for three reasons. They think that another crisis won’t happen, or that if it does, they will not need another bailout because of reforms, or that if they do, our country’s leaders would oblige, no matter who’s in power.
“We’ve learned campaign rhetoric is to get elected, and when I’m elected I do what I wanted to do in the first place. Look at this administration,” said the chairman of Petrus Partners, H. Fred Krimendahl II, an alumnus of Goldman Sachs, where he is a senior director. Mr. Krimendahl, speaking just after TARP was brought to its official end on Sunday, has voted for Republicans since Eisenhower. “Look, if something happened again on Wall Street that would really threaten the entire system, and had the danger that it would bring everything down, I’m not sure it would make a difference.”
THE LAST REPUBLICAN administration’s choice between free-market purity and saving the financial system from apocalyptic collapse was not, Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson wrote later, really a choice at all. Since then, as the MIT professor and former I.M.F. official Simon Johnson has written, the Dodd-Frank reforms have done nearly nothing to make it any easier to safely wind down a cross-border giant like Citi without government support.
What has dramatically changed is the pitch of fury. “Frankly,” as the Republican consultant Frank Luntz wrote in a memo about financial reform, “the single best way to kill any legislation is to link it to the Big Bank Bailout.” He advised that the outrage was a “time bomb set to go off on Election Day,” but also, in a closing section on words to use, recommended the phrase “never again,” an oath associated with genocide and the Holocaust.
What would the party do, then, in case of another systemic crisis? “I think both Wall Street and everyone in Washington regard the fall of 2008 as a once-in-a-generation clusterfuck,” a source close to House Republican leadership said. “You’re asking a question about a theoretical that both Wall Street and Washington don’t expect to happen.”
Last month, the Congressional Oversight Panel issued a monthly report whose conclusion has an entire section called “TARP ‘Stigma’ Has Grown and May Prove an Obstacle to Future Stability.” The more something is called evil, the harder it is to use. “I can’t get into the hypothetical,” the Republican National Committee spokesperson Doug Heye said. “Sure, I can stand back and say, ‘Oh, there are lots of neat paradoxes going on in this election cycle,’ but that’s not something we’ve engaged in.”
WHAT’S STRANGER IS that Wall Street donors don’t seem to have, either. The head of investment banking at one of the large banks said that because of the recent financial reform, Republicans wouldn’t actually be faced with the choice between systemic collapse and roaring hypocrisy. “I think the resolution authority in Dodd-Frank goes a lot of the way,” the source said.
Better yet, it may not even have to be tested. “The debt creation that led to this massive bubble took over a 25-year period in this country,” he said. “I don’t know that we’re going to be in a situation like that for a long time. Having said that, the chances that we’d get through it without having to utilize something like TARP, whatever year it would be then, are higher based upon the resolution authority.”
Because of that, the hedge fund manager said in the short interview, “none of these big banks are going to need a bailout for a very long time, maybe ever.”
And even if they do, Mr. Krimendahl said, a solution could be found. “I think there’s a way to sell anything to the public,” he said, “if you have the right leadership.”
In the meantime, the business world’s donors don’t mind that the Republican National Committee has made ads that show the street sign on Wall Street melting, with sound effects and a minor-key piano melody. “Wall Street squanders our money,” a gravelly voice says, “and Washington is forced to bail them out with, you guessed it, our money. Could it get any worse?” That ad, whose final frame warns about Mr. Obama’s spending plan, was from September 2008.
But if Republicans have mixed emotions about Wall Street, Wall Street also has slightly mixed feelings about the Republicans. “It’s not as though they’re looking at them as blood brothers,” a private-equity communications chief said. “They’re just looking at a more sympathetic audience.”
mabelson@observer.comUNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. -- Brand commitment might not always be a good thing, and in the case of high-severity recalls, consumers with a high level of brand commitment may actually respond more negatively than those with less loyalty, according to researchers.
The findings come from a study by a team of researchers that included Raj Grewal, Irving & Irene Bard Professor of Marketing at the Penn State Smeal College of Business.
Brand commitment is found in consumers who are “attached to brands, form close relationships with them and have a general desire to maintain this close relationship,” said the researchers, who have published their findings in Marketing Letters: A Journal of Research in Marketing.
The prevailing wisdom is that brand commitment will help brands retain their standing among consumers in the case of negative attention like a product recall, but the researchers found the reality to be more nuanced.
In cases of high-severity recalls — recalls of products that could cause serious injury or death — Grewal and his colleagues found that brand commitment actually acted as a liability.
“Committed consumers may come to expect more from the brand they like and thus feel especially disappointed when the brand gets recalled,” the researchers wrote. “Indeed, committed consumers might view a product recall as a ‘breach of contract,’ and hence might exhibit more negative responses following a recall announcement than their less committed counterparts.”
On the other hand, in cases of low-severity or ambiguous product recalls, Grewal and his colleagues confirm that brand commitment can help mitigate fallout. Previous research shows that consumers tend to resist negative information regarding brands they love, so brand loyalty can be helpful in the case of recalls that have a lower possibility of negative effects.
“Product Recalls and the Moderating Role of Brand Commitment” is currently available online. Authors include Grewal, Frank Germann of the University of Notre Dame, William T. Ross Jr. of the University of Connecticut and Rajendra K. Srivastava of the Singapore Management University.We first posted about Hatch almost a year ago now, and back then the virtual pet from Impending and Realmac Software was slated for an “Early 2013" release date. Well, one thing lead to another (Namely, the insane success of the Ellen game Heads Up! ($0.99)) and early 2013 turned into “soon" which eventually firmed up to November 20th.
In the game, you take care of a ultra-cute Fugu. Players will be responsible for playing with it, feeding it, and giving it attention- Somewhat like a next generation Tamagotchi. Also, surprisingly enough, Hatch is not going to be a free to play game like the many virtual pet titles that seem to guilt you in to spending money by having your virtual dog whine at you. Instead, it’s launching with a $1.99 price tag, which we’re hoping means a return to sensible game design in the virtual pet world.
For more information, including an amazing trailer and the ability to pre-select your Fugu pet, hit up the Hatch web site.We have answered another great science question posed to us from Ask a Scientist!
Roksha, a first-grader, learned about working with a growth mindset at school. In class, she has discussed how having a growth mindset means focusing on school work and putting forth your best effort. Roksha’s class talked about how your brain is a dynamic structure that changes when you work hard to learn something new, and after thinking deeply about this, she sent us this insightful question:
“I know you grow dendritic spines when you learn. But what if you grow too many dendrites and spines? Does your brain ever get full? Is there enough room?”
Great question, Roksha! It may surprise you to know how many scientists have asked this same question over the years. In fact, figuring out how the brain learns and stores memories is one of the fundamental goals in neuroscience. Let’s start with some good news: The idea that your brain can be “full” is a myth. We know that a brain is never too full to learn more, and cannot be filled to capacity.
Now that you know your brain will never be too full to learn, let’s journey into the process of how the brain makes room for new information. Instead of filling up, the brain is a remarkably plastic structure, which changes constantly so that you can learn, forget, remember what’s important, and unlearn what you no longer need to know.
Neurons typically communicate with other neurons through electrical and chemical signals. Neurons send these signals down an axon, across a small synapse, and into the dendritic branches of another cell. One type of neuron, called a Purkinje neuron, is pictured below. Here, you can see many dendrites branching like tree branches in varying shades of blue. The spines are the part that looks like fuzz around the branches. This entire neuron is only about 200 µm long! In other words, if you lined up five of these neurons end-to-end, you could fit about five of them into one tiny millimeter. For reference, one millimeter is about the size of the tip of a pen.
Synaptic Plasticity
As you go through life, the neurons in your brain change based on your experiences. When you learn, some of the neurons in your brain, like the one pictured above, generate dendritic spines. Dendritic spines are little knobs that stick out of neuronal dendrites. At these knobs, you can find synapses, which are widely considered to be locations where learning happens at the molecular level. Synapses are tiny spaces (30-50 nm) between two neurons, across which one neuron sends a message to the other. It has been estimated that there are ~86 billion neurons (Azevedo FA 2009, Voyteck B 2013) and ~100 trillion synapses in the human brain. In the photo below, you can see a green dendritic branch with yellow spines sticking out of it.
When neurons communicate more with each other, synapses and spines are generated or strengthened (Hebb DO 1949, Bliss and Lømo 1973). When neurons communicate less with each other, spines can be retracted (Bear MF 1995). The dynamic process of building and eliminating synapses is continues throughout your entire life. The brain is constantly remodeling itself by inserting new spines and removing unimportant spines. The ability to remodel based on learning and experiences is called plasticity, or neuroplasticity.
In the past, people thought brains were like computers because you learn and store information. However, a hard drive has a finite amount of space to store information. Once a hard drive is full, it will be completely unable to store any more information. In order to make new space, something must be deleted. The hard drive is incapable of deciding what can be deleted on its own. In contrast, we have learned that the brain is so much more capable than a hard drive because a brain never gets too full, can remodel itself. The brain is remarkably dynamic and is constantly remodeling itself in response to your experiences. More important pathways are solidified, while unnecessary pathways weaken and disappear, making room to store new things you learn. When you’re young, your brain is extra plastic, because it has to learn everything from the beginning. As you get older, your brain will still be plastic, but less so. One advantage to having a less plastic brain as an adult is that it better preserves your most important memories.
Refining The Young Brain
When we are born, the brain is full of many extra synapses and miscellaneous connections. As a newborn learns and experiences the world, the brain begins to learn which synaptic connections are important. The important synaptic connections get stronger, while the unneeded synapses disconnect and retract. Through this process of pruning, our brains develop into highly functional adult brains that are less plastic and more refined for our daily activities.
Uniquely Human
While the myth that the brain becomes full is false, it is interesting to note that the brain is an extremely crowded place. The human brain has more folds and wrinkles than the brain of any other mammal. These folds, which form the mountain-valley appearance, increase the surface area of our brains while maintaining a small-ish volume so that we can squeeze in as much neuronal tissue and circuitry as possible. Throughout mammalian evolution, the large frontal lobes of brains have expanded and become more wrinkly. A mouse brain has smooth frontal lobes, a cat’s brain has a few folds, a monkey brain will show more prominent folds, and a human brain has the most folds (See examples here). If our brains stayed smooth instead of folding, it’s possible that our heads would be enormous and too heavy to support. While your overall, large brain structure stays consistent, the individual neurons within your brain will change as you change and experience life.
-Dana Simmons, neurobiologist and Co-Editor of the ISC Blog
Dana is pursuing a Ph.D. in Neurobiology at The University of Chicago, where she researches autism and the cerebellum, and explores science through the lens of art. Follow Dana on Twitter @dhsimmons1 for updates on her research, ISC articles, and neuroscience-based art.
Do you have a science question that you’d like answered by a scientist? Ask it here! We’ll send you an answer and post our favorite questions on our blog!
Sources
Azevedo FA, Carvalho LR, Grinberg LT, Farfel JM, Ferretti RE, Leite RE, Jacob Filho W, Lent R, Herculano-Houzel S. “Equal numbers of neuronal and nonneuronal cells make the human brain an isometrically scaled-up primate brain.” J Comp Neurol. 2009 Apr 10;513(5):532-41
Bear MF. 1995. “Mechanism for a sliding synaptic modification threshold”. Neuron. 15 (1): 1–4.
Bliss TVP, Lømo T. 1973. “Long lasting potentiation of synaptic transmission in the dentate area of the anaesthetized rabbit following stimulation of the perforant path.” J. Physiol. 232, 331-356.
Chudler EH. “Comparative Neuroanatomy: Neuroscience for Kids” 2008.
Hebb, DO. The Organization of Behavior: A Neuropsychological Theory. New York: Wiley, 1949.
Voyteck B. “Are There Really as Many Neurons in the Human Brain as Stars in the Milky Way?” Nature.com May 13, 2013.
Dana Simmons is a Ph.D. candidate in neurobiology at the University of Chicago. Follow Dana on Twitter @dhsimmons1.The final whistle of the 2016 USL regular season has blown, which means the table is set and the playoffs will soon begin. In anticipation of the exciting race to crown the 2016 USL Champion, we're taking a brief look at some of the advantages and disadvantages that each Eastern Conference playoff team brings to the party.
(Western Conference can be found here)
New York Red Bulls II
Lucky: 69. New York Red Bulls II set a new USL record for points earned in a single season. In addition to points earned, they also set records for the most goals scored (61) and most wins in a season (21). The route to the title goes through Red Bull Arena, unless it is the final.
Unlucky: 3. Since 2012, three #1 seeds have lost their opening match of the playoffs. In fact, last year’s Rochester Rhinos are only the second #1 seed to have won the USL championship - the early Orlando City SC of 2011 that won the title from the top spot of the American Division were the first.
Louisville City
Lucky: 4. It only takes four wins to claim the USL crown, and Louisville City has got hot at just the right time, having won four of their last five matches.
Unlucky: 3. All season, Louisville City won only three matches after their opponent scored multiple goals. Louisville will have to showcase its defensive abilities throughout the postseason to have a shot at the title.
FC Cincinnati
Lucky: 2014. In 2014, Sacramento Republic set the bar for how first year clubs should perform by winning the USL PRO championship in their first season. FC Cincinnati, who have matched Republic’s off-field success with record-setting crowds at Nippert Stadium, will be looking to add to their name to the list of first year champions.
Unlucky: 1.13. FC Cincinnati are the odd team out among the top four, as they have the second fewest points per game against other playoff clubs (Orlando City B has the fewest at 1.06). In fact, FCC only posted one win versus another top-four club over the course of the regular season.
Rochester Rhinos
Lucky: 9. The Rhinos closed out the regular season on a nine-match unbeaten streak that included five games against playoff clubs. Rochester have been one of the East’s most consistent second half clubs, losing only one match in the season’s second stanza.
Unlucky: 18. Number of matches in the regular season that Rochester either failed to score, or only scored one goal. An offensive prowess will have to be present for the Rhinos in the playoffs to help take some of the pressure off their brick wall defense.
Charlotte Independence
Lucky: 18. Team-leading goalscorers Enzo Martinez and Brian Brown account for over a third of Charlotte’s 48 goals this season. Having such a significant scoring threat from two players will make the Independence dangerous for any opponent. Charlotte can also rely on Jorge Herrera and David Estrada, who each had at least five goals during the regular season. Another player with five, Caleb Calvert, is back with home club Colorado Rapids.
Unlucky: 1. Just barely missing out on a chance to host a first-round match, Charlotte travel to Rochester for their first postseason bout in club history. Against playoff clubs, the Independence only had only one victory away from Ramblewood during the regular season, which came against New York Red Bulls II back in May. In order to make a deep run in the playoffs, form on the road must improve.
Charleston Battery
Lucky: 21. This season marks the Battery’s 21st trip to the postseason since the club was founded in 1993. Playoff appearances have become almost a tradition for the South Carolina club.
Unlucky: 2. The Battery only won two matches by multiple goals over the course of the regular season. If their upcoming matches are kept close until the final whistle, Charleston will always be at risk of the outcome changing in an instant.
Richmond Kickers
Lucky: 1. Richmond have played well against the East’s top sides, as they only have one loss when facing a club from the top four. This success has led to the Kickers being one of two Eastern Conference clubs that New York Red Bulls II did not beat this season, the other being the Rochester Rhinos.
Unlucky: 5. You never want to drop points, but it is especially bad late in the season. Unfortunately for the Kickers, they did just that by finishing the regular season winless in their last five matches. With momentum such a decisive factor in the playoffs, Richmond will look to return to form in a trip to Louisville in the first round.
Orlando City B
Lucky: #8. Orlando City B should take notes from 2014’s Harrisburg City Islanders, the only #8 seed to reach the USL Final. The City Islanders began the playoffs by knocking off a record-breaking Orlando City side, and then defeated Richmond on the road. Anything can happen in the playoffs and OCB will be hoping for a little bit of 2014 HCI magic to come their way.
Unlucky: 3. In the second half of the season, the Baby Lions only posted three wins. Despite a win on the league’s final day that earned them a playoff spot, Orlando City B will need to find that winning mentality as they start off the playoffs traveling to face the league’s best team, New York Red Bulls II.
Are there any other pros and cons we are missing? Which club can overcome their disadvantages to reach the ultimate goal? Let us know in the comments below!It is no exaggeration to say that since the 1980s, much of the American (and global) financial sector has become criminalized, creating an industry culture that tolerates or even encourages systematic fraud. The behavior that caused the mortgage bubble and financial crisis was a natural outcome and continuation of this pattern, rather than some kind of economic accident.
It is important to understand that this behavior really is seriously criminal. We are not talking about neglecting some bureaucratic formality. We are talking about deliberate concealment of financial transactions that aided terrorism, nuclear weapons proliferation, and large-scale tax evasion; assisting in concealment of criminal assets and activities by others; and directly committing frauds that substantially worsened the worst financial bubbles and crises since the Depression.
None of this conduct was punished in any significant way. On November 7, 2011, the New York Times published an article based on its own review of major banks' settlements of SEC lawsuits since 1996. The Times' analysis found fifty-one cases in which major banks had settled cases involving securities fraud, after having previously been caught violating the same law, and then promising the SEC not to do so again. The Times' list, furthermore, covered only SEC securities fraud cases; it did not include any criminal cases, private lawsuits by victims, cases filed by state attorneys general, or any cases of bribery, money laundering, tax evasion, or illegal asset concealment -- all areas in which the banks have numerous and major violations. In Predator Nation, I provide detailed, well-documented accounts of behavior ranging from assisting Enron's frauds (Citigroup, Merrill Lynch), to fraudulently exploiting the Internet bubble (most of the major investment banks), to using for-profit colleges to exploit government student loan programs (Goldman Sachs), to assisting in money laundering and tax evasion on a large scale (at least eleven banks including UBS, Barclay's, and Lloyds), to using bribery and artificially complex derivatives to destroy the finances of a county government (JP Morgan Chase), to profiting from Bernard Madoff even while strongly suspecting him to be a fraud (JP Morgan Chase, UBS).
Total fines for all these cases combined appear to be far less than 1 percent of financial sector profits and bonuses during the same period. There have been very few prosecutions and no criminal convictions of large U.S. financial institutions or their senior executives. Where individuals not linked to major banks have committed similar offenses, they have been treated far more harshly.
Given this background, it is difficult to avoid the conclusion that the mortgage bubble and financial crisis were facilitated not only by deregulation but also by the prior twenty years' tolerance of large scale financial crime. First, the absence of prosecution gradually led to a deeply embedded cultural acceptance of unethical and criminal behavior in finance. And second, it generated a sense of personal impunity; bankers contemplating criminal actions were no longer deterred by threat of prosecution.
And just as the last twenty years of unpunished financial crime constituted a green light for the bubble, so, too, America's non-response to the bubble and crisis is setting the tone for financial conduct in the future.
The Obama administration has rationalized its failure to prosecute any senior financial executives (literally, not a single one) for bubble-related crimes by saying that while much of Wall Street's behavior was unwise or unethical, it wasn't illegal. Here is President Obama at a White House press conference on October 6, 2011:
Well, first on the issue of prosecutions on Wall Street, one of the biggest problems about the collapse of Lehmans [sic] and the subsequent financial crisis and the whole subprime lending fiasco is that a lot of that stuff wasn't necessarily illegal, it was just immoral or inappropriate or reckless....I think part of people's frustrations, part of my frustration, was a lot of practices that should not have been allowed weren't necessarily against the law.
The president and senior administration officials (such as Lanny Breuer, head of the Justice Department's Criminal Division) have portrayed themselves as frustrated and hamstrung -- desirous of punishing those responsible for the crisis, but unable to do so because their conduct wasn't illegal, and/or the federal government lacks sufficient power to sanction them. With apologies for my vulgarity, this is complete horseshit.
When the federal government is really serious about something -- preventing another 9/11, or pursuing major organized crime figures -- it has many tools at its disposal and often uses them. There are wiretaps and electronic eavesdropping. There are special prosecutors, task forces, and grand juries. When Patty Hearst was kidnapped by the radical Symbionese Liberation Army in 1974, the FBI assigned hundreds of agents to the case.
In organized crime investigations, the FBI and federal prosecutors often start at the bottom in order to get to the top. They use the well established technique of nailing lower-level people and then offering them a deal if they inform on and/or testify about their superiors -- whereupon the FBI nails their superiors, and does the same thing to them, until climbing to the top of the tree. There is also the technique of nailing people for what can be proven against them, even if it's not the main offense. Al Capone was never convicted of bootlegging, large scale corruption, or murder; he was convicted of tax evasion.
In this spirit, here are a few observations about the ethics, legalities, and practicalities of prosecution related to the bubble:
First, much of the bubble was directly, massively criminal.
Second, if you really wanted to get these people, you could. Maybe not all of them, but certainly many. Some bubble-related violations are very clear, with strong written evidence, as my book Predator Nation demonstrates. And if you flipped enough people, some of them would undoubtedly have interesting things to say about what their senior management knew. In fact, there are many techniques, venues, organizations, regulations, and statutes, both civil and criminal, available to investigate these people, punish them, and recover the money they took -- if you really wanted to. The federal government has used almost none of them.
Third, the moral argument for punishment is very strong, providing ample justification for erring on the side of aggressive legal pursuit. Whatever portion of banking conduct during the bubble was criminal, it was certainly substantial, and there is no doubt whatsoever that it was utterly, pervasively unethical, designed to defraud in reality if not in law. Since the crisis, the people who caused it have been anything but honest or contrite. They have been evasive, dishonest, and self-justifying, returning as quickly as possible to their unerringly selfish behavior. Their behavior caused enormous damage, both human and economic; the consequences of their wrongdoing are so large as to justify almost any action that could help to prevent another such crisis by creating real deterrence. There would also be intangible but large benefits to raising the general ethical standard of a vital industry, and one whose executives often become high-level government officials.
Given this background, let's now consider the question of criminal liability, as well as the feasibility of prosecution.
J'Accuse
The list of prosecutable crimes committed during the bubble, the crisis, and aftermath period by financial services firms and senior executives includes: securities fraud (many forms); accounting fraud (many forms); honest services violations (mail fraud statute); bribery; perjury and making false statements to federal investigators; Sarbanes-Oxley violations (certifying accounting statements and financial controls); RICO offenses and criminal antitrust violations; Federal aid disclosure regulations (related to Federal Reserve loans); Personal conduct offenses (many forms: drugs, tax evasion, etc.).
In Predator Nation I consider each of these categories in detail, naming many names and providing many specific examples. But in considering only one category, securities fraud, we already face an embarrassment of riches.
Almost all the prospectuses and sales material on mortgage-backed securities sold from 2005 through 2007 were a compound of falsehoods. But it starts even earlier in the food chain. We also know that mortgage originators committed securities fraud when they misrepresented the characteristics of loan pools, and the nature and extent of their due diligence with regard to them, when they sold pools to securitizers (and accepted financing from them). Most or all of the securitizers (meaning nearly all the investment banks and major banking conglomerates) then committed securities fraud when they misrepresented the characteristics of the loans backing their CDOs, the characteristics of the resulting mortgage-backed securities, and the nature and results of their due diligence in the process of creating those securities. The securitizers also committed securities fraud when they made similar misrepresentations to the insurers of, and sellers of credit default swap (CDS) protection on, those securities.
The executives of both originators and securitizers then committed a separate form of securities fraud in their statements to investors and the public about their companies' financial condition. They knew that they were engaging in a Ponzi-like fraud that would eventually need to end, and as the bubble peaked and started to collapse, they repeatedly lied about their companies' financial condition. In some cases they also concealed other material information, such as the extent to which they, themselves, and/or other executives of their firms, were selling or hedging their own stock holdings because they knew that their firms were about to collapse.
Next, several investment banks committed securities fraud when they failed to disclose that they were selling securities that were designed to fail so that the investment banks, and/or their hedge fund clients, could profit by betting on their failure. The Hudson and Timberwolf synthetic CDOs sold by Goldman Sachs, and which were the focus of the Levin Senate subcommittee hearings, provide a very strong basis for prosecution. Goldman's trading arm had been dragooned into finding and dumping their most dangerous assets to naive institutional investors. Important representations in the Hudson sales material--that assets were not sourced from Goldman's own inventory -- were lies, and they were material lies, since investors had learned to be wary of banks clearing out their own bad inventory. E-mail trails show that top executives closely tracked the garbage disposals and were gleeful at the unloading of the Timberwolf assets -- as they should have been, for the assets were nearly worthless within months. There have been no prosecutions.
In some cases, we |
akers were making about 15 hp with a full liter more of displacement. Less displacement means lower weight, lower weight means more fun. Buick would come to dominate the pre-assembly-line era, producing their millionth unit just 20 years later.
READ: What wrecking my dad's Buick taught me about driving
Over time, the competing side- and sleeve-valve arrangements went extinct in automobile production engines, causing the high-revving performance OHV engines you know and love to become ubiquitous in the process.
Buick and cutting-edge design aren't exactly synonymous, but a look at their product history yields a shocking amount of foresight for a company known mostly for "affordable luxury." Aside from the overhead valve, Buick's performance creds were burnished by the nailhead, the all-alloy 215 (which later became Britain's power-dense small-block in the hands of Rover), and later the turbocharged T-Type and its Grand National and GNX successors. Maybe on their 111th birthday, it's time we rethink Buick's legacy.Mets centerfielder Angel Pagan delayed last night's game because he was in the bathroom pooping. Apparently Pagan "felt a rumble at the end of the fourth" and ended up spending a significant portion of the fifth shitting, while his coach screamed his name from the dugout in vain. The announcers stalled! The crowd booed! His team played miserably! (The Phillies won 10-0.) But all that is beside the point. The point: What fecal nickname of shame shall we bestow upon Angel Pagan, problematic pooper of the New York Mets?
Angel "Home Runs" Pagan
Angel "Designated Shitter" Pagan
Angel "Fast Bowel" Pagan
Angel "Foul Bowel" Pagan
Angel "Poop Fly" Pagan
Angel "Bunt Butt" Pagan
Angel "Pinch Hitter" Pagan
Pagan returned in the middle of the fifth inning. Good hustle, Pinch Hitter. [NYDN, image via Getty]One of the most valuable assets in my garden is my greenhouse. It has allowed me to grow plants that I normally would not be able to grow, produce crops that the season is not usually long enough to produce, and protect my plants from frosts, hail, or other severe weather that normally would have destroyed my garden.
But I don’t have thousands of dollars to spend on a greenhouse. I just priced out an 8’x12’ greenhouse for $3,500. I would love to have a large, professional greenhouse, but that simply isn’t financially feasible for me. So, instead I’ve found a way to make a large greenhouse that is functional, easy to build, and inexpensive. This article will explain to you exactly how to build a 12’x32’ hoop-style greenhouse for under $400.
Required Materials List
Note: All wood should be green, treated wood to resist rot. (Or you can spend more money and buy a rot resistant type of lumber such as cedar.)
(4) 2×6 – 16’
(2) 2×6 – 12’
(14) 2×4 – 12’
(19) ¾” x 20’white pvc pipe
(9) 10mm x 10’ rebar
x 10’ rebar (1) 20’x50’ roll of 6mm plastic
(1) Bundle of 50 4’ wood lathe (or optional staples)
Zip ties
Nails or screws
Metal banding
Door hinges and handles
Step 1 – Laying Out the Frame
Using the 2x6s, lay out and put together your 12’x32’ frame. (You can join the two 16’ pieces with a 2’ piece of 2×4.)
Ensure that the frame is square by measuring diagonally across it. You can temporarily keep the frame in place by pounding a 30” piece of rebar in each corner. (You can pull these out to use them in the next step.)
Step 2 – Adding the Hoops
Cut each 10’ piece of rebar into four 30” pieces of rebar. This will give you thirty-four pieces. Pound the rebar into the ground about 15” deep on the outside of your frame at two foot intervals. This will leave 15” sticking up out of the ground.
Now slide both ends of your pvc pipe over the rebar to make a hoop across the width of your greenhouse.
Attach the pvc pipe to the 2x6s by screwing short pieces of metal banding around the pipe.
Step 3 – Building the Ends
Cut the following pieces out of your 12’ 2x4s:
(2) 11’8¾”
(4) 1’6″
(4) 4’7″
(4) 5’7″
(8) 1’11¼”
(2) 4’¼”
For each end, assemble the wall according to the following diagram.
Place this wall within the 2×6 frame and nail/screw in place.
Cut (4) 28” 2×4 pieces. Cut one end at a 45º angle. Use these pieces to brace the wall.
Once all of the hoops and the two ends are in place, connect two pvc pipes together and cut them to measure 32′ long. This will be the rib that will go along the top of your hoops. You can attach this rib with plastic zip ties.
Step 4 – Covering the Greenhouse with Plastic
If you are going to use wood lathe, cut 32 pieces of 20” lathe. These will secure the plastic to the sides of the 2×6 frame in between each hoop. Or optionally, you can use staples, though they may have a tendency to pull through the plastic.
Drape the plastic over the length of the greenhouse. Be sure to have enough overlap at the ends to cover the end walls. Pull the plastic snug and attach to the 2x6s at one end using the wood lathe or staples. Go to the other end, pull snug, and attach in a similar manner. Do this at the center, and then along the rest of the length of the greenhouse.
Note: If you can do this in warm weather, there will be less sagging later. Make it as snug as you can without causing damage to the plastic.
To attach the plastic to the ends, pull the plastic straight down, and attach with lathe. Then pull the plastic out to the sides. This will give you extra plastic along the outside edge. Fold the plastic back towards the center and attach. For the end with the door, cut out the plastic leaving a few inches of over hang to wrap inside and attach.
Step 5 – Adding the Door
Before you cut your pieces, check the actual measurements for the space you have. Your wall may sit a little different than mine. It’s always better to go a little small or your door may not fit. But if the measurements are the same, cut the following pieces out of your 12’ 2x4s:
(2) 4’11”
(2) 3’9″
Nail these together to make your door frame. Lay a 2×4 diagonally across the frame and nail in place. Trim off anything that hangs over the frame of the door. This will be on the inside of your door. Too much wood hanging over will jam your door. Attach the hinges to the door frame.
Cover the outside of the door with remaining plastic or you can use plywood if you would rather. You can attach the plastic with the wood lathe or staples. There should be about 4” of overhang of plastic on all sides.
Attach the door handles to the door. Mount the door to the frame.
And there you go! You can have a beautiful 12’x32’ hoop-style greenhouse that can be built in a weekend and all for less than $400.
——
Update: July 11th, 2008
To see just how well this greenhouse works, see my July Greenhouse Update.
Update August 5, 2009
For an new and improved version, see An Inexpensive, Hail Proof, PVC Pipe Greenhouse.
Update November 29, 2010
Improved design. Changed material list from half inch PVC to three-quarter inch PVC.In today’s edition of unfettered corporate greed, we bring you the Equifax managers who apparently sold almost $1.8 million in stock after the company became aware that it had a big problem on its hands.
As Bloomberg reports, three of the company’s senior executives sold nearly $1.8 million in shares after the company learned internally that it had exposed the private data, including social security and driver’s license numbers, of as many as 143 million people in the U.S.
The transactions in question were initiated by Chief Financial Officer and Corporate VP John Gamble, who sold $946,374 worth of shares; President of U.S. Information Solutions Joseph Loughran, who dumped $584,099; and President of Workforce Solutions Rodolfo Ploder, who sold $250,458 in shares. As Bloomberg notes, these transactions were not pre-scheduled trades and they took place on August 2, three days after the company learned of the hack.
While news of the massive privacy failure just blew up, the hack took place from mid-May to July. The company described the hack in a statement on Thursday:
The information accessed primarily includes names, Social Security numbers, birth dates, addresses and, in some instances, driver’s license numbers. In addition, credit card numbers for approximately 209,000 U.S. consumers, and certain dispute documents with personal identifying information for approximately 182,000 U.S. consumers, were accessed.
Equifax has set up a dedicated website for anyone potentially affected by the hack, but on top of asking freshly screwed customers to give Equifax their social security numbers, it doesn’t provide any actual functionality at the time of writing.
Update: Equifax responded to TechCrunch’s questions about the timing of the transactions, particularly those of CFO John Gamble, with the following statement claiming that the executives in question were not aware of the hack which the company was made aware of on July 29:
“As announced in the press release, Equifax discovered the cybersecurity incident on Saturday, July 29. The company acted immediately to stop the intrusion. The three executives who sold a small percentage of their Equifax shares on Tuesday, August 1, and Wednesday, August 2, had no knowledge that an intrusion had occurred at the time they sold their shares.”
At first glance it might appear odd that these execs would sell such seemingly small amounts of stock. But it’s important to remember that Equifax is over 100 years old. We’re not dealing with a startup where a founder owns 20+ percent of a company’s stock.
Gamble, for example, only owns 42,078 shares of Equifax stock. As of close of market today, prior to the massive after-hours drop, this stock would have been worth about $6 million. So in this case, while $946,374 might not seem like a lot for a CFO, it’s actually over 15 percent of his holdings.
Of course none of this really means anything. All of this is just to say the transaction is sketchy. But the reality is that we’re in no position to call this a securities violation. That determination could only be made after an actual investigation.PENN TOWNSHIP, Pa. (WSVN) — A Pennsylvania man is facing some serious charges after, police said, he used a stolen human brain to smoke marijuana.
On Thursday, Pennsylvania State Police charged 26-year-old Joshua Long with abuse of a corpse. According to court documents, Long would frequent the Penn Township home of Robby Zoller and Angela Micklo. While there, authorities said, Long would soak marijuana in the brain’s formaldehyde, and he and Zoller would “smoke ‘wet,'” causing an intense, hallucinating and dangerous high.
FOX 43 in Central Pennsylvania reported that Long’s aunt found the brain inside a Wal-Mart bag under the front porch of a vacant trailer home while she was cleaning it, June 21. She then contacted police.
On Friday, next-door neighbor Pat Beck discovered what was inside the bag. “It just scares me to death,” Beck told FOX 43. “I didn’t think they were that kind of people, but nowadays, you never know.”
Police said Long and Zoller used to live at the vacant trailer home and are wanted in connection to multiple burglaries. Long was already in Cumberland County Prison on several burglary charges.
According to court documents, Zoller and Micklo had been “on the run” for the past five weeks.
State police returned the brain to Cumberland County Coroner Charley Hall, who confirmed the brain was real and belonged to an adult human. Hall also concluded, according to court records, the brain was most likely a teaching specimen.
Court documents also revealed Long gave the brain a nickname: “Freddy.”
Copyright 2018 Sunbeam Television Corp. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed."You Give Love a Bad Name" is a song by American rock band Bon Jovi, released as the first single from their 1986 album Slippery When Wet. Written by Jon Bon Jovi, Richie Sambora, and Desmond Child about a woman who has jilted her lover, the song reached No. 1 on the U.S. Billboard Hot 100 on November 29, 1986 and became the band's first number one hit.[3] In 2007, the song reentered the charts at No. 29 after Blake Lewis performed it on American Idol. In 2009 it was named the 20th greatest hard rock song of all time by VH1.[2] Despite the lyrics of the chorus, the song should not be confused with "Shot Through the Heart", an unrelated song from Bon Jovi's 1984 self-titled debut album.
Composition [ edit ]
"You Give Love a Bad Name" was originally written for Bonnie Tyler under the title "If You Were a Woman (And I Was a Man)" with different lyrics. Dissatisfied with its success in the US and the UK, Desmond Child re-wrote the song with Jon Bon Jovi and Richie Sambora.[4]
The song was written with several catchy repeated lines and associated hooks to appeal to mainstream audiences including the chorus as well as several bridges.
This song is written in the key of C minor and has a tempo of 123 BPM.
The album version of the song ends with the title being repeated until it fades.
Music video [ edit ]
The music video for the song used all-color concert footage (the only all-color video song from Slippery When Wet) and photogenic shots primarily of Jon Bon Jovi, as well as other band members in concert. This video was filmed at the Olympic Auditorium in Los Angeles, California.
Bon Jovi was now being managed by Doc McGee, who realized that Bon Jovi needed a video for MTV. Doc hired video director Wayne Isham, who had directed videos for Doc's other band, Mötley Crüe. The two bands were competitive with each other and Mötley Crüe felt betrayed that Wayne would direct one of Bon Jovi's videos.
Wayne had the band's name painted on the stage and made sure that the band did not see it until they began shooting.
Bon Jovi had been opening for 38 Special, but became a headlining act after the video debuted.
Charts and certifications [ edit ]“And who are you, the proud lord said, that I must bow so low?
Only a cat of a different coat, that's all the truth I know.
In a coat of gold or a coat of red, a lion still has claws,
And mine are long and sharp, my lord, as long and sharp as yours.”
–George R.R. Martin, A Storm of Swords
Every lord, lady, knight, and servant in Westeros is intimately familiar with the power and wealth of the Lannisters. Under the leadership of Tywin Lannister, the House has risen to a position of power, commanding significant influence in the courts of King’s Landing even before Robert Baratheon’s untimely demise. Yet this position was not claimed with blades, but with whispered words and secret letters and the daggers of assassins.
With Lions of Casterly Rock, the second deluxe expansion for A Game of Thrones: The Card Game, you’ll gain the freedom to support the intrigues of House Lannister. In today’s preview, we’ll take a closer look at some of the new cards included in this expansion, starting with a new champion-designed agenda!
A Cat of a Different Coat
Throughout A Game of Thrones: The Card Game, your plot deck is a constant fixture. Though the plots you choose can change from deck to deck, you always have seven plot cards. You always reveal a plot of your choice with your opponent at the beginning of a round. You always have the chance to cycle back through your plots, if the game goes long enough. All of these facts have remained the same, no matter which deck you played… until now.
The Lions of Casterly Rock expansion introduces a single new agenda that can be used by any faction, and it promises to mix up the way you approach your plot deck like nothing else. This agenda is "The Rains of Castamere" (Lions of Casterly Rock, 45), designed by 2013 Joust World Champion, Álvaro Rodriguez. Immortalizing Tywin Lannister’s ruthless victory over House Reyne of Castamere, the song has become almost synonymous with unexpected betrayal and deadly schemes throughout A Song of Ice and Fire. As you might suspect, “The Rains of Castamere” has a similar effect in A Game of Thrones: The Card Game.
From its first sentence, this agenda introduces a radical shift to your plot decks. It reads, “Your plot deck must be 12 cards, including exactly 5 different Scheme cards. During the plot phase, Scheme cards are not considered to be in your plot deck. Reaction: After you win an intrigue challenge by 5 or more STR, kneel your faction card to reveal a Scheme plot. If that card leaves play, remove it from the game.”
Essentially, this plot allows you to trigger the ability of a Scheme plot on demand—provided you can win an intrigue challenge with enough STR. Imagine the power of triggering a plot like Filthy Accusations (Core Set, 11), Littlefinger's Meddling (Lions of Casterly Rock, 49), or Wildfire Assault (Core Set, 26) midway through the challenges phase in the right situation. After all, that’s the real benefit of “The Rains of Castamere.” It’s not that you just get to reveal a Scheme plot in the challenges phase; it’s the ability to reveal the perfect Scheme for your situation, no matter what that may be.
A Lion Still Has Claws
Though any House can take advantage of “The Rains of Castamere,” House Lannister is uniquely poised to use this agenda, because of their natural strength in intrigue challenges. In our announcement of this expansion, we took a closer look at the new version of Cersei Lannister (Lions of Casterly Rock, 1)—a character who can make intrigue challenges without kneeling and gains power whenever cards are discarded from your opponent’s hand! And Cersei Lannister is hardly alone among the Lannister cards that reward you for making intrigue challenges.
The Red Keep Spy (Lions of Casterly Rock, 12), for instance, can be ambushed into play during the challenge phase. When she enters play using ambush, you may choose any character with a printed cost of three or lower. If you have more cards in hand than the chosen character’s controller, you immediately return that character to its owner’s hand. Not only does this remove a weaker character from the board, making your military challenges more potent, it also places that character back in its owner’s hand—leaving it vulnerable to your intrigues.
Other Lannister cards in this expansion reward you for demolishing your opponent’s hand. We’ve already looked at Golden Tooth (Lions of Casterly Rock, 17), which unlocks the fabled wealth of the Lannisters once your opponent has no cards in hand. You’ll find a similar effect on Tommen Baratheon (Lions of Casterly Rock, 15), a young King who prevents players without cards in hand from gaining power through challenge bonuses, such as unopposed power or the rival bonus. You may even use Insidious Scheme (Lions of Casterly Rock, 23) to suddenly refill your own hand of cards. This event can be played after claim is applied during an intrigue challenge that you won by five or more STR. If your opponent still has cards in hand, you can draw two cards, but if his hand was emptied, you immediately draw four cards!
You might even use the widespread influence of House Lannister to push your intrigues into places where they wouldn’t ordinarily be found. This expansion offers a new version of Ser Jaime Lannister (Lions of Casterly Rock, 5) in his persona as a member of the Kingsguard. Ser Jaime Lannister’s prowess in the joust inspires each of your Knights to gain renown when attacking alone, and he can also spread deadly intrigues to the rest of the Kingsguard. As an action, you can choose a Kingsguard character, like Ser Barristan Selmy (True Steel, 107), and give that character an intrigue icon until the end of the phase, helping to push your challenges through and protecting you from dangers like Tears of Lys (Core Set, 44).
Mine Are Long and Sharp, My Lord
House Lannister’s armies and warriors are peerless, but it’s worth remembering where the House began—with Lann the Clever in the Age of Heroes. Your intrigues raised you to your lofty heights, and they still have the power to shape the fate of Westeros. Pledge your sword to House Lannister with the Lions of Casterly Rock expansion for A Game of Thrones: The Card Game!
You can pre-order your copy of Lions of Casterly Rock at your local retailer today.LAHORE: Pakistan Railways (PR) has decided to provide the facility of modernly equipped call centres for its passengers, Chief Executive Officer (CEO) Muhammad Javed Anwar announced while chairing a departmental meeting at Railways Headquarters in Lahore on Tuesday.
Chairing a departmental meeting at Railways Headquarters, Anwar said that Pakistan Railways wants to provide prompt and in time information to its passengers, which is only possible through modern centres instead of current 117 Railways Inquiry.
“Services of multi-national companies will have to be hired to setup latest call centers,” he said.
During the meeting, delegations of Punjab Information Technology Board and a renowned mobile company briefed the participants regarding their services.
A renowned foreign company also presented a feasibility report to upgrade the track of Lahore-Narowal-Sialkot-Wazirabad section, which will be presented to the Railways Ministry for proper approval.
It is pertinent to note here that PR launched electronic-ticketing system in October 2016 to facilitate the passengers for comfortably getting tickets online.
Comments
commentsnuple: a Named Tuple
While browsing the Internets I came upon this blog post by Victor Laskin. In there he describes an implementation of a named tuple in C++. It just so happened that some time ago I was writing about useful properties of string interning in C++. I quickly realized that another good use of it is to implement a named tuple which I called nuple - a named tuple. By the way, you should check up Victor's blog if you're a fan of functional programming and C++.
So, the implementation turned out to be pretty simple. The usage is like this:
using nameid_t = nuple< $("name"), char const*, $("id"), int >;
The dollar sign is string interning which turns a string literal into a type. All we have to do is to sort this parameter type list into a names list and a type list. The type list is then passed to luple which is a lightweight (source code I mean) tuple I created for the C++ type loophole. The source code (GitHub) is short and easy to read (header is nuple.h).
So, here's an example of using it:
nameid_t n[] = { {"alex", 1}, {"ivan", 2} }; for( auto& v : n ) printf( "name: %s, id: %d
", get<$("name")>(v), get<$("id")>(v) );
Because nuple inherits from luple (I'm not good at terminology) we can use all other tuple-like methods:
auto get_person(int i) { return nameid_t{"john", i}; } auto p = get_person(3); printf( "tuple size: %d
", size(p) ); get<0>(p) = "irene"; get<int>(p) = 4; printf( "name: %s, id: %d
", get<$("name")>(p), get<$("id")>(p) );
See it in action online at tio.run (also Coliru or Wandbox).
Also a nuple-to-json example at tio.run (also Coliru or Wandbox).
There is no hacks. It's all valid C++ source code (C++14) and can be safely used in production code. There is a limit on string length of 10 characters (sort of arbitrary), you can increase it by editing the $(...) macro in the intern.h header. Or #define N3599 to use the N3599 proposal (adds string literal template to the language) which GCC and Clang implement as an extension. (Update: defined by default for GCC and Clang)
Update. Added syntax like this:
auto get_person( int id ) { return as_nuple( $name("name"), "Victoria", $name("id"), id ); } auto p = get_person( 5 ); std::cout << get<$("name")>( p );
Here macro $name(...) returns a value of an interned string type ( $(...) gives a type ).
There is a Reddit discussion. Follow me on Twitter for updates about my new articles (mostly programming and computer graphics).New York City should be taking a more holistic approach to redesigning its streets under the Vision Zero transportation safety plan, according to a new report from the advocacy group Transportation Alternatives.
The report, titled “The Vision Zero Street Design Standard,” serves as a planning guide and illustrates how the city’s Department of Transportation could better support pedestrian and bike traffic, as well as sluggish city buses, in a mass transit-rich metropolis.
Paul Steely White, the executive director of Transportation Alternatives, said the nonprofit compiled the report as a way to address what it perceives as “inconsistencies” in the city’s street redesign projects. For example, the DOT recently striped a sterling new protected bike lane on a section of Queens Boulevard, but the organization said the project lacked adequate sidewalk space or dedicated bus lanes.
This “piecemeal” approach, White argues, is part of the reason why the progress in reducing traffic fatalities under Mayor Bill de Blasio’s administration has slowed in 2016.
“Even in this era of Vision Zero, we’re still seeing an inconsistent application of safety upgrades,” White said.
One guiding ideology of the report is that design dictates use; better-designed streets have more tangible impacts on driver behavior than educational campaigns or police enforcement blitzes. Though the report acknowledges all three elements have merit, it points to the impact of the comprehensive redesigns of First and Second avenues, which brought a 37 percent decrease in crash-related injuries despite a 177 percent increase in bike traffic, according to city data.
“We need more universal and more consistent application of safety upgrades, which are still the most proven strategy to reduce traffic casualties,” White said. “You look at some of these arterial streets and there’s nothing to distinguish them from those in Houston, or 1980’s Los Angeles. There’s very little provision for anything but driving. The problem with these streets is that they encourage bad behavior.”
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The DOT has completed more than 200 street projects since 2014 that prioritize pedestrians, cyclists and the use of mass transit, according to the agency. A department spokesman countered the report, reasoning that establishing the blanket guide for redesigns would turn what the agency considers to be “creative” solutions into “cookie-cutter” projects. Does Fourth Avenue need bus lanes even though the majority of the corridor doesn’t serve any bus routes?
But White believes that establishing a guide gives the city better positioning as it heads to community boards for project support. “Right now, there is a sense that safety is negotiable,” he said.
As budget season approaches, Transportation Alternatives is optimistic that, given 2016’s traffic death statistics, the mayor will be more receptive than last year to the idea of increasing DOT capital funding to deliver more complete projects.
Councilman Ydanis Rodriguez, the chair of the Transportation Committee who has requested a larger budget for the DOT in the past, said in a statement that the DOT has done a “sound job” at re-designing streets, but he believes there is room to improve.
“With substantial investments in street infrastructure, we’ll have a safer and more efficient city for all,” he said.
Austin Finan, a mayoral spokesman, argued in a statement that the city’s approach, paired with contributions de Blasio has kicked in, have already made an “enormous difference.”
“While we always appreciate the proposals of advocates, DOT is already using each and every one of the tools that the report proposes,” Finan said. “In fact, the unprecedented $1.2 billion investment in Vision Zero, including street redesign, has made an enormous difference in making our streets safer. We will continue to push the envelope around lifesaving initiatives to further Vision Zero’s ultimate goal.”Solution of hydrogen fluoride in water
Hydrofluoric acid is a solution of hydrogen fluoride (HF) in water. It is a precursor to almost all fluorine compounds, including pharmaceuticals such as fluoxetine (Prozac), diverse materials such as PTFE (Teflon), and elemental fluorine itself. It is a colourless solution that is highly corrosive, capable of dissolving many materials, especially oxides. Its ability to dissolve glass has been known since the seventeenth century, even before Carl Wilhelm Scheele prepared it in large quantities in 1771.[3] Because of its high reactivity toward glass and moderate reactivity toward many metals, hydrofluoric acid is usually stored in plastic containers (although PTFE is slightly permeable to it).[4]
Hydrogen fluoride gas is an acute poison that may immediately and permanently damage lungs and the corneas of the eyes. Aqueous hydrofluoric acid is a contact-poison with the potential for deep, initially painless burns and ensuing tissue death. By interfering with body calcium metabolism, the concentrated acid may also cause systemic toxicity and eventual cardiac arrest and fatality.
Acidity [ edit ]
Hydrofluoric acid is classified as a weak acid because of its lower dissociation constant compared to the strong acids. It ionizes in aqueous solutions in a similar fashion to other common acids:[5]
HF + H 2 O ⇌ H 3 O+ + F−
HF is the only hydrohalic acid that is not considered a strong acid, i.e. it does not fully ionize in dilute aqueous solutions.
When the concentration of HF approaches 100%, the acidity increases dramatically because of homoassociation:
3 HF ⇌ H 2 F+ + FHF−
The bifluoride (FHF−) anion is stabilized by the very strong hydrogen–fluorine-hydrogen bond.[6]
Production [ edit ]
Hydrofluoric acid is produced by treatment of the mineral fluorite (CaF 2 ) with concentrated sulfuric acid. When combined at 265 °C, these two substances react to produce hydrogen fluoride and calcium sulfate according to the following chemical equation:
CaF 2 + H 2 SO 4 → 2 HF + CaSO 4
Although bulk fluorite is a suitable precursor and a major source of world HF production, HF is also produced as a by-product of the production of phosphoric acid, which is derived from the mineral apatite. Apatite sources typically contain a few percent of fluoroapatite, acid digestion of which releases a gaseous stream consisting of sulfur dioxide (from the H 2 SO 4 ), water, and HF, as well as particulates. After separation from the solids, the gases are treated with sulfuric acid and oleum to afford anhydrous HF. Owing to the corrosive nature of HF, its production is accompanied by the dissolution of silicate minerals, and, in this way, significant amounts of fluorosilicic acid are generated.[4]
Uses [ edit ]
Hydrofluoric acid has a variety of uses in industry and research. It is used as a starting material or intermediate in industrial chemistry, mining, refining, glass finishing, silicon chip manufacturing, and in cleaning.[7]
Oil refining [ edit ]
In a standard oil refinery process known as alkylation, isobutane is alkylated with low-molecular-weight alkenes (primarily a mixture of propylene and butylene) in the presence of the strong acid catalyst derived from hydrofluoric acid. The catalyst protonates the alkenes (propylene, butylene) to produce reactive carbocations, which alkylate isobutane. The reaction is carried out at mild temperatures (0 and 30 °C) in a two-phase reaction.
Production of organofluorine compounds [ edit ]
The principal use of hydrofluoric acid is in organofluorine chemistry. Many organofluorine compounds are prepared using HF as the fluorine source, including Teflon, fluoropolymers, fluorocarbons, and refrigerants such as freon.[4]
Production of fluorides [ edit ]
Most high-volume inorganic fluoride compounds are prepared from hydrofluoric acid. Foremost are Na 3 AlF 6, cryolite, and AlF 3, aluminium trifluoride. A molten mixture of these solids serves as a high-temperature solvent for the production of metallic aluminium. Given concerns about fluorides in the environment, alternative technologies are being sought. Other inorganic fluorides prepared from hydrofluoric acid include sodium fluoride and uranium hexafluoride.[4]
Etchant and cleaning agent [ edit ]
Wet etching tanks
In metalworking, hydrofluoric acid is used as a pickling agent to remove oxides and other impurities from stainless and carbon steels because of its limited ability to dissolve steel.[citation needed] It is used in the semiconductor industry as a major component of Wright Etch and buffered oxide etch, which are used to clean silicon wafers. In a similar manner it is also used to etch glass by reacting with silicon dioxide to form gaseous or water-soluble silicon fluorides. It can also be used to polish and frost glass.[7]
SiO 2 + 4 HF → SiF 4 (g) + 2 H 2 O SiO 2 + 6 HF → H 2 SiF 6 + 2 H 2 O
A 5% to 9% hydrofluoric acid gel is also commonly used to etch all ceramic dental restorations to improve bonding.[8] For similar reasons, dilute hydrofluoric acid is a component of household rust stain remover, in car washes in "wheel cleaner" compounds, in ceramic and fabric rust inhibitors, and in water spot removers.[7][9] Because of its ability to dissolve iron oxides as well as silica-based contaminants, hydrofluoric acid is used in pre-commissioning boilers that produce high-pressure steam.
Niche applications [ edit ]
Because of its ability to dissolve (most) oxides and silicates, hydrofluoric acid is useful for dissolving rock samples (usually powdered) prior to analysis. In similar manner, this acid is used in acid macerations to extract organic fossils from silicate rocks. Fossiliferous rock may be immersed directly into the acid, or a cellulose nitrate film may be applied (dissolved in amyl acetate), which adheres to the organic component and allows the rock to be dissolved around it.[10]
Diluted hydrofluoric acid (1 to 3 %wt.) is used in the petroleum industry in a mixture with other acids (HCl or organic acids) in order to stimulate the production of water, oil, and gas wells specifically where sandstone is involved.[citation needed]
Hydrofluoric acid is also used by some collectors of antique glass bottles to remove so-called'sickness' from the glass, caused by acids (usually from the soil in which the bottle was buried) attacking the soda content of the glass.[citation needed]
Offset printing companies use hydrofluoric acid to remove unwanted images from printing plates. Felt-tip markers called "deletion pens" are available to make the process safer for the worker.[citation needed]
Health and safety [ edit ]
A hydrofluoric acid burn of the hand
HF burns, not evident until a day after
In addition to being a highly corrosive liquid, hydrofluoric acid is also a powerful contact poison. Because of the ability of hydrofluoric acid to penetrate tissue, poisoning can occur readily through exposure of skin or eyes, or when inhaled or swallowed. Symptoms of exposure to hydrofluoric acid may not be immediately evident, and this can provide false reassurance to victims, causing them to delay medical treatment.[11] Despite having an irritating odor, HF may reach dangerous levels without an obvious odor.[7] HF interferes with nerve function, meaning that burns may not initially be painful. Accidental exposures can go unnoticed, delaying treatment and increasing the extent and seriousness of the injury.[11] Symptoms of HF exposure include irritation of the eyes, skin, nose, and throat, eye and skin burns, rhinitis, bronchitis, pulmonary edema (fluid buildup in the lungs), and bone damage.[12]
Once absorbed into blood through the skin, it reacts with blood calcium and may cause cardiac arrest. Burns with areas larger than 160 cm2 (25 square inches) have the potential to cause serious systemic toxicity from interference with blood and tissue calcium levels.[13] In the body, hydrofluoric acid reacts with the ubiquitous biologically important ions Ca2+ and Mg2+. Formation of insol |
reverse-swept either. My game is too conventional. That is how I was brought up. I don't even sweep that much.
Growing up, I was told by my coaches that the sweep is the last option you have against spin. If you can try and use your feet, if you can use the depth of your crease, you don't need to sweep. But now I have realised it is always good to have another shot in your armoury. If I have to, I might do it in T20 when you have to slog-sweep and lap, but these strokes do not come to me naturally. I would never try and do it in 50-over cricket, unless it is a compulsion. I would hate doing it in first-class cricket.
At 35, your drive is as strong as it was when you played for India for the first time. What keeps that passion strong?
I love winning. Winning for me is everything. Winning makes me happy, makes me satisfied, makes me be at peace. I just want to win, irrespective of what platform I play. Nothing else keeps me hungry. Nothing else makes me work hard.Opera and Trusting Applications vs Trusting Servers
The Opera-Mini Dispute
I have just read an interesting article about the Opera browser [1]. The article is very critical of Opera-Mini on the iPhone for many reasons – most of which don’t interest me greatly. There are lots of technical trade-offs that you can make when designing an application for a constrained environment (EG a phone with low resolution and low bandwidth).
What does interest me is the criticism of the Opera Mini browser for proxying all Internet access (including HTTPS) through their own servers, this has been getting some traction around the Internet. Now it is obvious that if you have one server sitting on the net that proxies connections to lots of banks then there will be potential for abuse. What apparently isn’t obvious to as many people is the fact that you have to trust the application.
Causes of Software Security Problems
When people think about computer security they usually think about worms and viruses that exploit existing bugs in software and about Trojan horse software that the user has to be tricked into running. These are both significant problems.
But another problem is that of malicious software releases. I think that this is significantly different from Trojan horses because instead of having an application which was written for the sole purpose of tricking people (as is most similar to Greek history) you have an application that was written by many people who genuinely want to make a good product but you have a single person or small group that hijacks it.
Rumor has it that rates well in excess of $10,000 are sometimes paid for previously unknown security vulnerabilities in widely used software. It seems likely that a programmer who was in a desperate financial situation could bolster their salary by deliberately putting bugs in software and then selling the exploits, this would not be a trivial task (making such bugs appear to be genuine mistakes would take some skill) – but there are lots of people who could do it and plausibly deny any accusation other than carelessness. There have been many examples of gambling addicts who have done more foolish things to fund their habit.
I don’t think it’s plausible to believe that every security flaw which has been discovered in widely used software was there purely as the result of a mistake. Given the huge number of programmers who have the skill needed to deliberately introduce a security flaw into the source of a program and conceal it from their colleagues I think it’s quite likely that someone has done so and attempted to profit from it.
Note that even if it could be proven that it was impossible to profit from creating a security flaw in a program that would not be sufficient to prove that it never happened. There is plenty of evidence of people committing crimes in the mistaken belief that it would be profitable for them.
Should We Trust a Proprietary Application or an Internet Server?
I agree with the people who don’t like the Opera proxy idea, I would rather run a web browser on my phone that directly accesses the Internet. But I don’t think that the web browser that is built in to my current smart-phone is particularly secure. It seems usual for a PC to need a security update for the base OS or the web browser at least once a year while mobile phones have a standard service life of two years without any updates. I suspect that there is a lot of flawed code running on smart phones that never get updated.
It seems to me that the risks with Opera are the single point of failure of the proxy server in addition to the issues of code quality while the risks with the browser that is on my smart-phone is just the quality of the code. I suspect that Opera may do a better job of updating their software to fix security issues so this may mitigate the risk from using their proxy.
At the moment China is producing a significant portion of the world’s smart-phones. Some brands like LG are designed and manufactured in China, others are manufactured in China for marketing/engineering companies based in Europe and the US. A casual browse of information regarding Falun Gong makes the character of the Chinese leadership quite clear [2], I think that everything that comes out of China should be considered to be less trustworthy than equivalent products from Europe and the US. So I think that anyone who owns a Chinese mobile phone and rails against the Opera Mini hasn’t considered the issue enough.
I don’t think it’s possible to prove that an Opera Mini with it’s proxy is more or less of a risk than a Chinese smart-phone. I’m quite happy with my LG Viewty [3] – but I wouldn’t use it for Internet banking or checking my main email account.
Also we have to keep in mind that mobile phones are really owned by telephone companies. You might pay for your phone or even get it “unlocked” so you can run it on a different network, but you won’t get the custom menus of your telco removed. Most phones are designed to meet the needs of telcos not users and I doubt that secure Internet banking is a priority for a telco.
Update: You can buy unlocked mobile phones. But AFAIK the Android is the only phone which might be described as not being designed for the needs of the telcos over the needs of the users. So while you can get a phone without custom menus for a telco, you probably can’t get a phone that was specifically designed for what you want to do.
The Scope of the Problem
Mobile phones are not the extent of the problem, I think that anyone who buys a PC from a Chinese manufacturer and doesn’t immediately wipe the hard drive and do a fresh OS install is taking an unreasonable risk. The same thing goes for anyone who buys a PC from a store where it’s handled by low wage employees, I can imagine someone on a minimum income accepting a cash payment to run some special software on every PC before it goes out the door – that wouldn’t be any more difficult or risky than the employees who copy customer credit card numbers (a reasonably common crime).
It’s also quite conceivable that any major commercial software company could have a rogue employee who is deliberately introducing bugs into it’s software. That includes Apple. If the iPhone OS was compromised before it shipped then the issue of browser security wouldn’t matter much.
I agree that having the minimum possible number of potential security weak points is a good idea. They should allow Opera Mini users to select that HTTPS traffic should not be proxied. But I don’t think that merely not using a proxy would create a safe platform for Internet banking. In terms of mobile phones most things are done in the wrong way to try and get more money out of the users. Choose whichever phone or browser you want and it will probably still be a huge security risk.
Harald Welte is doing some really good work on developing free software for running a GSM network [4]. But until that project gets to the stage of being widely usable I think that we just have to accept a certain level of security risk when using mobile phones.
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Tags: Most PopularIn Set List, we talk to veteran musicians about some of their most famous songs, learning about their lives and careers, and maybe hearing a good backstage anecdote or two in the process.
The artist: Formed in 1977, it took a few years for the Descendents to find its voice. After ditching its original surf-rock sound, in 1980 Milo Aukerman picked up the microphone and steered the band in a new direction. Aukerman’s name—and his bespectacled visage—would become iconic in pop-punk and hardcore circles, thanks to his caricature adorning the cover of the band’s debut album, 1982’s Milo Goes To College. The record’s name rang true, with Aukerman leaving the Descendents to pursue a degree in biochemistry—he’d eventually earn a Ph.D. in the subject—returning every few years to record a new Descendents album. Since then, the band has been an on-again, off-again affair, releasing records once a decade but never losing its place as one of the most influential bands in two separate punk sub-genres.
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2016 changes all that, as the 53-year-old Aukerman has left behind his science career to give his old punk band a serious go. With that brings the release of the Descendents’ seventh album, Hypercaffium Spazzinate, which is accompanied by the Spazzhazard EP. The A.V. Club spoke with Aukerman about songs old and new, showing that even though the band’s gotten older, it hasn’t lost the joyous spark that made it special all those years ago.
“No Fat Burger” (from 2016’s Hypercaffium Spazzinate)
The A.V. Club: This song feels like an updated version on Descendents classics like “I Like Food” or “Weinerschnitzel.” What sparked the swearing off of junk food?
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Milo Aukerman: Yeah, it’s pretty much as you say. I went to my doctor, thinking, “Oh man, he’s going to tell me I can’t eat my chili cheeseburger anymore. He’s gonna tell me I can’t go to Wiener schnitzel.” So that kind of got me thinking we should update that song. We need to update “I Like Food” for our advanced age. It’s part of poking fun at our lives as we get older and the things that when you’re younger, you take for granted. You can kind of live more recklessly, and then you get older and you say, “Well, I can’t do that anymore.” But it’s kind of in fun, too. I wrote that song and I’ll still go have a chili cheeseburger. Now I might eat it and go, “Oh great, now I have to get my cholesterol checked” or whatever.
I think when I showed it to everyone in the band, they appreciated it for its speed, for one thing. Like, “Great, we get a fast song out of it.” And I think everyone got the humor of it. I was going to call it “I Like Food 2016” but everyone said, “Let’s come up with something more creative,” so you know. We tossed around some different names for the song, and that one stuck. We had another song called “No FB” which is a different subject entirely. But that would have been cool to call it “No Fat Burger,” so that’s the name that stuck.
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AVC: Did you ever worry people were going to call you sell-outs because you aren’t eating garbage anymore?
MA: Yeah, I know. As we get older, there’s a bit of an update to the concept of “All.” We’ve got to for All, but part of going for All was you get to eat all that crap, and you get to drink 20 cups of coffee. But I can tell you now, if I were to add something to that list, we’ve got the “thou shalt go for greatness”—you know, I’d probably add in there “but everything in moderation.” Part of that is because the concept of All evolves for us as well. We now think about All as in the long-haul, not we’re gonna go for All and we’re gonna die tomorrow. It’s like, “Wait a minute. Let’s go for All and not die tomorrow.” So that’s kind of how we’ve been updating it. We want to be able to do this five, 10 years from now as well.
“Testosterone” (from 2016’s Hypercaffium Spazzinate)
AVC: This song is about you working as a biologist and getting burned out the macho nature of it all. Was that something you expected to run into?
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MA: It was not something I expected to encounter in science, but I think it’s pretty common in most fields, especially business, where there’s a certain amount of top-dog personalities. That’s just not me. I was there at DuPont for a few years before I realized, I kind of see the writing on the wall here, I am not going to climb the corporate ladder. I am just going to be the guy who keeps his head down and tries to do good science and tries to enjoy himself.
On one hand, I was okay with it. On the other hand, I was like, “Well, fuck that!” There’s something wrong with the system when you’ve got someone who can provide so much to a company and can be enthusiastic, but isn’t management material or whatever. So a lot of that just gets defined as the person who speaks with the loudest voice and gets up there with the most arrogance and overly confident, chest-beating approach. Those are the ones that are going to get the golden ring.
It’s like, “Okay, what do I need to do? I need to somehow become more macho.” And that’s where that came from. It’s funny, I wrote it a few years ago, and more recently, I see ads for testosterone, and I’m thinking, “Oh great.” People take it for a whole slew of reasons including sex drive and bodybuilding and that kind of thing, which isn’t my point at all—my point is more about the alpha male syndrome.
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AVC: Do you think that is something that can overlap with punk and hardcore scenes?
MA: I guess historically, hardcore punk has been a more male, macho genre, and no one in the band has ever really put on those kind of airs. I always felt like we were able to impress not by that, but more just by being spazzes. So that’s as close as we get to being aggressive. But I don’t think anyone in the band has a real macho side to them. Bill’s [Stevenson, drummer and songwriter] nickname is Drum Ogre, so maybe he’s the closest. But look at Stephen [Egerton, guitarist], he looks like some alien from another planet. And Karl’s [Alvarez, bassist] the learned one. And then you’ve got me, who’s the spaz. So there’s not a lot of testosterone in the band.
“Smile” (from 2016’s Hypercaffium Spazzinate)
AVC: In the Filmage documentary it’s revealed that Bill had a tumor that nearly killed him. How was it putting together a song like “Smile,” which is this loving song to your friend and bandmate?
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MA: In 2010, we started playing shows again, and it was in direct response to him coming out of surgery, where they removed a tumor out of his head, like a grapefruit-sized tumor. He rebounded from that so dramatically that I think everyone in the band was riding this high of, “Wow, Bill’s back in the game.” Because he really was out of it for several years before that. At that point, I had reconnected with Bill, after a few years of having not seen him, and I just thought, “Yeah, we should just do this.” Because it seemed like the right time. So we started playing shows, and shortly after, I had written the first of two songs on the record about him, the other is “Comeback Kid,” which is more directly related to his comeback of sorts.
I had visited him a few times during that period and realized, I think he had suffered a psychological toll, in addition to the physical toll, where he was just kind of beating himself up about his life. If you think about it, a guy like Bill Stevenson—one of the best drummers out there, well-respected producer—he felt like he was barely scraping by to support his family, and just kind of feeling like he missed the gold ring, and I just felt like he needed a pep talk, essentially. We already had a song called “Pep Talk,” so this one got to be called “Smile” instead. But it’s the same concept. “Pep Talk” was a song where Bill contributed lyrics for me, he really wrote that as a pep talk for me. And then I wrote him this song as a pep talk for him.
Like a lot of our songs, they’re all true to life. We’re speaking to people, whether band members, girlfriends, whatever. So this is a song that’s speaking to him. When he first heard it, he was like, “Really? That’s how you viewed me? Was I that pathetic-sounding?” And I was like, “Yeah, there were a few visits where you…” And he was like, “Oh yeah, okay, I guess so.” So he kind of got it. I think initially he was taken aback, like, “Really, I didn’t realize I was that pathetic.” He’s so much in a better place now. And so those songs—a song like that can mean something for that period of time, but not characterize him now. So we’re enjoying the ride now to a tremendous degree.
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“Descendents” (from 1985’s I Don’t Want To Grow Up)
AVC: The reunion has had you playing festivals all over the world, but “Descendents” has the famous line about how you couldn’t sell out a telephone booth. How does it feel to be at this level this deep into your career?
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MA: I think at each new phase of the band, I am continually surprised that it gets incrementally more and more. Because we take these huge long breaks, and then I just kind go, “Okay, fine, this is the way that I’ve chosen to live my life, and if the band now fades into obscurity, so be it, that’s my decision.” But then we come back and it’s still as big as ever, or bigger. It’s always been a surprise to me, that it worked out that way. Tony wrote those lines back in ’83 when I think we’d put out Milo Goes To College and at that point we were kind of in a holding pattern. There was a little frustration because we put that record out and nothing happened, basically. I’ll take blame for that, obviously, because I was off at school. And then we sing it now, and it’s poking fun of ourselves, self-deprecating. Which, I’m okay doing that even if it doesn’t reflect the reality of now, because it does reflect the reality of then, because we really were a tiny band. That’s kind of the history lesson of the Descendents, that people can look at us now and maybe not appreciate how small of a band we were in like ’83 or ’84, when we really weren’t selling out anything. It’s a good reminder to people that we did come from very humble beginnings.
“Get The Time” (from 1986’s Enjoy!)
AVC: This is one of the band’s first overtly poppy songs. Was it weird to start going in that direction?
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MA: I think we started maybe moving toward just really heart-on-your-sleeve type of stuff, even on Milo Goes To College. With that record, we were already saying we didn’t want to define ourselves as a political punk band, as a standard punk band that’s just going to write songs about politics or whatever. We were already very comfortable just writing songs about relationships and girls and whatnot. We just tend to write these things immediately off of our experiences. So that was one for me.
At the time, I was getting into a whole slew of other influences outside of punk, like The Smiths, or R.E.M., or whatever. I think there was a notion that not everything has to be fast, fast, fast. You’d hear something on the radio or something by these other bands, some of these non-punk bands, and you’d like the way it sounds. I’m not going to limit myself to not writing that way. And maybe that one kind of slipped through, too. We still want to write hard and fast music, and that one just kind of broke the mold a little bit. It was a fun song to write. It definitely got the point across, for me. We still play it. I’ve talked to Bill, like, “If we want to play new songs, we’ve got to drop some,” so we dropped that, and he was like, “No way, man. People like it.” So even though it doesn’t fit the standard, we’re going to play it just because it is a favorite.
AVC: Do you think that’s something that’s been true throughout your career? Having songs that break the mold of what people expect but end up becoming these fan favorite songs?
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MA: Yeah, I do a lot of that, probably more than anyone else in the band. For this record, I wrote a song that was kind of a country song. It was funny, it was a country song that was about farts and romance, together.
AVC: What song was that?
MA: It didn’t make the record, that’s the thing. Sometimes, you break the mold too far. I have to give the rest of the band credit, because they put a good effort into making it sound good and everything. After we mixed it and everything, Bill says, “Yeah, we probably shouldn’t put that one on the record.” But I do a lot of that. And sometimes, you have to split the difference. We have to define ourselves as having something of a sound. So there are songs that tend to stray too far from that. Having said that, the All record is pretty far out there, with some non-Descendents-y stuff. So we could always turn right back around and make that kind of record next. I tend to be the one that breaks the mold most often, and thus, I tend to be the one with a lot of outtakes, songs that don’t make the record.
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“Van” and “All-O-Gistics” (from 1987’s All)
AVC: Speaking of those off-kilter songs, “Van” and “All-O-Gistics” are pretty out there.
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MA: Both of those songs were Stephen coming in with some music, and either Bill or me kind of putting lyrics over it. With “All-O-Gistics,” Bill had this concept of the All-O-Gistics, and he wrote some, I wrote some, and we put it all together. A lot of it was Bill’s concept. He had this friend Pat who he used to go fishing with who would talk about All. They’d go out fishing, and they’d yell out “All!” when they were trying to catch 20 tons of fish. It’s supposed to be a humorous song, obviously, but it’s also—those are pretty serious statements that we try to live by for the most part. “Thou shalt not partake of decaf.” That’s important for us. “Thou shalt go for greatness.” That’s just a good way to live your life. “Thou shalt not suppress flatulence.” I do my best at that one. I get in trouble at my house, but I still do it. I’m always in the doghouse about that one. We still subscribe to those.
If we’re talking “All-O-Gistics,” that is a song that we tend to call “hallraker”—we named a record Hallraker—but a song like “All-O-Gistics” is just considered the hallraker, because everyone just clears out of the hall when you play it. They’re just like, “Okay, I’m done, I’m gonna leave now.” And so, that’s an in-joke with the band. I don’t think it’s a song that’s universally liked by the fans of the band. We’re considering not playing it as frequently. We’ve got to make room for these new songs from the new record. So that’s one that’s on the cusp, which is shame because it’s got our credo—it’s got our 10 commandments right there. We can still carry the sign on stage, maybe. If you carry a sign to the side of the stage, you can still ascribe to those rules, but you don’t have to subject the audience to it.
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“M-16” (from 1982’s Milo Goes To College)
AVC: This one seems to be more relevant politically than it may have been back when it was written. How do you feel about it now?
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MA: Tony [Lombardo, original bassist] wrote the music, and I came in with the words, which was kind of fun. It’s probably one of the first songs I wrote. That one and “Hope.” So Tony came in, and I said I’d write some words for it. My initial inspiration was I had a friend who had applied to West Point, and he was getting accepted, and was all jazzed about it. When he got accepted, he paraded around the school with an army helmet on his head, like, “Yeah, I’m going to West Point.” With his ACT score on there, too. He was all into it. I was just looking at it, going, “Yeah, that’s your thing, sure. That’s great for you. But don’t expect me to be proud of you or happy.” I mean, I could be proud of him as a friend. But it was my anti-war thing—I don’t want to live your dream. That’s your dream. Go ahead and do it. But it’s not mine. That’s basically where that came from. It was probably one of the first political songs we wrote. It’s not a song we continue to play, but I guess it does have some relevance. “Hey Hey” is another early one that’s more political for us. We don’t define ourselves by the political songs, which makes that song really stand out, because it’s one of the few political ones on the record.
“Hope” (from 1982’s Milo Goes To College)
AVC: So talking about “Hope,” which is considered one of the classic Descendents songs, was this one of the first songs you ever wrote?
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MA: I can’t say it was my first song, because there were some songs, just a few songs I wrote before I joined the band, that were completely useless, so useless I didn’t even show them to the band. That was the first song that I brought to the band. And it was the first song where I had the music and I showed it to them like, “Hey, check out this music.” I don’t think I had lyrics worked out completely, but I just had the music part of it. I showed it to Bill. The next time he asked me to play it for him, he says, “Play that song, the one that inspires hope.” So it became known as the song that inspires hope. And this is just the music part, this isn’t even the lyrics. So then once I heard him say that, the lyrics came from that—they were about my girlfriend at the time. So it kind of came together that way.
It’s interesting because one of the first songs I wrote, I chose to write that way. A lot of people do it that way—you have the music piece, maybe with no words, and then you’re going to put words on top of it. And then I’ve gotten away from that in recent years. I don’t think I’ve written that type of song with music first in very many years. And then I come to find on this record, that’s how Bill and Karl and Stephen were writing their songs, and I thought, “Man, I’ve got to start writing that way again.” Because you know, their contributions to this new record just blew me away. I realized, yeah, one of my favorite songs I ever wrote, I did it their way. So why can’t I get back to writing it that way again?
It just goes to show you, I have so much more that I want to learn about songwriting, and so many more approaches to doing it that I haven’t really been able to tap into, because I’ve just been so busy not doing music and doing other things that take me away from music. That’s going to end. Or, that has ended. Now I’m just doing music full time. So now it’s like, okay, all those times where I’m just sitting there like, “God, I want to be able to write songs as good as these guys’ songs,” now I can pursue that challenge, basically. And of course, that challenge never really ends. No matter how good of a song you write, you’re like, “Guck, that wasn’t the one.”
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“I Quit” (from 2004’s ’Merican EP)
AVC: It’s kind of of funny that you’re now doing it full-time, given that one of the last songs you wrote back in 2004 was about how you’d not be some guy in his 50s up on stage playing music.
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MA: That will be the one song that I’ll never live down in terms of what a bad call it was. I think at the end I say, “Am I really going to be doing this at age 50?” I think I was thinking about, at that time, The Rolling Stones were really the only band who were still kind of doing it, and I kind of laughed at the whole thing. But I think somehow I’ve proved myself wrong there. It is something I still want to do. And that’s all that really matters. The two things that matter are the desire, and being healthy enough to do it. Everything else to me is a non-issue. This notion of being too old for it, I’m not too old if I’m healthy enough to do it, and I’ve got the desire. Plus, I think I’m in a slightly unique situation of starting my music career at age 53, because I’ve really never considered this my career—it’s always been a hobby. So now I’m in a situation of going all-in for music. There’s a huge excitement level for me in just making that decision at where I am right now. I’m the opposite of burned out. I’m kind of recharged. It’s the first time in my life I’ve decided to commit 100 percent to this and to just see where it goes.
“When I Get Old” (from 1996’s Everything Sucks)
AVC: So, now that you know what you’re like as an old person, was that song strangely prescient?
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MA: I think that one, along with “I Don’t Want To Grow Up”—they’re kind of important songs for the band’s psyche, because we are all in this for the fun. If it stops being fun, we’ll just stop doing it. Basically, whatever kind of tweaks to the system or tweaks to the way we do this to take into account our actual ages—our physical ages, not our mental ages—but those need to be taken into consideration so that our mental ages are still where they should be. We want to mentally be young, even if physically we’re not. So for example, we can go on the road, and we can play two gigs, and then take a break, and go out later and play two gigs. I think everyone’s on board with that in the band. We don’t have to play the 150 shows a year that we used to do. We can play 50 shows a year and that means that it’s going to be more fun for everybody, and that means we can do this as long as we want. There’s no end in sight. We can continue doing this. Because we’re just trying to be realistic about how to make it fun. And if we make it fun, we’ll keep doing it. That song, we still play it, and we still operate on that basis of making it fun and something where we can still jump around and act young and be immature. We all have kids now, but that doesn’t really stop us from being as immature as we need to be, as we want to be. Punk rock really defined my existence from an early age. If I had to give up punk rock, then I really would get old.
AVC: So unlike Everything Sucks and Cool To Be You—where those records came out and there was some light touring in support of them—with this new record, Descendents are back?
MA: Yeah, and I think we’re trying to apply some learning from earlier times. Because we did tour for Everything Sucks, but what we did is we toured like demons for like a year, and then we got back from that, and I think everyone just looked at each other and said, “Yeah, okay, we don’t need to do that ever again.” It really was an eye-opener in terms of, well, why do bands break up? Most bands break up because they just burn out. Luckily, we didn’t break up then, we just kind of set it aside again. And then for Cool To Be You, I just couldn’t tour for that one. There was no way with my science job that I could tour. But when we started thinking about this one and realized, you know, when you think about the different periods that this band has been active, this period that we’re in now is actually the longest active period already. Because 2010 to 2016—that’s six years. Some of these earlier active periods were like a year or two years max.
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I think now we’ve kind of solved some of the equation that was causing us to go into hiatus so much before. You want to be thinking not, “Can I do this for the next two years?” but, “Can I do this for the next 10 years, or longer?” If we need to adopt some kind of strategy for that, which might mean we play less frequently, but we can do it and have a ton of fun doing it, that’s all it’s all about. Once it stops being fun, we won’t be able to do it anymore. People are going to know that we’re not having fun, and we’re going to know that we’re not having fun. So at that point, it just ends. We try to place a high emphasis on that based upon our learning from, say, ’96. Toward the end, we had to take a break because it was starting to be a real grind. So that’s how we’re planning to do this. So I think everyone in the band’s on board with that. I think everyone realizes—we talk about All, they’re like, “Is this All?!” It’s a different kind of All. It’s us achieving All in the long-haul. That’s basically it.Microsoft acquired Sunrise Calendar earlier this year, and now comes the news that fans of Sunrise have been dreading. The Sunrise app is dead, but its features will be rolled into the existing Outlook app. Microsoft is still putting the finishing touches on the first Sunrise-infused Outlook update, but it has offered up some screenshots to tide you over.
Outlook is obviously an email client, but it has calendar functionality as well. Those features will be greatly improved with the introduction of Sunrise DNA. The upcoming version will include a new agenda view and more "material" contact lists. Things like connected apps and 3-day views will be added to Outlook later this year.
Going from an app that was just a calendar to one that's primarily a mail client seems odd. I don't know that users of Sunrise will go that way now that the app is being retired. They're more likely to start using another dedicated calendar app like Today or Google Calendar. The new Outlook app will be out soon, but we don't have a particular time frame.A total of 23,095 DDoS attacks were carried out on web resources located in 76 countries in the first quarter of 2015, up 15 percent from the 66 countries affected in the final quarter of last year.
This is one of the findings of a new study by cyber security firm Kaspersky Lab into the botnet-assisted DDoS attack landscape. But although the geography is expanding the overall number of botnet-assisted attacks is down by 11 percent and the number of unique victims down by eight percent.
Servers in the US, Canada and China are targeted most frequently. The study also finds that the greatest number of attacks on a single web resource in Q1 2015 was 21, compared to 16 in Q4 2014, and the most prolonged botnet attack occurred for almost six days.
"A DDoS attack is often a cross-border effort; the customer is located in one country, the executor in another, the C&C servers are hosted in a third country, and the bots involved in the DDoS attack are scattered across the world," says Evgeny Vigovsky, Head of DDoS Protection at Kaspersky Lab. "This often makes it more complicated to investigate attacks, take down botnets and catch those responsible. Although cybercriminals do not limit their DDoS toolkits to botnets alone, this is still a widespread and dangerous tool, and it demands preventive protection measures from potential targets, i.e. web resources".
The fact that China and the US for most frequently attacked countries and highest numbers of victims is, says Kaspersky Lab, down to low hosting prices that encourage many companies to have their sites located in those countries.
The most attacks on a single resource were against a Russian language website belonging to an investment group. A Vietnamese wedding services site was second most attacked, and a US hosting provider third.
Only three sites suffered attacks of more than 100 hours, down significantly from 13 in the final quarter of 2014. However, as the report points out even a short, one-off attack can make a site inoperable and cost the victim both financially and in damage to reputation.
The full report with much more detail is available from the Kaspersky Lab site. There's also an infographic showing the geographical breakdown of attacks below.
Image Credit: Jozsef Bagota/ShutterstockYou know, I really was not going to post anything against the left today, seeing that it is a holiday. But, you know; I just think this needs to be said.
Take a look at what this holiday means to the left; go here, here, |
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Magic
As an Umbra Witch, Bayonetta possess varying powerful magics that assist her in her daily life and allows her to fight against even the most powerful of beings.
Dark Arts & Magic Techniques
Umbran Climax & Serious Mode : Techniques that allow Bayonetta to enter into an ascended state of power. Both techniques allow her to continually manifest the limbs of various infernal demons and increase her damage output. In Umbran Climax, she also gains the capability to perform "Infernal Weaves" and even recover her health while in that state. [2] [1]
: Techniques that allow Bayonetta to enter into an ascended state of power. Both techniques allow her to continually manifest the limbs of various infernal demons and increase her damage output. In Umbran Climax, she also gains the capability to perform "Infernal Weaves" and even recover her health while in that state. Witch Time : Bayonetta is capable of using Witch Time to slow down time around her, allowing her to move at extremely high speeds. This Dark Art is capable of allowing her of countering the likes of Light Speed used by a sage. Furthermore, she is able to "stack" over Witch Time to counter another witch and even a angel. [2] [1]
: Bayonetta is capable of using Witch Time to slow down time around her, allowing her to move at extremely high speeds. This Dark Art is capable of allowing her of countering the likes of Light Speed used by a sage. Furthermore, she is able to "stack" over Witch Time to counter another witch and even a angel. Beast Within: A magic technique that allows transformation into various animals.[1]
Witch Walk : Bayonetta can use the Witch Walk technique, allowing her the power to defy gravity and walk on any vertical or horizontal surface during a full moon [1] or on select devices created by Lord Aesir. [1]
: Bayonetta can use the Witch Walk technique, allowing her the power to defy gravity and walk on any vertical or horizontal surface during a full moon or on select devices created by Lord Aesir. Wicked Weaves : Using her hair as a conduit, Bayonetta can use Wicked Weaves to summon forth various demons and also summon forth their limbs to attack. [1]
: Using her hair as a conduit, Bayonetta can use Wicked Weaves to summon forth various demons and also summon forth their limbs to attack. Infernal Weaves : An even more powerful variant used during Umbran Climax. At the end of her combos using Wicked Weaves, Bayonetta summons a full demon for a large area-of-effect finisher. [2]
: An even more powerful variant used during Umbran Climax. At the end of her combos using Wicked Weaves, Bayonetta summons a full demon for a large area-of-effect finisher. Infernal Kiss: This allows her to indirectly to control various machines at will. Such as in Bayonetta 2, when she blew a kiss at the Cessna like small plane that contains Enzo while on her way to Fimbleventr before jumping off. Despite Enzo's fumbling, the small plane actually made it all the way to the city she live in and was only destroyed by angels. This is in contrast with direct control, in which she can shove her middle finger through any machine key holes to take control, such as Enzo's car or even the witches' power walkers.
Torture Attacks
Bayonetta is capable of using special attacks which can deal massive damage to most forces of Paradiso and Inferno. By chanting in Enochian, she can summon various objects to potentially finish her enemies.
Summoning
As an Umbra Witch, Bayonetta is capable of summoning various demons. Each summon is usually evoked via dancing and speaking in Enochian although they can also manifest via chanting during Infernal Weaves.[2]
Lone Summons
Gomorrah [1] - AVAVAGO ("Increase the thunders")
- AVAVAGO ("Increase the thunders") Malphas [2] - A GRA ORS (Moon of Darkness)
- A GRA ORS (Moon of Darkness) Hekatoncheir [1] - AFAA TADAAG NEPTA (Sword of Dust)
- AFAA TADAAG NEPTA (Sword of Dust) Scolopendra [1] - TELOC VOVIM (Dragon of death)
- TELOC VOVIM (Dragon of death) Phantasmaraneae [1] - IASTA SA PIADPH (Framed in the depths of my jaws)
- IASTA SA PIADPH (Framed in the depths of my jaws) Labolas [2] - ARGEDCO (Invoke)
- ARGEDCO (Invoke) Baal [2] - EX FA (Vomit power)
- EX FA (Vomit power) Hydra [2] - CANILU (Blood)
- CANILU (Blood) Diomedes [2] - SUNDENNA (Name of evil spirit)
- SUNDENNA (Name of evil spirit) Carnage[2] - SOL-PHECTAHE (Listen)
Her most powerful summon and the demon in which she possess a pact with is Madama Butterfly (PDEE BARMA - "Itself itself"). This demoness granted Bayonetta additional, enormous power and greater wisdom.[5]
Team Summons
Queen Sheba [1] - TELOC VOVIM A GRAA ORS TABA ORD AVAVAGO (The Fallen One cast down, let her be governed by that which thunders): Requires Jeanne's support.
- TELOC VOVIM A GRAA ORS TABA ORD AVAVAGO (The Fallen One cast down, let her be governed by that which thunders): Requires Jeanne's support. Omne - AGRAA ORS TABA ORD AVAVAGO (The moon of darkness... let her be governed by that which thunders): Requires Balder's support.
Left Eye of Darkness
Main article: Eyes of the World
Formerly, Bayonetta possessed one of the powers of the former Lord Aesir known as the "Left Eye of Darkness". Despite having possessed a formidable power, Bayonetta has rarely ever used it to her volition. After awakening the Left Eye, she was (unwittingly) surrounded by an aura that made her untouchable to others with the exception of Balder, whom possessed the Right Eye of Light.[1] According to comments from Loptr, the Left Eye of Darkness makes it possible for her to see through deception by looking through time.[2]
Alchemy
Equipment
Clothing
Umbran Watch: A gift from her mother on her birthday in which has her name and date of birth engraved on it. This watch also allows her to remain youthful and halt her aging.[1]
Weapons
Handguns : Standard handguns in which are unable to withstand the intensity of magic Bayonetta uses and by far the weakest of her weapons. [1]
: Standard handguns in which are unable to withstand the intensity of magic Bayonetta uses and by far the weakest of her weapons. Scarborough Fair : The main weapon used by Bayonetta during her battles against the forces of Paradiso to stop Balder. These weapons push her magic to the limit and along with an amazing rate of fire and stopping power, it allows her to utilize Wicked Weaves. [1]
: The main weapon used by Bayonetta during her battles against the forces of Paradiso to stop Balder. These weapons push her magic to the limit and along with an amazing rate of fire and stopping power, it allows her to utilize Wicked Weaves. Onyx Roses : A special shotgun in which contains the souls of fairies known to collect the Onyx Rose plant in Inferno. Each shell contains the cursed souls of fairies which can be fired. [1]
: A special shotgun in which contains the souls of fairies known to collect the Onyx Rose plant in Inferno. Each shell contains the cursed souls of fairies which can be fired. 修羅刃 -Shuraba- : A special, living katana that contains the souls of the demon god of war, Ashura. It can cut up the forces of Paradiso and Infeno as well as suck the souls of its victims. [6]
: A special, living katana that contains the souls of the demon god of war, Ashura. It can cut up the forces of Paradiso and Infeno as well as suck the souls of its victims. Kulshedra : A special whip that calls upon the power of the trapped soul of the ancient serpentine demon, Kulshedra, from a portal. [1]
: A special whip that calls upon the power of the trapped soul of the ancient serpentine demon, Kulshedra, from a portal. Durga: Containing the soul of the eponymous demon with a thousand arms, this weapon allows Bayonetta to call upon the power of both fire and lightning.[1]
Gallery
For more pictures and screenshots of Bayonetta (character), click here.
Appearances in Other Media
Samurai & Dragons
Cereza makes an appearance in Samurai & Dragons: a strategic fighting game developed by Sega, was exclusively released on the PS Vita, and is only available in Japan. She was included in the SEGA All-Stars DLC Pack[7] as a stat card for the series playable characters.
Bayonetta appears as a playable DLC character in the game Anarchy Reigns (Max Anarchy in Japan), an online beat 'em up developed by PlatinumGames and released in 2013. She was initially a pre-order bonus for those who pre-ordered the game at Gamestop. However, several months after the game's release, Bayonetta was made available for purchase on PSN and Xbox Live.
In the game, Bayonetta has access to most of her abilities from her original games. Using Scarborough Fair as her weapons of choice, her attacks are a mixture of her combos from the first game, including moves such as Bullet Climax and Afterburner Kick. Some of her stronger attacks allow her to also use Witch Time and Torture Attacks to incapacitate her foes. Holding down the L2/LT buttons will allow Bayonetta to summon Wicked Weaves with her attacks. When strung together, this can leave enemies helpless as Madama Butterfly's fists slam opponents into the ground.
Bayonetta, Jeanne, and Rodin appear as secret unlockable playable characters in The Wonderful 101, another action title for the Wii U developed by PlatinumGames.
In order to unlock Bayonetta normally, players must obtain Platinum Rankings on all stages of the game. However, with the release of Bayonetta 2 in western territories, PlatinumGames released a special cheat code players can activate in the first chapter to unlock Bayonetta right away. At the start of Operation 001, while pressing the ZR button enter the following [↑ ↓ ↑ → ← XBYA]. A small jingle will sound if entered correctly.
In game, Bayonetta operates in a similar manner to Wonder Green, summoning her Scarborough Fair guns as weapons whose power is interdependent with the amount of Wonderful Ones she unites up with. The more Wonderful Ones that are being used, the larger the number of guns, which can reach up to a maximum of four. Her most powerful ability drastically increases her in size where she uses one of her standard combos on enemies for massive damage.
During the final presentation foron December 15th 2015, Bayonetta was confirmed as the final DLC character. Her inclusion in the game is thanks to the Smash Bros. Fighter Ballot where players could vote for their ideal characters to be included in the game. Bayonetta ranked first place in Europe and among the top five in North America. Overall, among the negotiable and realizable characters, she ranked first place worldwide. In, Bayonetta is a combo fighter with many moves and abilities pulled straight from the original games. For full details on her moveset and abilities, see thepage here
Bayonetta and the Umbra Clock Tower stage was released on February 3rd, 2016 in the North American regions and February 4th 2016 in the European/Asia regions for $5.99 (plus tax) for the individual Wii U and 3DS versions or $6.99 for both versions bundled together. Along with Bayonetta, 4 trophies of herself along with one trophy of Jeanne, Rodin and Cereza individually are also included along with 11 music tracks from the original games for the Wii U version.
Unlike her appearance in Anarchy Reigns where her design was left intact, there are some minor differences for Bayonetta's appearance in Super Smash Bros. Due to the game being rated E10+, Bayonetta's use of Wicked Weaves and other hair based attacks have required slight censorship in order to keep the original rating. Instead of most of her suit disappearing when summoning both Wicked Weaves and Gomorrah, Bayonetta's outfit loses the sleeves of hair whilst the rest only disappears up to her upper thighs. Her default costume from Bayonetta 2 has also been slightly altered so that the diamonds that run along her legs are darkened to avoid showing too much skin.
As with any other Smash Bro. 4 fighters, Bayonetta has got her own Nintendo Nintendo amiibo figurines due to her joining the roster. It was announced during her reveal that her amiibo was in the works and will be released sometimes in 2016. This never happened as her released date kept on getting pushed back. It was finally announced that along with her, Cloud and Corrin amiibos will be released on July 21st 2017 instead.
Unlike previous Smash Bro. fighters, Bayonetta will be getting two amiibos instead, featuring both her Bayonetta 1 and Bayonetta 2 outfits. The only other two fighters to get both costumes are Cloud and Corrin who, along with Bayonetta respectfully, are the last three DLC fighters announced. At least in the United States, her Bayonetta 2 outfit amiibo is only available as a Best Buy exclusive while her Bayonetta 1 outfit amiibo is available everywhere. Her Bayonetta 1 amiibo pose is from Anarchy Reigns where she splits her legs apart, arch the back end while leaving the right arm straight in front with the left vertical behind with her cloth flying vertically around her. Her Bayonetta 2 pose is the standard Smash 4 default pose where she is striding forward, her right gun arm cranked backward with her left arm arched vertical while winking at the camera.
During the Nintendo Direct presentation for E3 2018, Bayonetta was confirmed to appear as an unlockable fighter in the latest installment of theseries, "Super Smash Bros. Ultimate" for the Nintendo Switch. The game is scheduled to release on December 7th, 2018.
There were no significant changes to the way she plays as we know of, however it was shown in the Nintendo Direct that her gun sounds from her Bullet Climax move were now different depending on whether she was wearing her original outfit, or the one from Bayonetta 2. Her grab also involves her Umbran magic, as her hand now emits purple-pink energy and doesn't physically take her opponents when grabbing.
Quotes
Bayonetta
"You've played enough hide and seek, my scurrying little friend!"
"I'm sorry. I forgot to mention one of the reasons I hunt your kind. You're much too ugly not to put out of your misery."
"You know, you're not nearly so ugly when you're screaming."
"If you get in my way, I will... How do the Americans put it? Oh yes... Bust a cap in yo' ass."
"Yours is a face only a mother could love, and one I could never forget. If only I could remember where from…"
"I'm not much for the talkative types. How about we have a little fun, instead? You did plan on having fun with me, right? There'll be plenty of time for pillow talk afterwards."
"Bugger! And I didn't make any time for pillow talk."
"Hello there, Cheshire!"
"How odd. You seem to know where I'm going before I do. Yet you don't seem to know how to drive a car in a straight line."
"Oh my… That was bloody amazing."
"Another one looking to line his pockets. Huh, I'm beginning to see why Enzo is so fond of you."
"I feel like a fucking celebrity in this town."
" Ugh, Fine."
"Don't worry. It's always scary the first time you see them."
"Now, where are my new best friends? I suppose one of them is an adult, so they should be okay."
"You're absolutely delusional. If I leave her, he'll never shut up about it. And his whining is twice as irritating as anything the child could muster."
"Another talkative type. I don't think I've got time to entertain your blather. I'd much rather hear it straight from your boss."
"So where was I? Oh yes. Your kind invitation. I do hope you've prepared dessert as well. Oh what a lovely tea party! And dancing, too! Cereza, my dear, watch and learn!"
"If there's two things I hate in this world, it's cockroaches and crying babies! Well, a crying baby cockroach would be truly terrible… So don't you dare cry."
"Tentacles! Why did it have to be tentacles?!"
"You know the rules: no cockroaches or crying babies."
"Where the hell am I? I better have got frequent flyer miles for that flight."
"Juu'nen hayain dayo!"
"As long as there's music, I'll keep on dancing."
"I can't help it if I like the little outfits. The toys are nice, too."
“When you love something, never lose it. Understand, little one? You must keep it safe, close to your heart.”
"Put your foot down, Cheshire! I'll take care of our little pest problem."
" I've often seen a girl without lipstick, but lipstick without a girl!? Most curious, isn't it Cheshire? "
" "Come now, Cheshire. Look at me. Do I look like I have any interest in children? Now making them… Well, that's another story."
"In the language of flowers, rosemary equates to remembrance… Suits me now, doesn't it? "
" "Do you naughty little angels deserve a good spanking?!"
"Let's dance, boys!"
"I should have been a pole dancer!"
"Don't fuck with a witch!"
Bayonetta Bloody Fate
"Look at what you've done to my outfit. You're so impatient."
"You're not dead yet."
"A pointless wish."
"Mother is waiting."
"Bye, daddy!"
"Oh, you are not dead yet."
Bayonetta 2
"You know what I need? Some heels without guns."
"A Lumen Sage… cheeky! No one bothered telling me any of your kind survived."
"Now than you mention it...I still haven't quite figured out how a broke, bumbling wise guy managed to turn himself into a semi-respectable family man."
"You know, I try to avoid doing this in my Sunday best."
"This is why I never buy anything on sale..."
"Now it's time to be naughty."
"I'm not one for pets who don't listen to their masters.
"Let the real Santa take care of the presents. Now let's go."
"I can't believe you, Enzo. I didn't know the in-flight service was exclusive to fat Italians."
"Sorry, Enzo, this is where I get off. Say hi to the wife and kids for me!"
"Jeanne...I'm on my way. Just behave yourself for a bit longer."
"I'm afraid I don't have time to dance too long. A friend is waiting for me."
"You seem to have skipped school the day they taught basic negotiation skills. You're supposed to negotiate from a position of strength, little one. Not just be a one trick pony."
"More tricks, little magician? Maybe you've got more to offer than I expected. For the time being though, stay here and don't get frisky."
"Just don't stick your nose where it doesn't belong, Cheshire."
"Where did you learn that trick, little one? I've never seen a witch--or a sage, for that matter-- pull off something like that."
"Right, let's go. I've got a party and I've no intention of being late."
"I don't recall asking for your permission. Oh, and I was wrong about our final destinations. Going down."
"Fuck! The boy! Forgot about that..."
"What kind of adult picks on little children?"
"Trust me, little one, he's not my type."
"Oh my… you're a Lumen Sage!?"
"I think my friends and I might have had a falling out. Why would Infernals be after me...?"
"Good to know some of you are keeping your part of the contract."
"I came to pick up a friend. It's almost her curfew."
"If I didn't know any better, I'd say you were the most persistent stalker I've met yet."
Daddy...DADDY!
"Wonderful!! That's the second dress in a month!"
"No... I am fine."
Taunts
Activating Witch Time
"Nice try!"
"Not quite!"
"Can't touch me!"
"Too late!"
"So close…"
"Almost!"
"Is that all you've got?"
"Got you!"
Character Selection/Tag Climax
"Ah! You want to play with Bayonetta?"
"You've got the right eye for talent."
"Shall we?"
"Did I hog the spotlight?"
"Do you like my haircut?"
Wicked Weaves
"Die!"
"Kiss this!"
"Boom!"
"Twist!"
"I've had enough...of your games!"
"The...end!"
"Smashing!"
"Fire!"
"Bingo!"
"See ya!"
"Excellent!"
"Ta ta!"
Character Relationships
Rosa : Bayonetta possess immense respect and love for her mother, regarding her as a hero. Despite having confused her own older self with her mother and learning this [1], she still maintained a high level of respect for her and fought alongside her after being moved into the past by Loki's Remembrance of Time. According to the Eyes of Bayonetta 2, the skill level in which Rosa exhibit the Bullet Arts during her time in the past had left speechless. She is visibly disturbed and sadden by her death. [2]
: Bayonetta possess immense respect and love for her mother, regarding her as a hero. Despite having confused her own older self with her mother and learning this, she still maintained a high level of respect for her and fought alongside her after being moved into the past by Loki's Remembrance of Time. According to the Eyes of Bayonetta 2, the skill level in which Rosa exhibit the Bullet Arts during her time in the past had left speechless. She is visibly disturbed and sadden by her death. Balder : Bayonetta maintains a complex relationship with him. Originally, she had not maintained much of a relationship of her father due to his exile. However, in the present day, he had brought back a past Cereza, altering history. When she first met him as a adult five hundred years later, she denounces him as her father for starting the Witch Hunts. However, as witnessed from her younger self that later changes Bayonetta's original history, she had formed a attachment to her father nevertheless. [1] She was unaware of the Masked Lumen's identity of being the past Balder brought to the future, only finding him somewhat annoying as he constantly made an attempt to kill Loki, and had no qualms of battling him. After finding out his true identity and further learns of him not causing the Witch Hunts as he claimed as a older man. Relieved from this fact, she instead finds herself sympathetic to him and becomes concerned for his well-being. Her genuine love for her father is what enabled the both of them to summon Omne. She also becomes sadden when she learns of the truth of his corruption to evil. She had a tendency to call him by his actual name and actively hid her real name for an unknown reason after finding out the Masked Lumen's true identity. [2]
: Bayonetta maintains a complex relationship with him. Originally, she had not maintained much of a relationship of her father due to his exile. However, in the present day, he had brought back a past Cereza, altering history. When she first met him as a adult five hundred years later, she denounces him as her father for starting the Witch Hunts. However, as witnessed from her younger self that later changes Bayonetta's original history, she had formed a attachment to her father nevertheless. She was unaware of the Masked Lumen's identity of being the past Balder brought to the future, only finding him somewhat annoying as he constantly made an attempt to kill Loki, and had no qualms of battling him. After finding out his true identity and further learns of him not causing the Witch Hunts as he claimed as a older man. Relieved from this fact, she instead finds herself sympathetic to him and becomes concerned for his well-being. Her genuine love for her father is what enabled the both of them to summon Omne. She also becomes sadden when she learns of the truth of his corruption to evil. She had a tendency to call him by his actual name and actively hid her real name for an unknown reason after finding out the Masked Lumen's true identity. Jeanne : Described as her childhood best friend and rival, Bayonetta initially finds her a mysterious and vexing individual until she regains her memory of her. [1] Rekindling her friendship with Jeanne after twenty years of amnesia, she is fiercely attached to her to the point of venturing to Inferno for her wellbeing. Much like all her friends, she has a tendency to exchange banter with Jeanne teasingly, with the latte replying with equal teasing. It is also known that the both of them live together. [2]
: Described as her childhood best friend and rival, Bayonetta initially finds her a mysterious and vexing individual until she regains her memory of her. Rekindling her friendship with Jeanne after twenty years of amnesia, she is fiercely attached to her to the point of venturing to Inferno for her wellbeing. Much like all her friends, she has a tendency to exchange banter with Jeanne teasingly, with the latte replying with equal teasing. It is also known that the both of them live together. Cereza (Time Displacement) : Unaware of being her younger self for most of the events, she comes to be a protective and inspirational figure for the younger Cereza despite her initially reception of Cereza being a "crybaby". She nicknames her younger self "Little One". [1]
: Unaware of being her younger self for most of the events, she comes to be a protective and inspirational figure for the younger Cereza despite her initially reception of Cereza being a "crybaby". She nicknames her younger self "Little One". Luka Redgrave : Following her under the assumption for being the killer of his father and calling him "Cheshire" much to his chargin, Bayonetta and Luka both form a solid partnership in which includes him looking after Cereza and keeping her out of trouble. In turn, she comes to care for Luka. [1] After he finds out the truth, the both of them maintain a strange but improving friendship, with Bayonetta coming to find him a useful ally. [2] In the sequel, however, most of the time he tends to annoy her and she would put him in his place. Kamiya revealed that she herself teases and picks on Luka due to his annoyance but wouldn't commit to a romantic relationship with him, as he would end up dead long before she would. [citation needed]
: Following her under the assumption for being the killer of his father and calling him "Cheshire" much to his chargin, Bayonetta and Luka both form a solid partnership in which includes him looking after Cereza and keeping her out of trouble. In turn, she comes to care for Luka. After he finds out the truth, the both of them maintain a strange but improving friendship, with Bayonetta coming to find him a useful ally. In the sequel, however, most of the time he tends to annoy her and she would put him in his place. Kamiya revealed that she herself teases and picks on Luka due to his annoyance but wouldn't commit to a romantic relationship with him, as he would end up dead long before she would. Madama Butterfly : The demon in which she made her pact with. Although rarely interacting with her personally, she is grateful for the fact that she maintained her loyalty and honors their contract. [2]
: The demon in which she made her pact with. Although rarely interacting with her personally, she is grateful for the fact that she maintained her loyalty and honors their contract. Loki : The supernatual being and half of Aesir. She comes to find Loki as a useful ally in her quest to Inferno. However, she also forms a attachment to him, the both of them often exchanging banters with one another and being protective of him. Bayonetta makes a habit of usually patronizing Loki due to his appearance as a child, even when made aware that he is, in actuality, far more older. After defeating the ascended Aesir, she wonders if they would meet and insisted that he call her Cereza, although the latter commented she didn't look like a "Cereza" to him. She also nicknamed him "Little One". [2]
: The supernatual being and half of Aesir. She comes to find Loki as a useful ally in her quest to Inferno. However, she also forms a attachment to him, the both of them often exchanging banters with one another and being protective of him. Bayonetta makes a habit of usually patronizing Loki due to his appearance as a child, even when made aware that he is, in actuality, far more older. After defeating the ascended Aesir, she wonders if they would meet and insisted that he call her Cereza, although the latter commented she didn't look like a "Cereza" to him. She also nicknamed him "Little One". Enzo : An informant of hers, she maintains a odd relationship with him. Tending to use his resources and even himself as a means to her end and is callous about his problems. Regarding him as a "bumbling wise guy" and a "semi-respectable family man", she is protective enough to save him from harms way. Jeanne once claimed that she should make an effort in being nicer to Enzo. [2]
: An informant of hers, she maintains a odd relationship with him. Tending to use his resources and even himself as a means to her end and is callous about his problems. Regarding him as a "bumbling wise guy" and a "semi-respectable family man", she is protective enough to save him from harms way. Jeanne once claimed that she should make an effort in being nicer to Enzo. Rodin: One of her informants and ally who supplies her with weaponry. She maintains what resembles a professional relationship with the demon and has even accepted his aid.[2] According to Hideki Kamiya when asked if they shared a relationship beyond a professional one, he only states that they have a "special relationship", though what this entails is unknown.[10]
Trivia
Bayonetta is voiced by Hellena Taylor in all of her English appearances and was initially the only voice for Bayonetta upon the first game's initial release in Japan. Hideki Kamiya explained in an interview that he wanted a British accented voice actor for Bayonetta, because witches were more of a European myth than Japanese. Bayonetta's Japanese voice actress for the Wii U version of Bayonetta, Bloody Fate and Bayonetta 2 is Motoko Kusanagi from Ghost In The Shell and Hibana From Kunoichi. Comparing Bayonetta's face to Hellena's, one can notice there are some similarities between her face, especially the outline to her's. This is no surprise as many game characters share facial similarities to their voice actors/motion capture actors.
, and is Motoko Kusanagi from and Hibana From Hellena Taylor says that she had problems in pronouncing the words for summoning demons because they were so weird but Kris Zimmerman-Salter (Voice director) helped her with pronunciation.
In a scene during Chapter III of the first game, Bayonetta surfs on a wave of lava and says "Dancin'-a-go-go, baby!" which is a reference to Viewtiful Joe.
which is a reference to. Bayonetta's watch contains the numbers 14111219. It represents the year/month/date of Bayonetta's birthday, which is December 19, 1411.
When playing as Jeanne in either game, the outfit that resembles Bayonetta's default look is referred to as a 'battle uniform' of the Umbra Witches. It can be assumed from this that Bayonetta's outfit is the usual outfit Umbra Witches would wear when in battle.
The ribbons that Bayonetta initially wears in her hair read the word "BAYONETTA" in demonic script, which is supposed to hint where she got her modern alias from. According to Enzo in Bloody Fate, the name "Bayonetta" was given to her by Rodin. The ribbons were originally supposed to be the thing that bound the hands and feet of dead Witches in their resting places, as shown in the Eyes of Bayonetta artbook.
, the name "Bayonetta" was given to her by Rodin. The ribbons were originally supposed to be the thing that bound the hands and feet of dead Witches in their resting places, as shown in the artbook. Bayonetta's ability to weave her magic through her hair is a reference to an old European belief that women with long hair were more likely to be targeted by incubi, which later evolved into the idea that witches used their hair in magic.
In his commentary for the first game, Hideki Kamiya calls Bayonetta's "Serious Mode" one of the first tested basic designs for the character that was rejected because the hair would cloak the figure. During playthroughs, developers realized that Bayonetta has a hard time fighting big bosses with her usual attacks and thus, Serious Mode was born, where every attack creates a Wicked Weave; the older character design was then reused to spice the scene up.
When Bayonetta says the quote "Flock off feather face" and she also says "Flock off" in combos this is a reference to how the angels have feathers it could also be a reference to Jurassic Park where a characters uses the word "flock".
where a characters uses the word "flock". When in Beast Within form, a trail of black roses and skull-headed flowers are left wherever Bayonetta runs. This is a reference to Okami, where, depending on how fast Amaterasu is running, grass or flowers bloom in an identical manner.
, where, depending on how fast Amaterasu is running, grass or flowers bloom in an identical manner. In his commentary, Hideki Kamiya mentions that at some point in development a teenage version of Bayonetta was present in the game, linked to an older version of Magic Gauge - the Gauge used to replenish with time, and if the player would use up all the orbs, Bayonetta would morph into this teenage version of herself. When the way the Magic Gauge works was changed, teenage Bayonetta was dropped too.
In both games, you can never see Bayonetta without her glasses. In one of the cutscenes in the first game before fighting Temperantia, she does take them off, but her face remains off-camera. In his commentary, Hideki Kamiya mentions that one of the developers once said: "For Bayonetta, her glasses are like her underwear: never let yourself be seen without them". Ironically, Cereza was seen without her glasses.
If Bayonetta shoots idly at a wall, she will start writing her initials and hearts with the bullets.
When Bayonetta draws on Luka's face with the lipstick in the first game, she draws the circle similar to that of Amaterasu from Okami on his forehead, along with whiskers and an animal’s mouth.
on his forehead, along with whiskers and an animal’s mouth. Bayonetta's ability to transform into a crow and a panther are similar to a concept in Okami that had Amaterasu transforming into a dolphin and a falcon—although, unlike Bayonetta, the idea did not appear in the final version of Okami.
that had Amaterasu transforming into a dolphin and a falcon—although, unlike, the idea did not appear in the final version of. Bayonetta shares similarities with Samus Aran (Zero suit Samus) from the Metriod series. Both characters are the protagonists of their series, they're beautiful, athletic women who wear skin-tight bodysuits, possess gun-like weapons, went through a difficult past relating to their family, and each have a beauty mark on the right of their lips. Fans currently still compare Bayonetta with Zero Suit Samus.
Bayonetta was going to be included in the Sega crossover kart-racing game Sonic & All-Stars Racing Transformed as a playable character, but according to a forum post from the developers, she was scrapped because the developers had trouble trying to keep her in-character without the ESRB/PEGI rating potentially going up.
as a playable character, but according to a forum post from the developers, she was scrapped because the developers had trouble trying to keep her in-character without the ESRB/PEGI rating potentially going up. Jubileus, The Creator roughly resembles Bayonetta, especially regarding Jubileus' wearing eyewear similar to Bayonetta's butterfly glasses, a similar hairdo and something similar to her Umbran Watch on her chest. According to Hideki Kamiya in the official artbook commentary, this design was intentional as Jubileus, Bayonetta and Queen Sheba are supposed to represent the most powerful beings in their respective dimensions.
Bayonetta's intolerance of crying babies and cockroaches is referenced in The Wonderful 101, when one of the later bosses calls the titular superheroes "crying baby cockroaches".
, when one of the later bosses calls the titular superheroes "crying baby cockroaches". When questioned if Bayonetta and Jeanne were blood related, Hideki Kamiya stated that they are not related by blood but are just of the same |
participate in testing each time. When the whole thing comes together on the end, it turns out that the system still requires a lot of changes to solve the problem that it was intended for — the iterations and customer feedback failed to provide the directions.
The problem hides in way that the project was split: early deliverables mostly provide the plumbing for the later ones and the whole thing comes together on the end. So, until very close to the end of the project, the deliverables could not really be used in production. Unless the software is really being used, we cannot expect authoritative feedback. The customers may be able to give us their general gut-feel and comment on functional correctness, but usability and feasibility can only be measured once the software is really actually used by people in the course of their daily business. Technical integration issues as well as usability (human-integration) issues are expected and typically not problematic to solve, but we must not let them pile up. Early feedback should allow us to solve some of those problems during the whole project, instead of finding them out on the end.
One more reason why deliverables should be used in production is that the customer’s business will rarely stand still during the course of the project, making the end result effectively a moving target. If the deliveries are not really used until the end of the project, then we have no idea whether they are in touch with the present business requirements. On the other hand, if the deliverables are used every day, we will know that straight away – and most likely the clients will ask for adjustments early.
So how do we avoid this problem?
Here are three ideas to avoid the problem:
Focus on user stories, not on technical use cases
Plan deliveries so that they are complete in the sense that they can really be used in production
Divide and conquer: Split a big project into several mini-projects, and then focus on delivering those in a sequence
Focus on user stories
User stories have emerged over the last several years as the preferred way of planning scope for agile projects. Focusing on user stories is a great way to split the project into parts that actually bring value to the customer, since every user story should have a clearly defined customer benefit. So planning deliverables in terms of user stories instead of technical use cases is a great first step.
A pitfall that we must avoid is to then batch stories based purely on technical dependencies. Although it makes perfect sense to have early deliverables provide the technical infrastructure for latter ones, and that type of dependency must be taken into consideration when planning deliverables, ordering purely based on that leads to the exact problem that we are trying to avoid. This is effectively incremental, not iterative development.
Have production-worthy deliveries
Instead of focusing on technical order, it is better to try plan deliveries so that every shipped version of the software can really be used in production. Although it is not always possible to adhere perfectly to this idea, it is a good general rule and we should try to keep the deliveries complete in that sense. While working on the delivery plan, just ask the clients this simple question: “pretend it’s magic and in a few months we give you these stories — would that piece of software be complete in the sense that it can actually be used in production?”. If the answer is no, go back to the drawing board.
Doing production-worthy deliveries several times during the project might require writing some throw-away code, but that is a small price to pay for early feedback (to programmers) and getting business benefits early (to customers). For example, several years ago I worked on a trading system that was supposed to replace excel-based trading and distribution management. One of the major problems that we were supposed to solve was optimising transport routes and providing transport plans to local centres. So our first delivery was a piece of software that allowed traders to input their trading plans (from the excel sheets), produced an optimised transport plan, and allowed them to export it back to excel. The first and third part of that delivery were thrown away later, but we got good feedback on a fairly complex part of the system and solved tons of edge cases that were not identified during initial planning. Traders were happy because this saved them a few hours of work every day, and they got that several months before the whole system was in place.
Break a big project into mini-projects
Reg Braithwaite wrote that his Golden Hammer for building software iteratively is to divide it into separate products. This makes excellent sense for building larger systems where the software will perform a lot of functions for a lot of people on the end. By dividing one single large product into smaller products we force ourselves to have cleaner interfaces and looser coupling between software components. This can allow us to develop them independently, and will also reduce the risk of the whole thing missing the target on the end. Each of those mini-products would be a deliverable, and it should be usable on its own.
I recently worked on a highly scalable e-commerce web site. We split the project into three separate products: an e-commerce integration platform, high-performance caching system and the actual of web site. The integration platform was delivered first, with a low-fi card processing web that was used for some 3rd party integration. It went live a year before the rest of the system, helping us flush out any problems with transaction processing. We had new requirements about this part of the system every few months, driven by the fact that people were actually using it. So when the project was close to the end, this integration platform was in touch with reality. The caching system went live next, and it was used to support a mobile content distribution application. Both the low-fi card processing site and the mobile app were not part of the initial plan, but we were able to slot them in nicely. The web site front end then built upon the foundations of those two systems that were in production for months. Thinking about the whole project in terms of separate products both helped us deliver it quicker (because we had real production feedback for parts of the system early on) and also increased the value of what we were doing (since the same components were used to support different applications and smaller projects that started after that big one). Divide and conquer approach paid off big.
Deliveries and iterations
I know that some of you, reading this, will now start to complain how iterations should be two to four weeks long and that the business problems are often larger than what can be solved in such a short period of time. I intentionally avoided using the word “iteration” in this discussion, because I do not think that every iteration needs to be delivered.
If an iteration result is not complete in the sense that it can really be used every day, then the iteration delivery will just sleep on the UAT servers after testers play with it for a while. To get quick feedback on such iterations, I propose giving clients access to the local integration environment and letting them play with the software there. You can avoid packaging and polishing and they do not have to update their local installations.
If an iteration produces software that can really be used every day, then ship it and make the clients use it. It is definitely useful to get feedback early, but having something go live, even if it causes rework or throwing away parts of software later, is much much more valuable than software that is only tested. It has more value for the customer, since they are getting a part of their problem solved earlier. It also has more value for the development of the whole project, since it brings real, authoritative feedback from everyday use.JERUSALEM (Reuters) - Israel voiced concern on Monday at the prospect of its closest ally, Washington, cooperating with its what it considers its deadliest foe, Iran, to stave off a sectarian break-up of Iraq.
But, Israeli Strategic Affairs Minister Yuval Steinitz told Reuters, the United States and other major powers have pledged that any such cooperation would not set back their drive to curb Tehran’s nuclear program.
The Obama administration said on Sunday it was considering talks with Iran about the Iraqi crisis. Iranian officials have voiced openness to working with the Americans in helping Baghdad repel a Sunni Muslim insurgency.
While deploring the “ungodly horror” of the bloodshed in Iraq, Steinitz said Iran should not be helped to extend its sway in Iran where fellow Shi’ite Muslims form the majority.
That, he said would give Tehran an arc of control running through Syria, where the Iranians back embattled President Bashar al-Assad, and on to Lebanon, where they have powerful allies in the Hezbollah militia.
“And we would especially not want for a situation to be created where, because both the United States and Iran support the government of (Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri) al-Maliki, it softens the American positions on the issue which is most critical for the peace of the world, which is the Iranian nuclear issue,” Steinitz said in an interview.
Even before the Iraq crisis, Israel was concerned about Iran’s nuclear talks with Washington and five other powers, aimed at ensuring Iran is not developing atomic weapons capability.
Israel fears Tehran would be able to shake off international sanctions built up over the last decade.
SEPARATION
Steinitz was cautiously optimistic that the negotiations would be unaffected by any international involvement in Iraq.
“We are troubled, but we have been made to understand by everyone - the Americans and the British and the French and the Germans - that a total separation will be enforced,” he said.
Steinitz said such a separation of policies would be similar to Russia’s participation alongside Western powers in the Iranian nuclear talks even as it spars with them over Ukraine.
Neither Washington nor Tehran, old adversaries with often contrary interests in the Middle East, have articulated how they might cooperate in Iraq.
Washington has no appetite to send troops back to the country it occupied for almost a decade, but the Obama administration has suggested it could carry out air strikes against insurgents.
Steinitz, who regularly confers with the United States about the Iranian nuclear negotiations and other regional issues, said he did not know what actions the Americans might take in Iraq.
Western diplomats suspect Iran has in the past sent some of its Revolutionary Guards, an elite force separate from the regular army, to train and advise the Iraqi army or allied militia. During its occupation of Iraq, the United States said some attacks on its forces had Iranian help.
Iran says it has never sent forces to Iraq but might now assist the Maliki government with advisers and weaponry.
Another Israeli security official, who spoke to Reuters on condition of anonymity, said deeper Iranian commitment in Iraq could make Tehran more accommodating in the nuclear talks as it might feel over-extended and reluctant to spark further crises.
“They would have to redirect resources, perhaps even pull their forces out of Syria to send to Iraq instead,” the second Israeli official said. “Let them sink into that new quagmire.”
Steinitz rejected this view, however, saying: “I would never look to solve one travesty with another travesty.”The words on the page in front of Gus may as well have been in Japanese. Though he’d read the same paragraph three times, his brain was unable to truly process what it was reading.
It had been like this all week – at his classes, at his apprenticeship… His mind was simply too far away to focus.
A loud knocking suddenly broke the silence in the tiny cabin. Gus closed his textbook at the sound, part of him grateful for the distraction, and part of him wondering who it could possibly be. None of his family ever knocked, it seemed. Not the adults, at least.
Could it be Zayne? Or one of the triplets? Gus hoped not. He loved his nieces and nephew, but putting on a brave face for them day after day was growing tiresome.
He was called back to the present by yet another series of knocks, these ones even louder than the first. Curious, but also a bit nervous, Gus finally opened the door.
“What the hell, Auggy?!” The young woman cried.
Gus rolled his eyes, but couldn’t hold back a smile at his foolishness. I should have known… “Hey, Em.”
Emma did not return his smile. “Don’t ‘Hey, Em’ me!”
Gus’ face fell. She’s pissed at me… And he knew exactly why. “Look, Em… I –”
“Would you care to explain to me why I had to find out from Noah that you dumped him? A week ago?! After he PROPOSED to you?!”
Gus was unfazed by his friend’s outburst. “Alright, first off, I didn’t ‘dump him’, okay? Things are just… complicated right now.” He sighed. “And secondly, I don’t need to tell you every detail of my life, Em.”
“Bullshit. We’ve told each other everything since we were eight years old.” Emma narrowed her eyes as she spoke. “So why didn’t you tell me?”
Gus almost smiled. “You know me too damn well… And I know you too well too.” He shook his head for a moment. “I wanted to tell you, okay? But I didn’t… Because I knew you’d do this.” He gestured in her general direction. “I don’t need one of your pep talks this time. I just need to figure this out on my own.”
Emma just stared at him as he crossed the room and sat back on the sofa. “Yeah, and clearly you’ve been doing an excellent job of that…” She paused for a moment, her face and voice finally softening as she sat down beside him. “Come on, Auggy. Talk to me. I’m here to help you… What happened?”
“Well, if you talked to Noah, I’m guessing you already know.”
“I know his side. I want yours.”
Gus hesitated for a moment, then finally took a slow, deep breath. “He proposed to me last week, on our anniversary. But I said no.” His shoulders shrugged slightly as he spoke. “Em, you know how much I want to marry Noah someday… But you also know how he feels about commitment.”
She nodded in understanding.
“This isn’t what he wants.” Gus continued. “He’s doing it because it’s what I want. He’s acting stupid and rash because he’s freaked out about what happened to Lucas. And it’s not right. His parents broke up when he was just a kid, and I know that was terrible for all of them. I never want us to end up like that. But if we do this thing for the wrong reason…” He paused, shaking his head. “I want him to want this too. And he doesn’t. I know he doesn’t.”
Emma did not immediately reply. She paused for a few long moments, thoughtful. “How do you know?” She asked at last. “How do you know he doesn’t want it?”
“What?” That was not the response Gus had been expecting. “Of course he doesn’t. He’s told me plenty of times how he feels about getting married. It’s not exactly a secret.”
“Well duh.” Emma rolled her eyes. “I knew that. But you haven’t talked about it in a couple years, right? Not seriously, at least.”
Gus shrugged uncomfortably. “Yeah, so what?”
“Well, maybe he changed his mind.” She suggested. “Maybe he really does want this. Or hell, maybe you’re right and this is the biggest mistake ever… Who knows? I’m gonna go out on a limb here and assume you never actually talked about it?”
Gus felt his face grow warm at her words. “Well… no. It kinda turned into a fight pretty quickly… I told him I thought we both needed a break to figure stuff out. So I went home, grabbed some clothes, and headed here.” He admitted. “Not a lot of time to talk.”
“That was over a week ago, right?” Emma asked. “And you still haven’t talked to him?”
He shook his head. “Not really.”
“And he hasn’t tried talking to you either?”
Gus shrugged. “Well… He’s really mad. What do you expect?”
To his surprise, Emma burst into laughter in reply. “God, if you two do end up married, he should really take your last name, Auggy. He’s a Rosebrook already.”
“What the hell is that supposed to mean?!”
She shrugged. “You all pout and hide from your problems.” She explained. “Oh, and you totally suck at communicating… Just like Noah. Wow, you two really are soulmates, huh?”
“Why are you being such a bitch about this, Em?”
Emma shook her head. “I’m just being honest, Auggy. I’ve been in his shoes before, remember? And I made the exact mistake you’re both making right now… Might as well have called me Emma Rosebrook.” For a moment she almost smiled, but her tone was serious as she continued.
“You broke my heart, and I tried to shut you out. I refused to listen. And I almost lost the best friend I’ve ever had because I was too damn stubborn to just talk to you and give you a chance.” She paused for a moment, sighing. “Don’t make the same mistake I did. I almost lost my best friend. You might be losing something even more important.”
Gus said nothing for a long time. He knew she was absolutely right. He had to talk to Noah eventually, didn’t he? If he didn’t… It would be over. And that wasn’t what he wanted. Gus knew it wasn’t.
Then why was it so damn hard to face him again?
“You’re right.” He said at last. “I can’t lose him. I need to talk to him.”
Emma nodded encouragingly. “You really do, Auggy.”
“I guess I just kinda don’t know what to say.” He admitted softly. “It’s so awkward now. And one way or another… This is gonna change everything.”
“Maybe for the better.” Emma smiled at him. “You’ll never know until you try. And no matter how things end up, I’ll be here for you, okay?” She assured him, rising to her feet. “Whether that means being ready with a gallon of ice cream and a box of tissues or a bottle of wine and a wedding planning guide… I’ve got your back.”
Gus lips curled into a smile. “I know you do.” He stood up from the couch and pulled his friend into a warm embrace. “I love you, Em. You’re the best.”
She laughed softly, giving him a tight squeeze. “I love you too.”
———————————————–
AdvertisementsCreating asynchronous functions that are recursive can be a bit of a challenge. This blog post takes a look at various different approaches, including callbacks and promises, and ultimately demonstrates how async functions result in a much simpler and cleaner solution.
A simple example
Recently I was writing some code, for a GitHub bot, which needed to obtain some data from a API endpoint that provided a paged output. My bot needed to obtain approximately 1000 records, which in this case required up to 10 asynchronous operations to obtain the full dataset. I explored various different approaches to this problem, which I’ll outline in this blog post.
Rather than use an external API, for the purposes of this blog post I’ll be using a contrived example that illustrates the same problem:
const getSentenceFragment = ( offset = 0 ) => { const pageSize = 3 ; const sentence = [... 'hello world' ]; return { data : sentence. slice ( offset, offset + pageSize ), nextPage : offset + pageSize < sentence. length? offset + pageSize : undefined } };
This function returns the sentence “hello world” as an array of characters, three at a time. Retrieving the entire sentence requires four invocations:
> getSentenceFragment() { data: ['h', 'e', 'l'], nextPage: 3 } > getSentenceFragment(3) { data: ['l', 'o',''], nextPage: 6 } > getSentenceFragment(6) { data: ['w', 'o', 'r'], nextPage: 9 } > getSentenceFragment(9) { data: ['l', 'd'], nextPage: undefined }
NOTE: The above code uses default parameters, arrow functions and the spread operator. I’ve been running these snippets within Chrome that has full support for these language features. For other execution environments, you might need to transpile.
All of the examples in this post look at the same simple problem; how to create a getSentence function that retrieves the entire sentence?
The next two sections cover a simple iterative and recursive approaches, without any asynchrony. If you’re comfortable with recursion, you might want to skip these!
An iterative approach
The following function uses an iterative approach to obtain the complete sentence.
const getSentence = () => { let offset = 0, aggregateData = []; while ( true ) { const fragment = getSentenceFragment ( offset ); aggregateData = aggregateData. concat ( fragment. data ); if ( fragment. nextPage ) { offset = fragment. nextPage ; } else { break ; } } return aggregateData ; }
Here is it in action:
> getSentence() ["h", "e", "l", "l", "o", " ", "w", "o", "r", "l", "d"]
There isn’t really much to say about this approach, it repeatedly invokes the getSentenceFragment function, accumulating the result into the aggregateData variable. It also keeps track of the current offset. When the fragment.nextPage property is undefined, the loop exits and the function returns. Simple.
So how would a recursive approach look?
Recursive approach
A recursive solution to this problem is much more concise:
const getSentence = ( offset = 0 ) => { const fragment = getSentenceFragment ( offset ); if ( fragment. nextPage ) { return fragment. data. concat ( getSentence ( fragment. nextPage )); } else { return fragment. data ; } }
> getSentence() ["h", "e", "l", "l", "o", " ", "w", "o", "r", "l", "d"]
This version of the code is structurally much simpler, without the need for any variables to maintain the current iteration state. With a recursive function, this same information is stored in the stack.
With the Chrome debugging tools, by breaking on the termination condition you can see four invocations of this function. You can also navigate up and down the stack to see the fragment and offset values that are within scope on each invocation:
When the termination condition is reached each function returns, unwinding the stack, to create the returned value at the original point of invocation.
Now let’s have a look at what happens when we introduce some asynchrony.
Asynchronous recursion with callbacks
The first approach we’ll look at is a little old-fashioned, using callback functions. The first step is to change the getSentenceFragment function so that it returns its result asynchronously.
Using a simple setTimeout, we can update the getSentenceFragment as follows:
const getSentenceFragment = ( offset, callback ) => { const pageSize = 3 ; const sentence = [... 'hello world' ]; setTimeout (() => callback ({ data : sentence. slice ( offset, offset + pageSize ), nextPage : offset + pageSize < sentence. length? offset + pageSize : undefined }), 500 ); };
This function is invoked to request a sentence fragment, and supply a callback function, which is invoked at some point in the future with the result:
> getSentenceFragment(0, (data) => console.log(data))) { data: ['h', 'e', 'l'], nextPage: 3 }
NOTE: One unfortunate side-effect of the callback-based approach is that we cannot usefully supply a default value for the offset parameter.
How do we adapt this to create a function that collects together all of the fragments and returns the complete sentence? Let’s assemble it piece-by-piece.
Firstly, the signature; rather than a synchronous return value, we need a callback:
const getSentence = ( offset, callback ) => {... }
Next, we obtain a fragment, which is now returned via a callback
const getSentence = ( offset, callback ) => { getSentenceFragment ( offset, ( fragment ) => {... }); }
Next up, is the conditional logic based on whether there are more pages. Let’s take the simpler path first, where recursion terminates.
The synchronous version of this code simply returns the fragment. The asynchronous version does the same via the callback
const getSentence = ( offset, callback ) => { getSentenceFragment ( offset, ( fragment ) => { if ( fragment. nextPage ) {... } else { callback ( fragment. data ) } }); }
And now for the other branch, where there is another page to fetch, which is where the function is invoked recursively. Here we invoke getSentence, however, it returns asynchronously, so we need another callback, where the concatenation takes place..
const getSentence = ( offset, callback ) => { getSentenceFragment ( offset, ( fragment ) => { if ( fragment. nextPage ) { // recursively call getSentence getSentence ( fragment. nextPage, ( nextFragment ) => { callback ( fragment. data. concat ( nextFragment )) }) } else { callback ( fragment. data ) } }); }
When invoked, it returns the expected output (after a few seconds):
> getSentence(0, (sentence) => console.log(sentence)); ["h", "e", "l", "l", "o", " ", "w", "o", "r", "l", "d"]
Now with the synchronous version of the recursive code, you could see the recursive invocations within the call stack (by placing a breakpoint at the termination condition). With the asynchronous version you can actually do the same:
Although you cannot view the scope of previous invocations (which would require a form of time-travel!).
The recursive version of the getSentence function that uses callbacks is not very easy to follow, with the nested callback introducing more functions and scopes.
Let’s see how a promise-based implementation compares …
Asynchronous recursion with promises
Once again, the first step is to update the getSentenceFragment function:
const getSentenceFragment = ( offset = 0 ) => new Promise (( resolve, reject ) => { const pageSize = 3 ; const sentence = [... 'hello world' ]; setTimeout (() => resolve ({ data : sentence. slice ( offset, offset + pageSize ), nextPage : offset + pageSize < sentence. length? offset + pageSize : undefined }), 500 ); });
The returned Promise object represents a task or operation that completes (or fails) asynchronously. You can see this object being returned when you invoke this function:
> getSentenceFragment().then((fragment) => console.log(fragment)); Promise {[[PromiseStatus]]: "pending", [[PromiseValue]]: undefined} { data: ['h', 'e', 'l'], nextPage: 3 }
NOTE: We now have our default parameter value again!
So let’s once again build-up the getSentence function step-by-step. The first step is to invoke the getSentenceFragment function and obtain a fragment:
const getSentence = ( offset = 0 ) => getSentenceFragment ( offset ). then ( fragment => {... });
Because we are using promises, the result of getSentenceFragment is available via the then fulfilment handler.
One interesting aspect of promises is that you can chain them. The result returned by a then handler is a new Promise. Here’s a quick example:
> getSentenceFragment().then((fragment) => fragment.data).then((letters) => console.log(letters)); Promise {[[PromiseStatus]]: "pending", [[PromiseValue]]: undefined} ['h', 'e', 'l']
If a non promise value is returned by a then handler, it is converted to a promise, as per Promise.resolve(value).
Getting back to our getSentence implementation, the getSentenceFragment invocation returns a value to its then handler. The value returned by this function is itself a promise that is the return value of getSentence. The value returned is denoted by..., so let’s fill them in.
Adding both the termination condition and the recursive step in one go …
const getSentence = ( offset = 0 ) => getSentenceFragment ( offset ). then ( fragment => { if ( fragment. nextPage ) { return getSentence ( fragment. nextPage ). then ( nextFragment => fragment. data. concat ( nextFragment )) } else { return fragment. data ; } });
And running the complete example:
> getSentence((sentence) => console.log(sentence)); ["h", "e", "l", "l", "o", " ", "w", "o", "r", "l", "d"]
Much the same as with the callback implementation, you can breakpoint the termination condition and see the async call stack.
Comparing the promise version of this function to the callback implementation, the code is a little cleaner and easier to follow. However, it is still a lot more complex than its synchronous counterpart.
Asynchronous recursion with async / await
The purpose of async functions is to simplify the use of promises. As you’ve seen in the previous example, moving a very simple function from synchronous to asynchronous has a significant effect on code complexity, and with our recursive example, both callbacks and promises are quite messy.
Before diving into the recursive function, let’s take a look at converting the getSentenceFragment into an async function …
Let’s return to the original synchronous version:
const getSentenceFragment = ( offset = 0 ) => { const pageSize = 3 ; const sentenceCharArray = [... 'hello world' ]; return { data : sentenceCharArray. slice ( offset, offset + pageSize ), nextPage : offset + pageSize < sentenceCharArray. length? offset + pageSize : undefined } };
With both the callback and promise versions of this function much more ‘structure’ was required, yet all we really want is tell our function to ‘wait a bit’ before it returns.
Let’s create a wait function … a promise that resolves after a number of milliseconds:
const wait = ms => new Promise (( resolve ) => setTimeout ( resolve, ms ));
Changing the signature of getSentenceFragment to becomes an async function allows us to do just that:
const getSentenceFragment = async function ( offset = 0 ) { const pageSize = 3 ; const sentence = [... 'hello world' ]; await wait ( 500 ); return { data : sentence. slice ( offset, offset + 3 ), nextPage : offset + 3 < sentence. length? offset + 3 : undefined }; };
The getSentenceFragment async function pauses execution when it meets an await, waiting for the resolution of the returned promise, then resumes execution. Simple and elegant. This function now looks almost exactly the same as its synchronous counterpart.
Because async function return promises, the above code can be used with the promise version of our getSentence function.
Let’s look at the async equivalent of getSentence. Once again, we’ll return to the original synchronous version:
const getSentence = ( offset = 0 ) => { const fragment = getSentenceFragment ( offset ); if ( fragment. nextPage ) { return fragment. data. concat ( getSentence ( fragment. nextPage )); } else { return fragment. data ; } }
The getSentenceFragment function and recursive call to getSentence are now asynchronous, so require the await keyword. And that’s it!
const getSentence = async function ( offset = 0 ) { const fragment = await getSentenceFragment ( offset ) if ( fragment. nextPage ) { return fragment. data. concat ( await getSentence ( fragment. nextPage )); } else { return fragment. data ; } }
Note, you may only use await within an async function, so in order to invoke this function, you still need to use promises:
getSentence (). then (( sentence ) => console. log ( sentence ));
That really was simple!
Conclusions
Let’s quickly review the four different implementations:
Synchronous …
const getSentence = ( offset = 0 ) => { const fragment = getSentenceFragment ( offset ); if ( fragment. nextPage ) { return fragment. data. concat ( getSentence ( fragment. nextPage )); } else { return fragment. data ; } }
Asynchronous with callbacks …
const getSentence = ( offset, callback ) => { getSentenceFragment ( offset, ( fragment ) => { if ( fragment. nextPage ) { getSentence ( fragment. nextPage, ( nextFragment ) => { callback ( fragment. data. concat ( nextFragment )) }) } else { callback ( fragment. data ) } }); }
Asynchronous with promises …
const getSentence = ( offset = 0 ) => getSentenceFragment ( offset ). then ( fragment => { if ( fragment. nextPage ) { return getSentence ( fragment. nextPage ). then ( nextFragment => fragment. data. concat ( nextFragment )) } else { return fragment. data ; } });
Asynchronous with async …
const getSentence = async function ( offset = 0 ) { const fragment = await getSentenceFragment ( offset ) if ( fragment. nextPage ) { return fragment. data. concat ( await getSentence ( fragment. nextPage )); } else { return fragment. data ; } }
I really like how this has come full-circle, with the async version looking almost exactly the same, and being just as understandable, as the original synchronous version.
I’ll definitely be making much more use of async functions. I am sure they will also help resolve a number of other common issues with promises that I have written about in the past, but that’s a topic for another day.
Regards, Colin E.Basic text analysis on unigram and bigram frequencies can be helpful when digging into datasets of unstructured text. The most frequent bigrams, or pairs of adjacent words, tell you which phrases are most common in your corpus.
We’ll use bigrams to find the most common phrases from users in our user_comments table.
Simple Lists of Words
The first step in making our bigrams is to convert our paragraphs of text into lists of words. We could use the handy regexp_split_to_table function like this:
select
regexp_split_to_table(
lower(comments),
E'[^a-z0-9_]+'
)
from user_comments
order by id
The E'[^a-z0-9_]+' regular expression parameter lets us split the comments on anything that isn’t a letter, number, or underscore. This takes care of punctuation and differences in spacing, helping to clean up the data.
Arrays of Words
Unfortunately, we cannot use regexp_split_to_table because it doesn’t give us a way to keep the words in order, which will be critical for constructing the bigrams later on. Instead we’ll convert the comments into arrays, and then work up to an ordered lists of words.
Making the comments into arrays or words is straightforward (we’ll be building on this CTE):
with word_list as (
select
id as comment_id,
string_to_array(
regexp_replace(
lower(comment),
E'[^a-z0-9_]+','', 'g'),
' ') as word_array
from user_comments
)
First we use regexp_replace to clean up the text, converting all the characters we don’t care about to spaces. The 'g' at the end tells Postgres to replace all the matches, not just the first.
Then we use string_to_array with a space as its split parameter to convert the cleaned comments into arrays. At the same time we’ll select the id of the original comment as that will be helpful later.
Ordered Lists of Words
Now that we have our comments as arrays, we can break them out into rows and keep the order:
word_indexes as (
select
comment_id,
word_array,
generate_subscripts(word_array, 1)
as word_id
from word_list
)
We’re using generate_subscripts to output one row for each word in the array containing the index of the word. It’s just a number, not the word itself, so we need to bring the word_array and comment_id values along for the ride.
Then we’ll use the array indexes outputted by generate_subscripts to pull out the word for each index:
numbered_words as (
select
comment_id,
word_array[word_id] word,
word_id
from word_indexes
)
Now we have one line for each word containing its original comment_id, the word itself, and word_id, the word’s position within the array (and also the original comment).
Making Bigrams
From here it’s easy to make bigrams: we only need to join numbered_words to itself for each comment!
select
nw1.word,
nw2.word
from numbered_words nw1
join numbered_words nw2 on
nw1.word_id = nw2.word_id - 1
and nw1.comment_id = nw2.comment_id
Notice how we joined each comment on itself (nw1.comment_id = nw2.comment_id) since bigrams cannot span comments. And joining adjacent words is simply making sure their positions within the array are off by one: nw1.word_id = nw2.word_id - 1.
And with this list of bigrams, adding in the count(1) and group by gives us our bigram frequencies:
select
nw1.word,
nw2.word,
count(1)
from numbered_words nw1
join numbered_words nw2 on
nw1.word_id = nw2.word_id - 1
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With these bigram frequencies you’ll be able to see which phrases are most frequent in your data!Republicans and Democrats actually are “fighting inside the 40-yard lines” on key issues, President Obama said Tuesday, and anyone who doubts that needs to visit other countries to get a look at real political and ideological divides.
American partisans often accuse the other party of being “socialists” (a Republican charge against Democrats) or “fascists” (the reverse), and Mr. Obama mocked the former at a meeting of top CEOs hosted by the Wall Street Journal in Washington.
“People call me a socialist sometimes. But, no, you’ve got to meet real socialists. You’ll have a sense of what a socialist is,” Mr. Obama said. “I’m talking about lowering the corporate tax rate. My health-care reform is based on the private marketplace. The stock market is looking pretty good last time I checked.”
Mr. Obama, pitching his White House as business-friendly and focused above all on creating jobs and increasing economic growth, responded to a question about immigration reform by saying that Republicans and Democrats actually are not that far apart. He then evaluated the overall political landscape and dismissed the seeming gulf between his administration and congressional Republicans as minor disagreements compared to what’s seen in other parts of the world.
“In my conversations with Republicans, I actually think the divide is not that wide. So what we just have to do is find a pathway where Republicans, in the House in particular, feel comfortable enough about process that they can go ahead and meet us,” he said of immigration reform, before broadening his point.
“This, by the way, is a good example of something that’s been striking me about our politics for a while. When you go to other countries, the political divisions are so much more stark and wider. Here in America, the difference between Democrats and Republicans — we’re fighting inside the 40-yard lines,” he said.
For example, every European country has a major party that calls itself some variant of “socialist” or “social democrat” and which advocates, to at least some degree, public ownership of the means of production. France’s Francois Hollande, Britain’s Tony |
solution to bitcoin as Adam back claims. Totally scam cypherblock [2:11 PM] but still the concept of proof of work, of something that is easy to verify and hard to create is important. Adam came up with good solution for that and saw its use but obviously nothing like bitcoin. vlad2vlad [2:11 PM] JVP?? Man, Dr. Wright brought in the big strangers. Welcome, @newliberty jp [2:11 PM] If the whitepaper citations were done properly, actually credit properly then we wouldn't have blockstream Adam Back of today [2:11] But as Dr. Wright said, he could not see the future [2:13] Hal Finney, Dave Kleiman. Wei Dai were the team. If anyone else claimed to be a part of It and asking for money, it is scammer vlad2vlad [2:15 PM] @jp What about bear? I'm pretty sure he helped out early on jp [2:16 PM] I won't comment on that. vlad2vlad [2:16 PM] The answer is yes. cypherblock [2:16 PM] yeah who is bear? Sorry I mean I’m not familiar with that moniker, is he referenced elsewhere? vlad2vlad [2:16 PM] I actually talked to him a couple weeks ago about another project [2:16] Ray Dillinger [2:17] Maybe we can get him in here too. Bring back the whole team. Minus Hal, of course. jp [2:17 PM] Minus Dave K vlad2vlad [2:17 PM] Oops. Him too. [2:18] I've got Gavin's email. Gonna try him jp [2:19 PM] Adam Back should stop riding the bitcoin whitepaper coattail vlad2vlad [2:20 PM] I sent bear and Gavin and invite. Maybe we'll get a super dev slack going here. awemany [2:25 PM] joined #general bitsko [2:27 PM] Was trying to get full text with slack signup as title for a pastebin. Looks like i didnt get it all, now on cell and must work. :fearful: travin [2:27 PM] joined #general cypherblock [2:29 PM] @jp were you involved with early bitcoin? You are not jvp right? Sorry so many monikers to track. jp [2:29 PM] As Dr. Wright said, he is tired of having people saying that they worked with him. tomothy [2:29 PM] Yeah also on mobile, Vlad maybe make a pastebin of today's excitement? 1 reply Today at 2:31 PM View thread jp [2:29 PM] I am John Paterson csw [2:30 PM] No, I posted a link to read Satre. Pinned by jp Today at 2:32 PM Pinned by jp [2:31] Please read the following (translated) page for this: http://www.nybooks.com/articles/1964/12/17/sartre-on-the-nobel-prize/ The New York Review of Books Sartre on the Nobel Prize Jean-Paul Sartre explained his refusal to accept the Nobel Prize for Literature in a statement made to the Swedish Press on October 22, which appeared in Le Monde in a French translation approved by Sartre. The following translation into English was made by Richard Howard. I deeply regret the fact that the incident has become … (13kB) vlad2vlad [2:32 PM] I'm also on mobile. 4 years strong xhiggy [2:33 PM] joined #general vlad2vlad [2:33 PM] Now I remember reading that awemany [2:34 PM] csw, so what I am wondering, given the general hands-off attitude you seem to possess: why do you want to get involved with Bitcoin development again through nchain? Do you distrust the market? Or do you think the market simply includes you as a market participant as well, and it therefore should reflect your actions? csw [2:34 PM] East vs West, this is a cultural comment. It does not relate to what people see, but to order and anarchy. Neither is the way. Being a Libertarian is a means to allow free trade and market solutions, but it requires institutions. [2:34] The market is all I trust! [2:35] Am I being a wet blanket here, or does anyone understand the point of the Satre rejection letter? [2:36] There exists nothing to relate a free market based global money to. It is as a consequence of never truly having been free. The "Gold standard" was in fact a Gold exchange standard and worse, it was a BiMetalist system (edited) newliberty [2:38 PM] There've been a number of different gold standards, so there's not really a standard gold standard. tomothy [2:39 PM] The point of the letter is apt and plainly similar. Thanks for sharing. csw [2:39 PM] Everyone seeks an authority. This is what BitCoin was created to bypass. We can all trade and we can do this as the market determines. Not as a consequence of a high priesthood, but through trial and error, failure and just sheer will to try and learn and fail again. [2:40] Satoshi has to be a myth. If you make me, or anyone a 'God', an infallible authority, then what is the point? cypherblock [2:40 PM] did you purposely want to undermine Gavin as a way to remove his authority as well? That seems a bit, well, rough. charlieshrem [2:41 PM] joined #general charlieshrem [2:42 PM] Hey 2 replies Last reply today at 2:42 PM View thread awemany [2:42 PM] csw: yes that authority part makes a lot of sense and also why the creator had to hide. this is why I am wondering about your personal involvement again. is nchain going to be funded by early coins? csw [2:42 PM] Core should not tell you what to do. They need to propose and allow the market to decide. Bitcoin solves the issue of sock puppets in a manner analogous to the gambler at the roulette table. This means we propose and allow it to compete and to see what we can have, not as a centralised system but through many groups. newliberty [2:42 PM] Recognizing "Satoshi" ought be more about gratitude than authority seeking. Authorities are to be questioned. csw [2:42 PM] nChain is funded, but I will not discuss that. There are people in the group who will. jp [2:42 PM] Someone pastebin this chat pls. I'm on mobile csw [2:43 PM] Authority NEEDS to be questioned. [2:43] I study and I write. More than that I do not ask. awemany [2:43 PM] csw: ok. Core supporters often bring forward the 'alternative implementations are menace to the network' part - what did you mean by that, in light of'many groups' above? (edited) tomothy [2:44 PM] Newliberty did. csw [2:44 PM] They are a menace only to those who freely decide. wellspenttime [2:44 PM] joined #general. Also, @joeldalais joined. csw [2:44 PM] If you consider the flaw in BU, it was a loss to the miner, not to the protocol charlieshrem [2:45 PM] BU has too many issues to safely be considered the reference client. csw [2:45 PM] That should be encouraged. No transaction was lost and the overall system did not suffer, so why is this a problem generally? [2:45] Charlie, I do agree. But the solution does not need to be so difficult charlieshrem [2:45 PM] Agreed. csw [2:46 PM] And we can scale on and off chain at the same time charlieshrem [2:46 PM] Agreed as well. [2:46] I feel like good solutions have come alight, but are blocked/put down based on who their authors are. csw [2:46 PM] In the 8 years, Moore's law has held and will continue. [2:49] Did any of you know that a 2nm transistor was created. This was something considered impossible. It is lower than the 7nm Quantum tunnelling effect. lunar [2:49 PM] @csw. Good afternoon. I'm just one small cog in the Bitcoin Unlimited team, but we've been trying to solve the blocksize issue for several years now. I was interested in what you thought about the emergent consensus solution? The idea BU implements, by giving miners the tools to signal between each other and come to a free market driven determination of the blocksize commodity, with an adjustable block cap. Thanks csw [2:49 PM] This occurred in 2012. [2:49] I think that miners need to decide. joeldalais [2:50 PM] can i ask - what is nChain bringing to the table? will it be a new client implementation? actual development (instead of this stalling we've had for years)? new teams of programmers (seems you have a very strong team)? business solutions? end user solutions? or - a mix of everything and more? or don't worry if its too early to ask (edited) csw [2:51 PM] In 2009/10, the value of Bitcoin was far too low for flood control to work based on fees without a cap. tomothy [2:51 PM] See above, not really discussing nchain joeldalais [2:51 PM] fair enough :slightly_smiling_face: Pinned by jp Today at 2:52 PM Pinned by jp csw [2:51 PM] I will not discuss the business side here sorry. There is a team who do that. I focus on code and maths [2:51] https://github.com/trottier/original-bitcoin/blob/92ee8d9a994391d148733da77e2bbc2f4acc43cd/src/main.cpp GitHub trottier/original-bitcoin original-bitcoin - This is a historical repository of Satoshi Nakamoto's original bitcoin sourcecode [2:51] Please have a quick look at the 0.1.3 and earlier code joeldalais [2:51 PM] ok, then i'll be quiet and soak up what knowledge i can :slightly_smiling_face: csw [2:52 PM] Lines 2249 as comments and on: // Transaction fee requirements, mainly only needed for flood control // Under 10K (about 80 inputs) is free for first 100 transactions // Base rate is 0.01 per KB [2:53] It is simple to create a flood based fee system newliberty [2:53 PM] For QC threats over the coming years, Shor's algo for keys and Grover's for hashing are concerns, but they will hit most every other security protocol before they are problems for Bitcoin, so should ample be time to resolve, and the failures of others to learn from. I imagine these were design considerations? Care to comment on this? csw [2:53 PM] Offer a set amount for free and then have a capped value - not a limit, let TXs pay to be in if there are too many (as decided by the market and not a committee) [2:54] QC is bunk [2:54] Grover's algo means a large QC could solve a hash in a billion years or so... classical growth will solve this faster [2:55] As for Shor's, the rate of calculation would lead to a 110 or longer solution time when a private key has been exposed. [2:55] This means that a 20 billion USD system could solve for 3 keys a year. [2:56] As a consequence, large values could be moved to multiple keys or even to multi sig systems. [2:56] I have a paper being published in this area. It took time. I needed to study some more physics first. satoshi [2:57 PM] joined #general awemany [2:57 PM] what is "110 or longer"? vlad2vlad [2:57 PM] Oh look, Satoshi is here. Lol [2:57] This is getting good newliberty [2:58 PM] The double hashing resolves most the preimage issues, and one-time use of coins means there is only the window of time from transmission to mining to crack, so had guessed that these were considered from the beginning. csw [2:58 PM] At a discounted rate of 1 Billion USD a key per annum, the requirement would be that a key would need to have 100 BIT stored and to have a based value of 100 million USD per BTC to make attacking Bitcoin ECDSA keys valid. [2:59] More, the double hash means that the input to the hash needs to be of a set size. The collision problem allows for scaled solutions. satoshi [2:59 PM] I am not Satoshi. csw [2:59 PM] So, if you have a set number of collisions, you find that the possibility of a valid collision diminishes vlad2vlad [3:00 PM] For crying outloud @satoshi I thought you were. Lol jp [3:01 PM] Can we focus on the technical discussion here? satoshi [3:01 PM] What is the most productive thing the average user can do to support on-chain scaling? csw [3:01 PM] There are an estimated infinite number of collisions for any hash, but the size is indeterminate. [3:02] Satoshi, use bitcoin and call for real solutions. This is not 2 Mb. From 09 to now, systems have increased about 100x [3:02] In this time, we have not moved from a cap that was set for flood control at all. freetrader [3:03 PM] joined #general csw [3:03 PM] Can I ask people to look at the code comments in the 0.1.0 to 0.1.3 release. joeldalais [3:03 PM] its where its noted as 'flood control'? csw [3:03 PM] I think that it was rather clear, but then I have a habbit of losing people [3:04] Yes. [3:04] There should always be free TXs joeldalais [3:04 PM] people seem to gaze over that part and ignore it :disappointed: csw [3:04 PM] Where the idea of a cap should be is a market decided limit that is not stopped, but sold at value [3:04] Nobody reads the code comments :disappointed: [3:05] There was a 100 TB drive released in the last 6 months. [3:06] This i not a standard laptop addition, but the truth is that we are in a world were exponential scaling is occuring and against that we have a logistic one. awemany [3:06 PM] csw, tbh, you lost me with the above calculations. why is it '1 billion USD a key *per annum*?". Ialso do not understand " The collision problem allows for scaled solutions.". I assume that "More, the double hash means that the input to the hash needs to be of a set size." means that the input width is fixed for the 2nd SHA256? Why is that relevant and important? newliberty [3:06 PM] Storing the full chain costs about 0.001BTC worth of drive today csw [3:07 PM] Can I assume that people understand the distinction between a logistic and exponential growth system? ajd [3:07 PM] csw were you on IRC while you were developing Bitcoin? joeldalais [3:07 PM] i was looking at bandwidth+drive space (costs) some while back, the growth/cost over the last 15 years. It boggles my mind why people think this growth will suddenly stop, there is certainly room now and in the future. csw [3:07 PM] Shor is not the same as linear classical systems. [3:08] If you have a 20 Billion USD system, and you can factor 3 keys a year, a basic IRR means you come to a value a little over 1 billion USD for each key. [3:09] joeldalais, the Intel roadmap is strong for the next 2 decades. tomtomtom7 [3:09 PM] csw: Sorry if blunt, but could you comment on why you let Gavin vouch for you without going public with proof yourself? csw [3:09 PM] http://gizmodo.com/5807151/2-nanometer-quantum-transistors-are-the-worlds-smallest Gizmodo 2-Nanometer Quantum Transistors Are the World's Smallest A team of scientists at Chungbuk National University in South Korea have created a transistor that's only 2nm in size, which happens to be the smallest in the world. By comparison, the current generation of Intel processors use 32nm transistors. (35kB) [3:10] Moving goal posts. [3:10] Tomx3+7, I had never wanted what occured and I had no plans to be an authority. I will not [3:11] I will be a scammer with ideas that go to market before I become something I detest and people wanted that. They dressed me in a bloody turtle neck! [3:12] I have NEVER worn a frikin turtle neck in my life. Like I was bloody jobs or something. [3:12] I made stupid decisions and I, as all do, have regrets. joeldalais [3:13 PM] its not that bad decisions are done, but how we act after that matters csw [3:13 PM] I am not good with people. This is difficult for me now. Vlad and others have pushed me to be here and to be frank it scares the shit out of me tomtomtom7 [3:14 PM] thank you csw joeldalais [3:14 PM] great respect for being here at all :slightly_smiling_face: jp [3:14 PM] Incompleteness. travin [3:14 PM] Thanks for that, Craig. It's well-appreciated. joeldalais [3:15 PM] and for what its worth, i think you're doing fine here csw [3:15 PM] Ta jp [3:17 PM] csw: you are better with code and math. csw [3:17 PM] LOL new messages jp [3:18 PM] Worked with you for 7 years so I know ;) newliberty [3:23 PM] Maybe we work up with some worthy competition in the next 7. ajd [3:26 PM] Have you changed your opinion on multiple implementations and if so why? cypherblock [3:26 PM] @csw how long did it take the write the original bitcoin source code? csw [3:27 PM] I am not going to play Satoshi. I am not wanting to have people think I am and I am going to imagine that nobody ever doxx'd me and that I am just some overqualified academic for the moment... ok? tomothy [3:28 PM] Oh, what's the new masters you are getting? ajd [3:28 PM] OK. I'm asking csw that question. jp [3:28 PM] Csw is just a con artist and an asshole. Move along, nothing to see. csw [3:28 PM] The code should compete, but what matters is that there is a reference protocol [3:29] I am completing a MSc right now. It is in financial econometrics [3:29] Uni of London joeldalais [3:29 PM] hypothetical question.. do you think it would be possible to link 2 blockchains together via a 2nd layer (that ran the same algo). A 2nd layer that basically just read and fed back data from both chains? csw [3:30 PM] I have put in a proposal into Cambridge for another PhD in Pure Mathematics this time. I hope to start that in Oct 1 reply Today at 3:31 PM View thread libitx [3:30 PM] joined #general joeldalais [3:30 PM] its a good uni, think one of my sisters went there cypherblock [3:30 PM] any thoughts on recent ext block proposals (or ext blocks in general with ability to move coins back and forth between main and ext)? csw [3:30 PM] I see issues, but this is not a place to discuss that. [3:31] There are too many problems with the discussion of complex issues in a few words. I have a few papers and I will be publishing again soon. joeldalais [3:31 PM] sounds good :slightly_smiling_face: csw [3:31 PM] People can read and accept or dismiss the arguments that I pose in those papers. cypherblock [3:32 PM] expected pub date? or too soon to say? prometheus [3:33 PM] joined #general csw [3:33 PM] Peer review... Pinned by jp Today at 3:34 PM Pinned by jp [3:34] Some have been completed... peer review is a difficult mistress. Worse than my wife :slightly_smiling_face: newliberty [3:34 PM] Peers can be difficult to come by awemany [3:37 PM] csw, so I am still trying to parse your above comments on using shor to crack a priv key. what I do not understand where the double hash comes in? I only see the single rpemd160 one. csw [3:38 PM] Sha256 tomothy [3:38 PM] CSW, which alt should I buy tomorrow? (don't hurt me) csw [3:39 PM] :stuck_out_tongue: jp [3:39 PM] I guess it is Diem awemany [3:39 PM] ok, sure, SHA256. but where does that come into play in cracking priv/pub pairs? newliberty [3:39 PM] Guaranteed it will hurt if you do. Rumor is we are running out of bitcoins to buy. csw [3:39 PM] 2 sec tomothy [3:41 PM] On a serious note, thoughts on Monero, or ZEC, similar coins & code (confidential transactions) with regards to anonymity? Is anonymity something you see being brought to bitcoin in the near/far future? I know blockchain analytics have significantly improved and coin taint can be a concern for some. I.e., BTC tumblers essentially no longer working. vlad2vlad [3:41 PM] @tomothy Nuggets!! Buy NUGS if you wanna be rich. awemany [3:42 PM] @tomothy : tumblers don't work, why is that? 9 replies Last reply today at 3:48 PM View thread klee [3:42 PM] joined #general awemany [3:43 PM] @tomothy : monero is mostly BTC in constant tumbler mode and seems to be working fine, privacy wise. so I don't see how bitcoin is fundamentally lacking. Now, sure, most people do NOT anonymize their TXN because it is a PITA with the current tools, but I see no reason how BTC is lacking there in principle Pinned by jp Today at 3:44 PM Pinned by jp csw [3:43 PM] The reality is there is nothing to fear Most importantly, bitcoin uses a double hashing algorithm. The results of this scenario is that any unused bitcoin address will not be reversible to the public key, let alone able to be attacked through a reversal of the ECDSA key pair. Algorithm such as Grover's algorithm (Grover, 1996) are touted as being able to speed up the searching through possible collisions in the reversing of hashing algorithms including SHA-256. This algorithm is known to be at best a solution in BPP ( ), a class of decision problem that is decidable in polynomial time with an error probability bounded by 1/3 (for all inputs). The idea is that this error rate can be minimised or made to be exponentially small in 'k" using a process of iterating the algorithm 'k' times with the most frequent value returned as the result. This process ignores the noise of the quantum computer and reports an error rate based on the ideal system alone. Bennet et al. (1997) demonstrate how an ideal quantum Turning machine cannot find a solution to an NP problem in less than time. For SHA-256, this is time and is a far more difficult problem when the true problem, the solution of a bounded size hash to a hash puzzle is introduced. His conclusion was that “Anyone afraid of quantum hash-collision algorithms already has much more to fear from non-quantum hash-collision algorithms”. More importantly, when Bernstein (2009, ) analysed the known quantum algorithms he demonstrated conclusively that “all the quantum-collision algorithms in the literature are steps backwards from the non-quantum algorithm of (Oorschot, et al. ). In other words, any attack on the hash functions of Bitcoin would be more effective using a classical computer. Bitcoin is thus secure against (theoretical) quantum computer attacks against a key that has not been used. Once a transaction is signed and sent to the blockchain, an attacker can extract the public key. This is not a flaw in the algorithm but a standard part of the functioning of ECC and ECDSA based systems. The question is then, what is the cost to an attacker to break the ECDSA key itself? Grover’s algorithm could be said to reduce the bit-security of such primitives by half; one might say that a 256-bit pre-quantum primitive offers only 128-bit security in a post-quantum setting. This is far too large to be broken on any QC any time in the foreseeable future. However, Bitcoin uses the Hash of a Hash. The combination of both SHA256 bit hashes of SHA256 values and the use of a 160Bit RipeMD hash of a SHA256 value for an address makes the analysis of bitcoin addresses to uncover the private key infeasible. Attacking ECDSA with Shor Let us for a moment assume that a working solution to the problem of creating logical qubits on a FTQC that can maintain coherence for long time periods can be achieved. We next need to note that Shor's algorithm is not simple and a Universal QC would need specialised breaks - you cannot just solve ECC in one hit as is suggested by many pundits. The other common fallacy and assumption is that a FTQC will just factor the private key before you can spend. It is more probable that even a 1 million logical qubit FTQC system would likely take weeks or months to break 256 bit ECDSA keys. [3:44] On the basis of these numbers, performing a 2048-bit number Shor factorization will take on the order of 110 days and require a system size of 2 × 109 trapped ions. Trapping 2 × 109 ions will require 23 × 23 vacuum chambers occupying an area of ca. 103.5 × 103.5 m2. Pinned by jp Today at 3:46 PM Pinned by jp [3:44] Bitcoin Mining. As we noted from Bernstein’s (2009) results, quantum computers are slower at solving hash collision than are algorithms for the deployment on classical systems. Hence, there is no economic benefit for a miner to use Quantum Computers for the solution of hash puzzles as they would solve fewer hashes than a miner on a more traditional ASIC. This excludes the costs of the Quantum computer as well (which is significant) and does not consider the fact that qubits are slower to process than bits (Bernstein, 2009). The result is that a miner who was to deploy a Quantum computer for the mining of Bitcoin (if one was to ever exist in the first place) would be at an economic disadvantage to a miner using more traditional ASIC based systems. Post-quantum cryptography ( ), a purported non-partisan site for the scientific dissemination of information concerning the effects of quantum computing on cryptography that is heavily used by partisan personalities including Vitalik Buterin, (co-founder of Ethereum) starts with the doom saying prophecy: “"Imagine that it's fifteen years from now. Somebody announces that he's built a large quantum computer. RSA is dead. DSA is dead. Elliptic curves, hyperelliptic curves, class groups, whatever, dead, dead, dead. So users are going to run around screaming and say 'Oh my God, what do we do?'” This false prophecy is clearly misleadingly designed to read as if it was a quote from Daniel Bernstein’s ( ) analysis. The removal of the line “The New York Times runs a frontpage article reporting that all of the public-key algorithms used to protect the Internet have been broken” changes the context where the author starts by stating, “A closer look reveals, however, that there is no justification for the leap from “quantum computers destroy RSA and DSA and ECDSA” to “quantum computers destroy cryptography.”” More importantly, no consideration of the costs and time in uncovering a private key has been announced. As Bernstein (2009 ) also demonstrated, the move to alternate hashing algorithms is unwarranted due to theoretical quantum computers even were they to become a reality. So, please never listen to the FUD. Forget ideas such as Lamport Signatures. Bitcoin is as it is for a reason and the reason that these others who worry about science fiction did not create it is the reason we need to maintain it as the protocol was created. [3:44] Sorry... parts of a paper I am writing. new messages awemany [3:46 PM] ok, thanks, let me digest that tomothy [3:50 PM] CSW can you address thoughts regarding privacy concerns on the blockchain and comment on coins that attempt to address some of those issues? I mean, it's recognized that it's a "PUBLIC LEDGER" with "PUBLIC WALLETS" so... but still it's an interesting topic and I just wanted to see your thoughts. [3:51] Also, someone was wondering what your thoughts were about "vaults". Not sure if you've seen the article. http://hackingdistributed.com/2016/02/26/how-to-implement-secure-bitcoin-vaults/ Hacking Distributed How to Implement Secure Bitcoin Vaults We have come up with a simple and elegant technique for implementing hack-proof Bitcoin vaults, to deter Bitcoin thefts. (176kB) csw [3:51 PM] Threshold signatures. csw [3:52 PM] The problem with signatures is solvable using set theory. Anyone know about Cantor's use of diagonalism? 5 replies Last reply today at 3:57 PM View thread hankdasilva [3:54 PM] joined #general klee [3:54 PM] I am the guy interested for the Vault thing newliberty [3:54 PM] Infinite sets comparisons klee [3:55 PM] and also if BitCoin blockchain was made transparent (regarding anonymity, privacy) by design [3:55] or was the best thought back in the day awemany [3:56 PM] csw, so I read the above, I see most parts of where you are coming from now and it makes sense. however, the only thing remaining is the double-hashing, which is unclear to me. what does it add in terms of security in terms of QC considerations? Grover's algo will work in sqrt(n) both for a single and a double hash and the double hashing is just a constant factor in time - no? tomothy [3:56 PM] "jp [3 minutes ago] csw: had a conversation with Dr. Conway about Cantor tomothy [2 minutes ago] JP does that have to do with anonymity or storing of txs csw [1 minute ago] Keys. And there are ways that you can make keys more private as well... but again, too much for slack tomothy [< 1 minute ago] Thanks, will repost into slack as threads aren't stored easy." newliberty [3:57 PM] Surreal numbers, Conway worked on something related. JP met with him a while back [3:57] Not sure how it applies though iang [3:58 PM] joined #general jp [3:58 PM] Welcome Ian grigg newliberty [3:59 PM] This is a rich meal of food for thought csw [3:59 PM] Hello Ian. iang [3:59 PM] good morning all jp [4:00 PM] Our bloody buddy is here Ian. csw [4:00 PM] In distributed thresholds you have the (n+1) vs (2n+1) issue [4:00] Sorry, there is not a lot that can be explained in this without maths. newliberty [4:02 PM] Yes, it gives diagonalism, infinite sets which are not equal vlad2vlad [4:03 PM] Man, this channel is full of world class talent. tomothy [4:04 PM] Do you think Grigg has been credited properly? [4:04] With regards to triple entry? iang [4:05 PM] lol. triple entry is a concept, it’s a bit difficult to just turn around and implement. A bit like smart contracts. klee [4:05 PM] https://youtu.be/4GuqlQvFYJo YouTube Bitcoin News TV Craig Wright Interview - Part 1 - 2014 - Satoshi? luke-jr [4:07 PM] joined #general vlad2vlad [4:07 PM] That video was GREAT!!! [4:07] Hey Luke!! [4:07] Glad you accepted my invite. :) Pinned by jp Today at 4:08 PM Pinned by jp iang [4:07 PM] if you look at the list of credits in the bitcoin paper, it’s very light - only 8. Misses out on the entire digital cash tradition which was a squillion references. Also, the paper wasn’t written for a conference - a thing that is a thing. There are these days a lot of papers that just don’t do the academic track. vlad2vlad [4:08 PM] Is it too late to get my name in the whitepaper? Just asking? new messages klee [4:08 PM] $1570 at stamp 1 reply Today at 4:09 PM View thread luke-jr [4:08 PM] "IRC is disabled for your team. Ask your Team Owner to enable it." klee [4:08 PM] off topic? awemany [4:09 PM] @bitsko, was it you who set this up? maybe you can help @luke-jr? iang [4:10 PM] What are the rules of engagement? luke-jr [4:11 PM] @iang Get married within months? [4:11] :stuck_out_tongue: (edited) iang [4:11 PM] @luke-jr … months? You want me in pain and trauma for months? can’t we make it days? [4:12] question I’ve never understood - what is the purpose of the double hash? luke-jr [4:12 PM] within!= at [4:12] what double hash? tomothy [4:12 PM] It's bitsko's slack. I'm pretty sure he's AFK. I don't know about the IRC stuff, never needed it in here... awemany [4:12 PM] @iang, agree on the double hash. there was some exchange with csw above on it regarding QC. I am really curious as well iang [4:13 PM] oh wait - scratch that I see there is something written above. awemany [4:13 PM] there is - but can you explain it to me? I am kind of lost. I don't see how it makes Grover's algo better in regards to QC, except for a constant factor csw [4:14 PM] Double hashing means that the input to one hash is limited to a set size. It means that the number of collisions is reduced to neatly zero from infinite, luke-jr [4:15 PM] oh, that. somehow I thought you meant twitter # hash :stuck_out_tongue: iang [4:15 PM] there’s a lot of twitter redundancy :wink: jp [4:16 PM] Luke-jr vs CSW scale debate ding ding ding. Everyone sit back. Speak only if you are devs or important figures ( if u think u're lol) (edited) toodarkmark [4:16 PM] joined #general luke-jr [4:16 PM] semi-AFK until IRC gets turned on csw [4:16 PM] OK. I am going to cut and paste. Email was easier on lists this thing open stuff all over iang [4:17 PM] (I am reading it) csw [4:17 PM] I want to see Bitcoin scale significantly and this means opening it up to merchants who will run a node in a back office. To grow to be able to avoid government taking it over, we have to have 100s of thousands of globally dispersed systems. This is possible. If you think of a Coffee shop, they have public keys on the PoS and a system in the Back office. Each merchant will want to ensure that they have a TX propagated as fast as possible, in seconds really. Bitcoin is not really a Gossip model, but it is the simplest way to explain this to CompSci people It is an SEIR-C This: http://people.cs.vt.edu/naren/papers/wsdm2014-difnet-competing-cascades-agenda-setting-camera-ready.pdf or https://bmcmedicine.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/1741-7015-9-87 That is the easiest way I |
running Windows Phone 8.1
You can hear and see it on video at around 14 minutes mark.
Over time there were murmurs here and there that maybe only Lumias will get the update, or maybe only the phones with 1GB+ of RAM, or it will be up to mobile operators to allow or disallow the update and so on. But it took Microsoft until the final announcement of the release itself (in March 2016!) to unveil the list of the phones getting it.
Not only the most popular Windows Phone at the time (Lumia 520) wasn’t getting it, neither were the flagships of the Windows Phone 8.0 era (with one exception of Lumia 1520). On the surface it meant this:
Half of the Windows Phone in use are not upgradable to Windows 10 Mobile
Half of the Windows Phones in use can’t get Windows 10! Which looks bad, but not as bad as another important caveat…
As of today the upgrade was never released through a standard upgrade mechanism — users have to proactively download a special app to trigger the upgrade. Obviously none of the regular smartphone users have ever heard about it. As a result this is what we have today:
Windows 10 Mobile is at ~15% of its initially promised install base
As you can see, Windows 10 Mobile could’ve been on almost 7x more (!) devices than it is today (even if we don’t count 8.0 phones that technically can go to 8.1 and then 10). And that without even accounting for pretty much shut down and abandoned Lumia line. Which is another angle of this same story…
But why am I focusing on mobile so much? After all AppRaisin is a universal app available on both desktop and mobile. And Windows 10 is doing pretty well on the desktop with ~350 million install base.
The thing is that despite UWP being a big improvement to a modern app platform the Windows Store desktop app usage doesn’t look to be there. Not yet at least.
80% of AppRaisin usage is happening on mobile
Despite being a totally universal app and while not marketed specifically to mobile users, 4 out of 5 AppRaisin’s daily active users are on mobile. And that number is only increasing towards mobile domination.
Looking at our numbers from this perspective we have around 20,000 monthly active users on a platform that was underdelivered to its modest potential to the tune of 7:1. Meaning that in the alternative universe where Microsoft kept its promise to upgrade all Windows Phone 8.1 devices to Windows 10, we could have had close to 150,000 MAU with the same effort.
Obviously, this is all fantasies and wishful thinking, but there’s no doubt that even in moderate estimations all of this cost us multiples of our current user base.
You don’t have to go far from Microsoft itself to see a similar failure of overpromising and underdelivering in terms of Windows 10 penetration. The failure and shutdown of Microsoft’s own Lionhead Studios and its ill-fated Fable Legends game is in part attributed to the same issues:
“Let’s be honest — we make our projections based on a series of assumptions,” reflects a former employee who worked closely with Microsoft. “There are supposed to be 2x as many Xboxes out there as there are right now. There are supposed to be 2x as many Windows 10 installs as there currently are. So now, when we look at how much money Legends could make in the free-to-play universe, you have to halve it. Because we can only reach half the audience that was projected.”
I could go on and on about this. But after all it affected everyone who decided to bet on UWP for a greenfield project in 2015 equally. There isn’t much specific to our case in this whole Windows 10 Mobile debacle. So, let’s move on to more specific subjects.
Unwanted on the platform
A part of our go-to-market plan was getting featured by the Windows Store. You can never be sure about things like that, but in 2015 it felt like we had a very good chance of being there. Especially if we release in time for Windows 10 Mobile launch. And that was probably my biggest personal mistake.
My thinking was:
We’ve built a high quality UWP app (and Windows team was all about UWP apps at the time); The app encourages people to download more apps — good for the platform; And we have an unfair advantage of having good relationships with multiple teams and people inside Microsoft.
Still seems reasonable to me. But I didn’t account for one important caveat.
I was in Redmond in early November (few weeks before our launch) and demoed AppRaisin to a bunch of Microsoft employees among others. Everyone seemed to like it, but when I tried to discuss possibilities of being featured, their facial expressions changed. The responses ranged from “Hmm. I’m not sure they would want to feature you” to “No chance in hell they would ever feature you”. The reason? As far as I understand, and as insane as it may sound the first time you hear it:
Microsoft wants to control Windows Store app merchandising.
Once you think about it for a bit, it makes a little more sense. But still, I don’t think at this point in time Windows Store is in a state when worrying about partially losing control of app merchandising should be on anyone’s agenda. But apparently it is.
So over the 9 months in the Store AppRaisin wasn’t featured a single time. Not even in some obscure region or deep in a category tree.
But that’s not the end of our “problems” with the Store. After the release we started paying attention to the “New and rising” list in the store, hoping to see AppRaisin there any day now. But days, weeks and months went by and it didn’t appear on the list. Neither in the global list nor in the category list. Nor did it appear in “Top free” and “Top rated” list in the category.
At first we tried to be humble and explain this naturally — it’s possible that we have fewer downloads than all the other apps on the “top” list (even though it became harder and harder to believe as time went by) and maybe there was a total number of ratings cut-off for the “top rated” list. That last uncertainty prompted me to contact Microsoft about this. After all we clearly had better ratings than most apps on the “Top rated” list and we weren’t there.
Side note: “New and rising” list is a subject for a separate conversation which was already covered with some worrying details by Matt Lacey.
The first response from Microsoft was just that — your numbers are just not there yet, to be on any of the top lists. However, when I pointed out that AppRaisin, at the very least, should clearly be on the “Top rated” list in the category, I guess, it prompted further investigation, which didn’t produce any feedback to us until few months later.
But, after all, being on the “top” list in the category is a pretty meaningless achievement since, most likely, nobody is looking there. So, we decided to let it go for now and focus on more pressing issues.
Months later (at BUILD) I was told that there’s a real explanation for the phenomenon: Microsoft has “stop lists” for apps that are OK to be in the store, but not OK to be on any of the top lists. This list includes, as far as I remember, apps with questionable “legality”, apps that are primarily used to violate copyright (eg. Torrent clients), apps with “sexier” than some vague norm content, and… wait for it… apps that promote other apps as a primary feature.
So, we were on that “no fly” list. I’ve met developers of Torrex — a very popular torrent client — who had the same problem. And, bizarrely, developers of a perfectly innocent game who had a warrior(!) lady with larger than average [covered] breasts on one of the screenshots. While developers of a Torrent client could suspect that they are penalized in some way, and, even we, knowing that Microsoft won’t feature us, could expect other repercussions, but how is a developer of a perfectly normal game supposed to know that one of their screenshots has been internally tagged as “too spicy”, is beyond me.
Luckily the three of us have raised the issue at Build at a relatively high level and, at the very least, some internal conversations about changing this practice happened. AppRaisin appeared very deep on the “Top free” list in the category. I have a suspicion that it still should be higher, but the algorithm is not public, so who knows. It still isn’t on the “Top rated” list even though it is rated higher than #1 and most other apps on that list. Since apps clearly aren’t linearly sorted by rating on that list, it’s hard to say if there are objective factors resulting in AppRaisin not being there or if we are still filtered out.
But after all, who cares about those lists? While we hoped to get some minor boost from the global “New and rising” list in early days, we definitely never considered that we can beat Facebooks and Netflixs of the world to be on the global top lists. So it wasn’t a big part of our user acquisition strategy…
Paid user acquisition woes
We haven’t planned to constantly “buy” users as free-to-play giants do, but I set aside $5,000 to jumpstart the app at launch.
Disclaimer: while I’m trying to be as objective as possible in this section, it is important to note that I’m a CEO of AdDuplex which is mentioned a number of times here.
Paid user acquisition experiments
While we’ve wasted a few hundred dollars trying to advertise on “generic” platforms such as AdWords and Facebook’s “regular” ads, we have managed to spend less than $100 on meaningful paid UA. Obviously this comes with a caveat that we didn’t have to pay for advertising on our own network, but we had to underbid actual customers, so our ads don’t interfere with their campaigns, which affected the number of potential users we could reach.
The reality is this: to get Windows 10 users via in-app advertising you pretty much have only 2 options — Microsoft’s own Dev Center aka “Promote your app”, and AdDuplex. While both can do quite well on relatively limited budgets, neither can produce the scale if you want to get thousands or tens of thousands of downloads a day.
That’s why you can often hear that lifetime value of a Windows customer is better than Android, but you don’t see big F2P names actively pursuing those customers. There’s just no place for them to work within their business model scheme at scale: put $1 in user acquisition, get $2 back, repeat.
This creates a chicken-and-egg like problem in the Windows ecosystem — on one hand you have advertisers with no place to spend their budgets, on the other you have app developers struggling to monetize with ads. But that’s another story.
A couple of tips
500 is not a hard limit
Ever since “Promote your app” feature was launched on Dev Center there was a limit of $500 (now the currency is localized) per month(!). This is an insanely small number for anyone who wants to do actual paid user acquisition. You can easily work around it by creating multiple campaigns with the same budget, but the whole look of it gives you an impression that this is all that they can deliver. And in our launch experiment we weren’t even able to get that.
Few months later, though, it came up in a conversation at Build and I was assured that this limit was imposed by someone managing risk and can be easily lifted by contacting support. So keep that in mind.
Facebook Audience Network is supposedly coming to Windows at some point. At least it was announced at Build. But if you’ve read to this point you, probably, realize that I take these promises with more and more salt. But keep an eye on it in any case.
And, obviously, if you want to promote your apps and games on Windows, contact us at sales@adduplex.com to discuss the opportunities.
Non-scalable unit economics
After the situation with Windows 10 Mobile upgrade materialized into what it is today (in March) it became clear that we are unlikely to “explode” organically. So we started evaluating other growth options and opportunities in porting AppRaisin to other platforms.
At this point it would probably make sense to explain what the business model behind AppRaisin is. We have 2 organic lists of app news: Rising (top upvoted news with “gravity”) and Latest (well, latest news in reverse chronological order). And then there’s a third list called Spotlight. Spotlight includes around 10 featured or sponsored news. News from Spotlight are also rotated in the second spot of the organic lists (clearly marked as such).
Looking from the pure free-to-play type economy our model is the most straight-forward of them all in terms of scaling — we sell downloads of other apps by the users who downloaded our app. So what we need to achieve is generate more “outgoing” downloads than we get “incoming” ones. Since we are selling and buying the same thing we can assume that a unit price is pretty much the same on both ends. If we manage to do that on a current scale then it becomes a pure problem of figuring where to “buy” more users.
I’d be lying if I said that we have ever thought about AppRaisin in these terms. Our goal was to grow it organically and through earned media and word-of-mouth. It took a couple of conversations with F2P gurus a few months ago to make me look at it in these terms.
Unfortunately, in our current setup the math doesn’t work out. We have tried to move a couple of variables around, like showing more of the Spotlight items lower on the organic lists, etc., but we couldn’t make it work as it is. So, it became clear that without major changes we won’t be able to scale AppRaisin through brute force, aka money.
We could initiate major changes and try to work our way into positive unit economics, but there’s no telling of whether we would eventually get there and how long it would take. We decided against pursuing this route. At least for the foreseeable future.
Key takeaways
These are the main reasons that led us to the decision of halting active development on AppRaisin. Below are a few major takeaways.
Understand platform owner and their motivation
Understanding a huge corporation like Microsoft is not an easy task. To be precise, there’s no such single thing as Microsoft. Every division, sub-division, group, team and even person has their own goals, metrics and interests. You can never expect to account for all of them, but you can try to cover at least the obvious ones.
Was our decision to build AppRaisin for Windows 10 rather than Windows Phone 8.x a mistake? In hindsight the answer is most like yes. However, if it wasn’t for “unmerchantability” of the concept (my failure to understand interests of the Windows Store merchandising team), the opposite would’ve been true. In previous fiscal year (Microsoft’s year starts in July) the core target for most developer/publisher oriented teams was getting as many UWP apps as possible. Non-UWP apps had likely as many chances of getting marketing help from Microsoft as we had with our “unwanted” app.
In other words, it is hard to understand them, but one has to try anyway.
Scaling free software is about unit economics
When starting a new project much of your plans are nothing more than guesswork. Your experience makes your guesswork better, but it doesn’t change it being just a better guesswork anyway. Even if your estimates of the scale you need to be profitable are in the ballpark, how you’ll get to that scale without literally pouring money into it, is even more of a guesswork. Like in our case, when our hopes of getting a lot of merchandising support from Microsoft fell through, we were left with lower than planned baseline user base and no solid plan on how to grow it.
That’s when spending money on user acquisition becomes your best option. Even though there are challenges with that on Windows, as I pointed above, it is something that you can work with. But if your unit economics are negative this option goes away as well.
So, I guess, the takeaway is that even if you have no plans of going into full “buy users — monetize them — repeat” mode it is important to keep an eye on your unit economics metrics from the early days and constantly optimize them.
Bets are bets — they are risky
We made our bet on UWP and Windows 10 and it didn’t workout for now. That’s sad, but it is normal. We failed to grow AppRaisin into a self-sustainable business, but we made a product that is used and loved by the community. We have gained a lot of experience, a part of which I have shared above. And all of it is worth something. It is worth a lot.
So, I’m not sad. I’m actually happy that we’ve helped quite a few developers surface their great apps and games in front of potential users. We’ve helped those users discover their new favorite games and handy apps. We’ve enriched Windows ecosystem with one more great app.
So, what’s next for AppRaisin?
Nothing changes (in both good and bad sense)
For those who enjoy using AppRaisin to discover new Windows apps, keep an eye on your favorites or promote your own creations, nothing changes. Not a member yet? Download AppRaisin from the Windows Store and enjoy!
We will continue running the servers, maintaining the app and moderating the content. Just don’t expect a lot of new features in the near future. Unless…
Want to partner up to move AppRaisin forward?
We have exhausted our resources trying to turn AppRaisin into a standalone self-sustainable business, but it doesn’t mean it can’t become one given more time and under the right stewardship. Or it can serve its purpose under the grander vision that doesn’t require it to be profitable on its own.
In case you represent an entity that has resources and ideas to give AppRaisin new wings, please, don’t hesitate to contact me at alan@adduplex.com and let’s talk!
Need your help to continue as a community project
For now we are switching to running AppRaisin as a community initiative. This means that we will do everything needed to keep it running smoothly but only invest into developing it further if we have nothing better to do, or if we have enough of community support to make things happen.
One such thing that has been planned from the early days but never materialized is having local AppRaisin communities. These communities would be centered around a language and have completely separate news feeds with both local and global app news in the language of the community.
We have a vision and skills to make this happen but, as you have probably guessed, we no longer have a budget. So, we are asking for Windows enthusiast community help. We need around $10,000 to lay the groundwork for the multi-lingual service and launch the first local community. Help us make it happen by pledging support on this AppStretch campaign. Any help counts! Even if you can only afford to share information about this initiative on social networks, please, do so.
Help AppRaisin community grow!
Thank you and let’s continue discovering and building great apps!
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UPDATE: I’ve posted a follow up article covering some questions that you had after reading this post and its coverage elsewhere.
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If you find this post helpful and/or interesting, please, click 💚 below to recommend it to others. Also, make sure to follow my blog here by clicking “follow”. Check out the things I’m working on at AdDuplex, AppRaisin — for apps for your Windows PC, tablet or phone, and AppStretch — to crowdsource and crowdfund your apps and games.Carles Puyol was the dictionary definition of a talismanic captain.
Many players like to believe they give 100 per cent during every match, but Puyol absolutely did.
He would run brick walls for Barcelona and Spain - and both teams were left with a huge void to fill when the centre-back hung up his boots in 2014.
Puyol wasn’t the most technically gifted of elite footballers - although he was still very talented - but he played a key role in arguably the most talented club side of all time.
The likes of Lionel Messi, Xavi and Andres Iniesta only ever had good things to say about their old, trusty skipper.
Puyol made his professional debut in 1999 and retired 15 years later.
During that time, he played against most of the world’s best players. But who does he rate as the toughest?
Puyol: The toughest players I've faced
Puyol has made up an XI comprised of the toughest players he ever played against - per Squawka - but there’s no room for Cristiano Ronaldo.
Goalkeeper: Gianluigi Buffon
Hard to argue with this one.
Iker Casillas, Puyol’s former Spain teammate, might not be impressed with his choice, mind.
Right-back: Javier Zanetti
One of the most consistent full-backs ever.
Centre-back: Alessandro Nesta
Part of the great AC Milan side of the early to mid-2000s.
Centre-back: Paolo Maldini
One of the greatest defenders of all time.
Left-back: Roberto Carlos
Attack-minded full-back who spent nine successful years at Real Madrid.
Midfield: Clarence Seedorf
Strong as an ox, and blessed with serious talent, Clarence Seedorf was an underrated world-class player.
Midfield: Zinedine Zidane
One of the top 10 players of all time, Zinedine Zidane was born to play football.
Midfield: Andrea Pirlo
His exceptional passing ability allowed him to dictate matches.
Right-wing: Arjen Robben
Arjen Robben would give top defenders nightmares. He still does, for that matter.
Left-wing: Sergio Aguero
He played against Puyol on multiple occasions with Atletico Madrid and clearly made an impression on the Spaniard.
Striker: Didier Drogba
Few centre-backs enjoyed playing against Didier Drogba - and Puyol was no exception.
Puyol’s toughest XI(Photo: 401(k) 2012; Edited: LW / TO)
In spite of the hopes of many elite types for a last-minute resurrection, it appears that the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) is finally dead. This is good news, but it took a long time to kill the deal, and the country is likely to pay a huge price for the execution.
The basic point that everyone should know by now is that the TPP had little to do with trade. The United States already had trade deals with six of the 11 other countries in the pact. The trade barriers with the other five countries were already very low in most cases, so there was little room left for further trade liberalization in the TPP.
Instead, the main purpose of the TPP was to lock in place a business-friendly structure of regulation. The deal was negotiated by a series of working groups that were dominated by representatives of major corporations. The regulatory structure was to be enforced by investor-state dispute settlement tribunals. This is an extrajudicial system that would be able to override US laws with secret rulings that were not bound by precedent or subject to appeal.
In addition, the TPP would strengthen and lengthen patent and copyrights and related protections. This is protectionism: It is 180 degrees at odds with free trade. These protections can raise the price of protected items, like prescription drugs, by a factor of 10 or even 100. This is equivalent to tariffs of several thousand percent, with the same waste and incentives for corruption. Free-traders oppose such protections, if they are honest.
The dishonesty used to push the TPP continued with the post-mortems. Both The New York Times and The Washington Post gave us stern warnings about how China is likely to capitalize by pushing ahead with its own trade deal for East Asia and the Pacific. This appeal to anti-China sentiments is striking, since it completely contradicts everything that the “free traders” ordinarily say about trade.
First, we ordinarily believe that more prosperous trading partners are good for the United States. If China and other countries in the region reduce their trade barriers, it should lead to faster growth, making them better customers for US exports and better suppliers of high-quality imports. This is the reason that the United States generally supported the growth of the European Common Market, and later, the European Union.
There is an argument that we may not want to see China, a country without a democratic government or respect for basic human rights, get even stronger. But it is not clear what the alternative proposal is. Furthermore, almost without exception, the current group of China fearers was 100 percent supportive of admitting China into the World Trade Organization without imposing conditions like respecting the rights of workers to organize. In other words, no one should take these people’s concerns on China very seriously.
If we do want to push forward on “free trade,” we should take the concept seriously and not just use trade pacts as a tool to redistribute income upward. A good place to start would be to focus on removing the barriers that prevent foreign workers in highly paid professions (e.g. doctors, dentists, lawyers) from working in the United States.
It is illegal to practice medicine in the United States unless you complete a US residency program. As a result of such restrictions, our doctors earn on average more than $250,000 a year, twice as much as they get in other wealthy countries. Free trade in doctors could save us roughly $100 billion annually (around 0.6 percent of GDP). There might be comparable gains from free trade in the other highly paid professions. We can design international standards that ensure high quality, but open the door to people trained in other countries.
When it comes to technology, instead of patent and copyright monopolies, how about instead developing mechanisms for freely disbursing new innovations all over the world? There is a lot to the argument for the benefits of free trade. Let’s apply it to innovations in medicine, software and other areas. We know how to develop mechanisms for financing research where the cost could be parceled out among countries.
If our trade deals were actually about free trade instead of increasing profits for the pharmaceutical, software and entertainment industries, this is the direction trade negotiators would be looking. But given the fealty of our politicians to major corporate interests, they don’t even want to see alternatives to government-granted monopolies discussed. There’s no time for real free trade in these people’s minds.
If the politicians want to get serious about real free trade agreements, it is easy to come up with progressive directions for such deals. In the meantime, we can celebrate the well-deserved death of the TPP, which has proved to be enormously costly for the country.
The decision by proponents of the TPP to push ahead with their deal almost certainly cost Hillary Clinton the election. Trade was a big issue in swing states like Michigan and Pennsylvania, and the people who cared about trade overwhelmingly voted for Donald Trump. So the TPP might be dead, but we will have to deal with its legacy in the form of President Trump.Z1 promotion for blog subscribers
To celebrate the launch of our latest product video featuring the Z1, we are running another one of our popular promotions for subscribers to the blog. This time we are giving away Z1 teleworker gateways to five lucky subscribers.
To take part in the promotion, all you need to do is subscribe to the Meraki blog before the end of August 2015. Current subscribers are automatically entered into the promotion. To subscribe, visit the Meraki blog home page and press the subscribe button. Additional terms and conditions apply; subscription is not necessary to enter.
There is a lot of love for the tiny, but powerful, Z1 in the Meraki office. We encourage you to experience the Z1 for yourself and potentially grow as attached to it as we have.A millionaire property developer accused of raping a teenager as she slept claims he accidentally penetrated her when he fell on top of her, a court heard.
A millionaire property developer accused of raping a teenager as she slept claims he accidentally penetrated her when he fell on top of her, a court heard.
Ehsan Abdulaziz, 46, allegedly forced himself on the 18-year-old on his sofa in his Maida Vale flat. His alleged victim met Abdulaziz in the Cirque le Soir nightclub, in London's West End, where she had been spending the evening with a friend.
Abdulaziz had known the complainant's friend for six or seven months, Southwark Crown Court heard, and offered to give the two women a lift home in his Aston Martin on August 7 last year.
He then invited the pair into his flat for a nightcap, before taking the woman he knew into the bedroom for sex.
The next thing the alleged victim remembers is waking up in the early hours of the morning on the sofa with Abdulaziz on top of her forcing himself inside her, it is claimed.
Prosecutor Jonathan Davies said: "She said 'what are you doing?' he said 'it's fine' indicating that her friend was asleep. She got up to find her friend, tried to wake her but couldn't, she then tried to get out of the flat as quickly as she could.
"She was very upset about what had happened to her and because she couldn't wake her friend, she called two friends, she then called the police."
When Abdulaziz was arrested, he responded: "She'll have to prove it."
He said that he had woken the woman at 5.30am when he went to get a glass of water from the kitchen and to switch off the TV.
Abdulaziz claimed the teenager pulled him onto her and placed his hand between her legs. But he said she become angry when he had offered to call her a taxi and stormed into the bedroom to wake her friend.
He is then said to have changed his story after DNA tests found traces of his semen.
Mr Davies said: "That caused him to be re-interviewed in May this year and he was confronted with that finding.
"On this occasion he said after he had sex with the complainant's friend his penis was still erect and he had semen on his hands when he went into the living room.
"He said in the second interview she pushed his hands down on to her vagina. He said that he did fall onto her and his penis may have penetrated her vagina. You may consider, members of the jury, him changing the account he was giving."
Abdulaziz, of Maida Vale, denies rape and the trial continues.
Telegraph.co.ukNFL coaches are protective of their brand of football. Listen to them tell it, and the college game might as well be a different sport. That’s why the NFL is supposedly in the midst of a quarterback crisis. That spread crap doesn’t work against NFL athletes.
Tell that to Bill Belichick, the greatest defensive mind in the sport’s history. He spent Thursday night trying to figure out the Chiefs offense, which is built around zone reads, jet sweeps, run-pass options and other spread offense staples.
Belichick, who adjusts to opponents better than any other coach, couldn’t figure out the Chiefs offense, and Kansas City left New England with a shocking 42-27 win.
If you squinted your eyes enough while the Chiefs had the ball, you would have thought you were watching an SEC game.
Good observation. @Chiefs run a spread offense w/all of the stuff that traditionalists hate. Read-option, RPOs, etc.No one says a word, tho. https://t.co/CWqd8e04HX — Bucky Brooks (@BuckyBrooks) September 8, 2017
Hunt scores on the "toss read" https://t.co/eccD4laNgw Andy Reid's gameplan has been fantastic. A ton (ton!) of spread offense concepts https://t.co/7RpN1Veeey — Chris B. Brown (@smartfootball) September 8, 2017
Here’s an example of the Chiefs’ college-inspired attack. This looks like a typical toss sweep, but Smith has an option to shovel the pass to Travis Kelce:
Belichick had no answers for the varied formations and exotic play-calls. Kansas City ran up 42 points on a Patriots defense. It turns out this college crap works at any level, provided you have the right players to execute them.
Chiefs basically took Reid's West Coast Offense and updated it with spread option concepts…and put up 500+ yards — Matt Miller (@nfldraftscout) September 8, 2017
andy reid has totally built one of those offenses they say you can't run in the nfl. — El Flaco (@bomani_jones) September 8, 2017
The Chiefs will even bust out an old school speed option on occasion. This is straight out of Tom Osborne’s Nebraska playbook:
Reverse pivot option with Alex Smith, from the GL, on the 1st drive, for the TD (2014 wk11) #AndyReid pic.twitter.com/bu9eu04lRh — Josh Cohen (@jco3215) July 26, 2017
The timing of the game was perfect. On Wednesday, Sports Illustrated’s Albert Breer penned a story chronicling the fall of the read option, which took the league by storm in 2012. Breer than used the story to continue to push his “Colin Kaepernick is unemployed because he’s bad a football” narrative.
One problem: The read option is as popular as ever. NFL teams ran it 2,022 times during the 2016 season, a stat that was actually included in Breer’s story. Those plays out-gained traditional run plays by about 0.25 yards per play. It turns out they’re still pretty effective, even after these genius NFL coaches had time to study the tape.
This stat seems to contradict the whole notion that the read option is falling out of favor. And these #s are skewed by Russ/Cam injuries. pic.twitter.com/lILNkrJ98H — Steven Ruiz (@theStevenRuiz) September 6, 2017
Critics of the option love to bring up the Robert Griffins and Colin Kaepernicks while ignoring success stories like Cam Newton, Russell Wilson and even Alex Smith. Like any other offense, systems that embrace these college concepts work better with better personnel. What a novel concept!
The same goes for any other scheme, but you won’t hear anyone call the West Coast offense a gimmick system because Chris Simms was terrible under Jon Gruden in Tampa Bay.
The read option is still going strong in the NFL. The Chiefs used it and other concepts that aren’t supposed to work in the NFL to hang 537 yards on the Patriots defense.
This isn’t proof that a college-style offense is any better than a more traditional approach, but it does prove that this style of play can work in the NFL. I’m sure Bill Belichick would agree after Thursday night.By Quinn Mecham, Brigham Young University
*This memo was prepared for the “Evolving Methodologies in the Study of Islamist Politics” workshop, January 29, 2016.
Political developments in the Arab world since 2011 have dramatically shaped Islamist political activity and discourse in the region. They have also influenced Islamist movements further afield, in terms of the strategies and political narratives that movements now pursue. Indeed, it would not be too strong to say that Islamist movements in many countries are in crisis. It is not a crisis of popular support, nor a crisis of irrelevance. Many Islamist movements maintain high levels of support and remain deeply relevant to the future of the countries in which they operate. Rather, it is a crisis of political identity that has taken a profound toll on the ability of Islamist groups to control their own narrative. They rightly recognize that they are losing control over the narrative of who they are and what they stand for at their own peril. The mainstream Islamist brand is in crisis, which is having destructive effects on the ability of Islamist movements to mobilize their political base. As more and more stories are told about them, Islamist narratives have become increasingly reactionary, and reflect profound differences within movements over strategies to regain political efficacy.
Several key moments in the last five years served to trigger this identity crisis. First, the apparent political openings in several countries of the Arab world in 2011-12 helped to transform Islamist narratives in places like Egypt, Tunisia, Yemen, Bahrain, Morocco, and Libya from one of a reformist opposition movement to one of a potentially powerful political party that plays a role in governance. In the process, Islamist movements went through a painful process of redefining themselves both organizationally and ideologically to play within the new rules of politics and to get to a position where they could effectively govern. Subsequently, the widespread closure of many of these political openings forced Islamist movements to reevaluate whether the organizational and ideological transformations in progress were appropriate to the circumstances, and opened up divisions within the movements regarding political strategy towards the state. State collapse in the wake of the Syrian, Libyan, and Yemeni civil wars also strengthened opportunities for violent jihadi political entrepreneurship that challenged the narratives of mainstream Islamist groups and further discredited the political transformations in progress. Finally, the regional rivalry between Sunni Gulf states and Iran spilled over into open confrontation through the support of ideologically-driven proxy fighters within these civil wars, leading to an intensification of sectarian divisions and a loss of control over more inclusive Islamist narratives in favor of those more narrowly defined by the ‘near enemy’.
I argue here that the combination of four factors stemming from these recent political developments in the Middle East has put severe strain on both the internal and public narratives of many Islamist movements worldwide, and has accelerated the weakening and fragmentation of Islamist political movements. Specifically, a) resurgent authoritarianism, b) the aggressive spread of violent and often theatrical jihadism, c) state-sponsored sectarian interventions, and d) internal organizational crisis within movements have each helped lead to a loss of narrative control. The consequences of the loss of this narrative control are significant because the lack of clear messaging facilitates fragmentation among Islamist political actors and rewards the most provocative ideological narratives. This in turn creates long-term challenges for domestic politics and security within the countries in which Islamist movements have popular support. I address each of these four challenges to mainstream Islamist narratives in turn.
Resurgent Authoritarianism
In countries where new political openings were anticipated or activated, but which subsequently saw the closure of those political openings, Islamist movements have had to rapidly and repeatedly change their political narratives. The most common pattern has been a shift from a dominant narrative that criticizes the government or regime for incompetence, corruption, and discrimination, to a more constructive narrative that articulates a vision for what can be built and why the movement is poised to build it |
. We are never going to agree on what exactly they are. So it’s time we stopped arguing and got on with a plan for sex education. Let’s not send our children into adolescence armed with nothing but yoga poses and rumours to stand between them and abortions, STDs and pregnancies.But a few salient facts have been conspicuously omitted from the legend. Three Zionist terror groups (as designated by the United Nations) systematically planned and executed the expulsion of the Palestinians, who owned over 93% of Palestine in 1947. This ethnic cleansing operation had been prepared over the preceding year, ready for implementation when perceived necessary to drive out the indigenous Arab population and seize their land and properties once the British adminstrative authority was gone. Zionist preparations documented by Israeli historian Ilan Pappe included financial support from the US Jewish community circumventing government prohibitions, weapons smuggling, and infiltration of Arab communities to identify leaders for quick assassination. These terrorist "militias" had ethnically cleansed a third of the Palestinian population before the British departed in May 1948 and by the end of 1948 had driven over 3/4 million Palestinians into 59 refugee camps hastily constructed to accommodate them by UNRWA (United Nations Relief and Works Agency), newly created to respond to what Palestinians called their "catastrophe" - al Nakba. Angered over British immigration policies following incorporation of the Balfour Declaration into the British Mandate established by the League of Nations, the Palestinians had rebelled against the British in the late 1930s and had been disarmed. They were consequently helpless after WWII against Zionist terrorism
Scattered Arab forces from neighboring states intervened after the British withdrawal in May 1948, but were no match for the better-organized, better-armed and much better-funded Zionist militias now merged into the Israeli Defense Force (IDF). Since most Arab countries had recently emerged from post-WWI mandates under British or French administration, the only credible Arab army was the Arab Legion of Transjordan which the Zionists co-opted in an agreement with King Abdullah of Transjordan. Under this agreement Abdullah would keep Judea and Samaria (now the West Bank) and the Zionists were allowed to "cleanse" (their term) the rest of Palestine unopposed. There were a few clashes between Arab Legion and Zionist forces that established the Israeli/West Bank border until 1967.
By the end of the ethnic cleansing campaign, the Zionists had destroyed and/or depopulated 531 Arab villages and eleven urban areas, and had committed 33 documented massacres that killed some 13,000 largely defenseless Arabs, the most notorious of which was Dar Yassein (above) but perhaps the most gruesome was Lydda where townspeople seeking refuge in a mosque were murdered en masse and dismembered. In an article three decades later for The American Zionist, Mordechai Nisan of the Truman Research Centre of the Hebrew University in Jerusalem wrote, “Without terror it is unlikely that Jewish independence would have been achieved when it was.”
This was an intentional terrorist strategy. Reports of each massacre terrified other Arab villages into fleeing their homes and communities in the path of approaching Jewish forces. By 1950 nearly a million Palestinian refugees had been registered by the UN in refugee camps with land claims against Israel. With their descendents who are legal heirs to the stolen property, that number now exceeds 4½ million, the largest and longest-standing refugee population in the world. According to the Zionist narrative, Palestinian leaders unable to protect the villages had advised the residents to flee but there is no evidence of this. Nevertheless, this myth has been used shamelessly by Zionist propagandists to claim that the Palestinians left voluntarily or unnecessarily upon direction by their leaders.
Israeli historian Ilan Pappe has declared that "catastrophe" with its connotations of natural disaster is an inaccurate term. Rather, he clearly identifies these acts as crimes that should be so identified. Following these atrocities, some Jewish communities - which had found refuge in Arab communities from Christian persecution in Europe and lived in peace with Arabs for centuries throughout the Middle East and North Africa - fled their homes in fear of retribution for Jewish aggression in Palestine. This has been used by Zionist propagandists to imply that some sort of balanced population exchange occurred in order to invalidate the Palestinian right of return. But most of these Jewish immigrants to Israel were in fact recruited by Zionism and motivated by incentives and subsidies offered by the new state, including involuntarily vacated Palestinian homes, rather than escape from Arab persecution. Notably large Jewish populations immigrated to Israel from Morrocco and Yemen in response to Israeli invitations and incentives. Jewish exodus from North Africa was also motivated by contemporaneous upheavals in the region against post-war French efforts to re-establish its colonies. Israel cast itself as a refuge, calling for "ingathering of the exiles." However, since the Mizrahi (Arab) and Sephardic (Iberian) Jews had not suffered Russian pogroms or the Holocaust, many had no interest in uprooting their long established communities for transplantation to Israel. Some Arab expulsion of their Jewish neighbors occurred in some communities due to fear of Zionism, especially in Egypt following their 1956 invasion by Israel, but this "ingathering" was largely solicited by Israel and actively encouraged by false flag Mossad attacks on synagogues and Jewish businesses to frighten Jews in Egypt and Iraq into relocating. Any legitimate Jewish refugees - like Palestinians - had the right to file claims with the UN High Commissioner for Refugees. How many have done so? Whatever the number, if any, their claims are irrelevant to Palestinian claims. Most importantly, have Jewish refugees - like Palestinians - been denied the right to return? Quite the contrary. In fact, both Egypt and Iraq published prominent invitations in major newspapers for Jewish emigrants to returnGrab some pals, crowd into a submarine, and dive into an alien sea to die horribly inside a simulation inspired by Space Station 13. That’s emergent sim-o-RPG Barotrauma [official site], which is currently available free in open alpha as developers Undertow Games work towards the full release. Delving into the icy waters of Europa, one of Jupiter’s moons, different player classes with different responsibilities must work together and keep the sub ship-shape and alien-free to complete missions. And maybe betray their crew, or worse. Here, have a look in this trailer:
As Undertow explain:
“The players join a crew of up to 16 players and try to carry out missions such as salvaging alien artifacts, killing enormous sea creatures and hauling dangerous cargo from outpost to another. The crew won’t just have to deal with external threats like the pressure outside the sub or the inhabitants of the ocean, as the submarine itself is a complex contraption with a load of interconnected items and devices which can cause a wide range of non-scripted, dynamic disasters.”
Some crew members may have secret objectives of their own to fulfill. Some may even… clown around. It will support singleplayer with AI crewmates but tssh, come on, play with other people.
Like Space Station 13, the dazzlingly complex sim where Quinns had several adventures as a bartender, it looks like Barotrauma has some complex guts. The submarine (you can design your own) is held together by simulation, with ballast, water pressure, the reactor, wiring, and so on all feeding into what happens. Which means you’ll have a lot of work if your sub e.g. crashes into a giant spacecrustacean.
(Pitch: Space Crustacean 13, where players control a space crab from the inside like The Numskulls.)
Undertow Games plan to launch Barotrauma as a paid game later this year but, for now, you can download free alpha versions for Windows and Mac Linux [you big silly -ed.].
Undertow have also launched a Steam Greenlight campaign. Yes, Valve do plan to abolish Greenlight but Undertow say that given the unsettled question of how much Steam Direct will charge, they consider it sensible to go for Greenlight now.
If you fancy something lighter, We Need To Go Deeper hit early access the other week and looks more Lovers in a Dangerous Spacetime than Space Station 13.Coalition group to press Malcolm Turnbull for changes to the ABC, including making charter legally enforceable
Updated
A group is forming within the Coalition aimed at pressuring Communications Minister Malcolm Turnbull to crack down on the ABC, including by making its charter legally enforceable.
Liberal MPs from the Prime Minister down have been seething over the ABC's decision to team up with The Guardian newspaper to publish leaked intelligence showing Australian spies tapped the phones of the Indonesian president Susilo Bambang Yudohoyono, his wife and ministers.
One Liberal source said the reports had caused "real angst".
The reports and their fallout fed into broader and long-standing resentment that some Liberal MPs hold towards the ABC over the level of government funding it receives and their view that the broadcaster is left-wing.
Liberal Senator Cory Bernardi, who has made public and private calls for a restructure of the organisation, told Radio National that the ABC was "cannibalising" the Australian media landscape.
Senator Bernardi said the ABC's online news services should either be paid for by readers or carry advertising.
His concerns, which were first raised internally during a meeting of Government MPs in Canberra on Tuesday morning, were supported by Senator Ian MacDonald and the Speaker, Bronwyn Bishop, who noted that the ABC's charter is not legally enforceable.
"I think that if the ABC followed its charter to the letter a lot of the criticisms of the lack of balance would disappear," Senator MacDonald told the ABC.
"If the ABC does not internally insist that its team follow the charter to the letter, then perhaps Parliament should do the insisting."
The ABC understands several more Liberal MPs have discussed creating an informal group to advocate for changes, which could include making the ABC's charter legally enforceable in the short term and reducing the amount of government funding in the long term.
Prime Minister Tony Abbott has ruled out funding cuts or any structural changes to the ABC, but has strongly criticised the corporation's decision to cooperate with The Guardian in publishing intelligence leaks from former US NSA analyst Edward Snowden.
He has encouraged MPs with grievances to meet together with Communications Minister Malcolm Turnbull, who defended the ABC to his colleagues but did raise concerns about "last-century work practices".
Mr Abbott has previously said making the ABC carry advertising would further erode the commercial media's ability to secure those same advertising dollars.
Topics: abc, broadcasting, federal-parliament, parliament, federal-government, government-and-politics, australia
First postedFour serving members of the British army are among a group arrested under terrorism legislation for allegedly being members of a banned far-right group.
They are suspected of being members of National Action, a neo-Nazi organisation that was proscribed as a terror group last year.
“We can confirm that a number of serving members of the Army have been arrested under the Terrorism Act for being associated with a proscribed far right group," an army spokesperson said.
The spokesperson said the arrests were the result of a police operation supported by the army. "This is now the subject of a civilian police investigation and it would be inappropriate to comment further," they added.
West Midlands police initially said four men – a 22-year-old man from Birmingham, a 32-year-old man from Powys, a 24-year-old man from Ipswich, and a 24-year-old man from Northampton – had been arrested.
On Friday 8 September, the force said a fifth man – another 24-year-old from Northampton – had been arrested, having originally been detained by officers from the Royal Military police in Cyprus on Tuesday. He and three of the other four men are all serving members of the army.There’s every indication that President Donald Trump and the courts are headed for a constitutional showdown, and only one of them can emerge the victor.
The Trump administration late Saturday urged an appeals court to immediately put on hold a judge’s nationwide order that effectively stopped, albeit temporarily, Trump’s de facto travel ban on all refugees and on immigrants from seven predominantly Muslim countries.
The federal government has begun complying with the order. And as expected, the president has taken to personally attacking the judge, U.S. District Judge James Robart, whom he smeared in a series of Twitter posts that say more about Trump’s apparent disregard for the constitutional order of things than anything else.
But lawyers for the administration are making a more nuanced case in legal filings and at oral arguments in the several courts hearing cases over his executive order ― including in an emergency request seeking to block the ruling Robart issued on Friday. The administration’s argument, if accepted by the courts, is one that could give Trump nearly unfettered power to go even beyond his initial executive order.
The gist of it: Courts should stay out of this altogether, or else national security will be at risk.
In their emergency motion, Department of Justice lawyers told the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit that Robart’s ruling “contravenes the considered judgment of Congress that the President should have the unreviewable authority to suspend the admission of any class of aliens.”
“As the President acted well within both statutory and constitutional authorization,” the filing continues, “the relief irreparably harms our system of government by contravening the Constitution’s separation of powers.”
The view that courts are powerless when the political branches have already laid down the law on immigration is not without legal weight. In another ruling issued Friday, a federal judge in Boston gave the Trump administration its first victory in the flurry of litigation over the travel ban, and declared that it wouldn’t “encroach upon the delicate policy judgment inherent in immigration decisions” by Congress and the president.
Relying on that decision, the Trump administration is taking an even more aggressive stance in the Seattle case, suggesting to the 9th Circuit that Robart’s nationwide order in and of itself could imperil the nation.
“Judicial second-guessing of the President’s national security determination in itself imposes substantial harm on the federal government and the nation at large,” the administration’s brief concluded.
Bob Loeb, an appellate attorney in private practice who for nearly 25 years handled high-profile appeals at DOJ under Republican and Democratic administrations, said claiming that court review itself amounted to “irreparable harm” was beyond the pale.
“I would have never put my name on a filing that said that,” Loeb tweeted.
That’s precisely the tack Trump himself has taken, not just in his angry Twitter tirade against the judge, but in his insistence that the ongoing legal battle over his travel ban is really about the safety of the nation — and not about excluding Muslims, singling out a particular religion or unequal treatment under the Constitution.
“We’ll win. For the safety of the country, we’ll win,” the president told reporters on Saturday. On Sunday, he continued with his attack on the courts.
Just cannot believe a judge would put our country in such peril. If something happens blame him and court system. People pouring in. Bad! — Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) February 5, 2017
Whether Trump’s mere incantation of national security is something courts must accept at face value will play out in the coming days. But the argument, at least as far as the judiciary is concerned, could be a dangerous slippery slope for the one branch that could serve as a check on Trump’s executive power.Feb 6, 2017; Manhattan, KS, USA; Kansas Jayhawks guard Devonte' Graham (4) falls on Kansas State Wildcats guard Wesley Iwundu (25) while going for a loose ball during a game at Fred Bramlage Coliseum. The Jayhawks won the game, 74-71. Mandatory Credit: Scott Sewell-USA TODAY Sports
Kansas basketball’s Josh Jackson is starting to hit a groove on both ends of the floor.
While the 2017 NBA Draft is still more than five months away, it’s never too early to start thinking about the potential number one overall selection. That’s especially true this season as the draft is loaded with high-end prospects who have the potential to be stars at the next level.
Markelle Fultz is dominating in Washington despite the Huskies lack of success. Jayson Tatum has shown flashes of brilliance with Duke. Lonzo Ball has changed the complexion of the UCLA program with his passing, unselfishness and shooting skills. And Dennis Smith Jr. already has recorded two triple-doubles for NC State.
But the player that has the most upside or intrigue, at least in my opinion, is Josh Jackson. There was plenty of number one overall pick talk in regards to Jackson before the 2016-17 season began, but the freshman’s struggles from beyond the arc, his shaky frame, and his still developing handle became drawbacks against him.
Jackson showed flashes early in the season — he took over Kansas’ game against Duke at Madison Square Garden in the second half before fouling out — but he wasn’t consistent, especially from beyond the arc.
But suddenly, something has clicked for the 6’8″, 207 pound forward.
In his last six games, Jackson is averaging 18.8 points, seven rebounds, and 2.5 assists while shooting 13-of-24 from beyond the arc (54 percent!). He has three double-doubles in his last six, including 20 points and 10 rebounds in a win on the road against Kentucky and 23 points and 10 rebounds in a home victory over Baylor. Finally, against Kansas State last night, Jackson battled foul trouble. However, that didn’t stop him from scoring 18 points and drilling 2-of-3 threes.
We all know about Jackson’s competitiveness, his underrated passing ability, his defensive ability, his skills operating as an undersized four, his athleticism, his ability to get into the lane and his play in transition.
But if Jackson continues to shoot this way, I don’t just think that he deserves to be the number one pick, but he also will be the best player in this draft class when all is set and done.
And that’s saying something.
Sure, his form is still shaky — he has a hitch in his shot that makes it easier to block— but if it’s dropping, as it has been during this recent stretch, why should it be a question mark? Why should you fix something that isn’t broken? There are plenty of players that have had success with a quirky shooting form at the professional level — Shawn Marion and Kevin Martin are two perfect examples.
The most important asset to have as an NBA prospect is shooting ability. The league has transformed over the years to a fast pace, high possession game that focuses on three-pointers, ball movement, spacing, and quick open shots.
If Jackson isn’t hitting his jumpers consistently, it doesn’t mean he will fall out of the top 10 or that he won’t succeed in the NBA, but his ceiling is significantly lower.
That’s why this recent development is so critical. Sure, this is a small sample size, but Jackson has looked like the best player on one of the best teams in the nation. And remember, this is a team that has National Player of the Year candidate Frank Mason III and star guard Devonte’ Graham. Jackson has been that good because of his three-point improvements and his aggressiveness.NEW DELHI (Reuters) - Sensing his party’s drive for votes in India’s most politically prized state had stalled, Prime Minister Narendra Modi cleared his schedule and thrust himself into the heart of the battle.
A supporter of Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) celebrates after learning of the initial poll results outside the party headquarters in New Delhi, March 11, 2017. REUTERS/Adnan Abidi
“Our election campaign has hit a roadblock,” Modi told campaign managers and two federal ministers in Delhi last month, a week before the sixth of seven phases of voting was to begin in the northern state of Uttar Pradesh.
“I don’t want to feel that I could have pushed myself a little more,” Modi was quoted as saying by a close aide who attended the meeting.
For three full days the leader of the world’s largest democracy camped out in the holy city of Varanasi, his parliamentary constituency, walking the ancient streets and stopping at Hindu temples to seek blessings, despite warnings from aides about his security and the risk to his reputation had his party come up short.
On Saturday the gamble paid off: Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) scored a thumping victory in Uttar Pradesh, home to one in six Indians, winning the biggest majority in the state for any party since 1977.
The triumph vindicates Modi’s decision to turn the campaign into a referendum on his own performance after his shock decision last November to abolish high-denomination banknotes, a move he framed as a fight for the poor against the corrupt rich.
“We were always nervous that overexposing the prime minister in the final stages of the election could make us look desperate,” said Keshav Prasad Maurya, the BJP’s state leader in Uttar Pradesh.
As it turned out, Modi’s victory confounded even the most bullish voter surveys. The BJP won 312 of the 403 seats in the state assembly and, with 39.7 percent of the vote, almost matched its showing in Uttar Pradesh in the 2014 general election, when it claimed the biggest parliamentary majority in three decades.
“Modi’s magic has destroyed the opposition and silenced skeptics in the party,” Maurya told Reuters on Saturday, as the scale of the victory became clear.
TWO-TERM MODI
The win clears a path to victory for Modi at a 2019 general election, and gives him a free hand to consolidate his grip over a state that sends the highest number of federal lawmakers to parliament.
That has raised hopes among investors that the BJP will embark on a round of new reforms to boost growth in Asia’s third-largest economy, and try to tackle the corruption and red tape that has long undermined India’s potential.
Economists now expect Modi to launch initiatives aimed at flushing out ill-gotten gains from real estate, gold and campaign finance.
But they caution that his biggest task remains transforming India’s economy into one that creates enough jobs for an emerging generation that is desperate to give up life on the farm for a more prosperous future.
“Jobs is the biggest risk,” said Rajiv Kumar, an economist at the Delhi-based Centre for Policy Research. “That’s where he has to focus very hard and it could mean reforms as radical as demonetization.”
Modi’s BJP now heads the government in states where more than half of Indians live, while the Congress party, which has ruled India for most of the 70 years since independence, leads in regions covering less than 8 percent of the population.
Success will increase the pressure on Modi to provide for an increasingly aspirational nation of 1.3 billion people, half of whom are aged 25 or under.
“He has to do a very delicate tightrope walk between being reformist and populist,” said Nilanjan Mukhopadhyay, a journalist and biographer of Modi. “The problem in India is that people think reforms are pro-rich.”
COMMUNAL TONE
Modi relied on his own charisma to clinch crucial votes in poor and agrarian Uttar Pradesh, but his campaign manager Amit Shah also takes credit for fielding the right candidates in a region where many people vote along caste and religious lines.
Critics accuse Shah and Modi of “social engineering” and of switching to a more communally divisive tone to fire up their Hindu base as voting, staggered over the course of a month, progressed.
Shah vowed to construct a Hindu temple on a razed mosque site and ban the slaughter of cows, worshipped by millions of Hindus.
Slideshow (6 Images)
On the campaign trail, too, Modi played up religious divisions by asking why the state government ensured there were no power cuts in the Muslim holy month of Ramadan but not during the Hindu festival of Diwali.
Still, the BJP likely collected minority votes, including Muslim women whom he courted by questioning an Islamic practice that allows men to divorce their wives with three simple words.
“The results prove that Muslims and backward caste groups voted for the BJP,” said R.K. Mishra, a political analyst in Lucknow, the state capital of Uttar Pradesh.A tribute to Jordan ‘Deachkalek Lamnammoon’ Coe
Sadness echoes throughout the Muay Thai community as we mourn the loss of young Scottish fighter, Jordan Coe. The promising 20-year-old, who had been living in Thailand, was cutting weight for a professional bout scheduled for Sunday evening, 26 March. He was set to weigh in at 61kg to compete against Cambodian boxer, Khon Bola, in the Muang district for what would have undoubtedly been an entertaining, thrilling fight; as it always was when the young southpaw danced his way into the ring.
In an unfortunate turn of events however, tragedy struck, leaving family, friends and fans alike shocked and heartbroken. Jordan’s body was found wrapped in his sweat suit on the morning of his scheduled bout and weigh-in. He was pronounced dead on the scene. It was confirmed by the embassy that Jordan had suffered from severe heat stroke.
A fundraiser was formed to bring Jordan’s body home, and in turn, the true heart of the Muay Thai community was on full display as it was soon after confirmed that the donations had exceeded the targeted amount. It was a genuine effort to support Jordan’s family through this rather difficult time.
Jordan Coe, also known as Deachkalek Lamnammoon, was proving to be one of Muay Thai’s most exciting and promising fighters.
In 2016 Jordan Coe relocated to Lamnammoon Muay Thai Gym in Ubon Ratchathani, East Thailand yet had lived and trained in Thailand since mid-2014. He’d undoubtedly fully dedicated his life to the famed Thai ‘Art of 8 Limbs’. Renowned for his Isaan dancing as he entered the ring with Kaen (flute) slung off-shoulder, Jordan was recognized far and wide as a passionate character who transparently loved Muay Thai. Jordan’s style appealed to everyone, from traditional Thai’s to passionate fans and practitioners from various disciplines and countries. Deachkalek truly did belong in the ring.
As the shocking news of Jordan’s passing has reached all corners of the fight community, and beyond, there is a far cry for reflection in this time of sadness. In reflection, what we can safely conclude is this; Jordan lived his life to his fullest capability and with great integrity. His name will forever be remembered and in time the smile, he so often brought to our faces in the ring, will return as we remember his legacy. He brought conviction to us all with his dedication. He reminded us of what is truly important, with his words “Never Forget Your Beginnings”.
Muay Thai is a sport understood and truly appreciated by few. For what it’s worth, Jordan is not to be mistaken for anyone other than a purely passionate fighter. He had devoted his life to doing what he loved most. For those reasons, we salute the young man for unapologetically journeying along the path less traveled.
We wish to express our sincerest condolences to Jordan’s family, friends and trainers in this difficult time. Dance on Deachkalek; you will be missed.Handout/Getty Images A document provided to the State Department by a Russian diplomat in April outlined a broad, ambitious plan to overhaul Moscow's relationship with Washington on the heels of Russia's campaign to undermine confidence in the US presidential election and help elect Donald Trump.
The document, obtained by BuzzFeed, called for collaboration on information security, denuclearizing the Korean peninsula, the war in Afghanistan, and other areas that would lead to the normalization of US-Russian relations — including a discussion of "areas of mutual interest" between US intelligence officials and their Russian counterparts.
The proposal indicates that Russian President Vladimir Putin was optimistic about Trump's willingness to repair a relationship that had plummeted to its lowest point in decades following Russia's 2014 annexation of Crimea and interference in the 2016 election — unprecedented acts that the document did not even mention, according to BuzzFeed.
Putin was not only optimistic, but extremely eager: He dispatched a diplomat to deliver the plan — which he hoped would be implemented immediately — barely three months into Trump's presidency. By that point, the White House had already begun exploring ways to lift or ease the sanctions on Russia imposed by Obama in mid-2014 and late 2016.
Scott Olson, a recently retired FBI agent who served in the bureau's counterintelligence division, said the proposal "postures the Russian side in a 'no lose' situation."
"If the US side declines, the Russians are on record with having tried to take the high road," Olson said. "If the US side agrees, it will be crushed with political infighting and demands to explain why it is cooperating in the aftermath of so much bad behavior by the Russians. Regardless of the US response, the Russians end up better off, either with a compliant US or an embattled US."
The administration looked into easing or lifting the sanctions just days after Trump's inauguration, according to reports by Yahoo News and NBC. And a senior White House official asked the State Department in March to assess if the sanctions were harming US interests and whether lifting them would increase Russia's oil production and therefore help the American economy.
It is unclear whether those inquiries made their way back to Moscow. But Putin and Trump discussed "adoption policy," which is intimately connected to the Magnitsky Act sanctions levied by the US on Russia in 2012, as recently as July. And Trump has repeatedly cast doubt on the US intelligence community's conclusion that Russia wanted him to win the election.
Trump also emphasized, both during and after the election, his desire to pursue a reset with Russia akin to the one spearheaded by Obama and then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton in 2009 — before Russia invaded Crimea and eastern Ukraine and meddled in a US presidential election.
Above all else, though, the Russian proposal reveals that Moscow thought it could leverage a friendlier president to whitewash its aggression in eastern Europe, Ukraine, and Syria. Viewed through that lens, it becomes difficult to characterize Russia's attempts to influence the election as a one-off experiment in sowing chaos.
To be sure, the turmoil was an added bonus that would have satisfied the Kremlin even if Hillary Clinton had won the election, experts say. And the near-daily revelations about the Trump campaign's contact with Russia is on track to create the type of crisis in American democracy Putin may have wanted all along.
But the "reset" document indicates that Russia's ambitions went beyond trolling its adversary: Moscow wanted legitimacy, and thought Trump would prove it — no strings attached.A group of researchers have identified two seismic events that they think provide the first evidence of a previously undetected form of matter passing through the Earth.
We can't prove that this was strange quark matter, but that is the only explanation that has been offered so far
Eugene Herrin
The so-called strange quark matter is so dense that a piece the size of a human cell would weigh a tonne.
The two events under study both took place in 1993.
Other scientists are tantalised, saying that while these seismic disturbances are unlikely to have been caused by strange quark matter, they do not as yet have alternative explanations.
Out of the fireball
Strange quark matter could have arisen after the Big Bang, according to a theory by physicist Edward Witten of the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, US.
The primordial fireball may have produced dense, heavy particles made of three types of quarks, which are fundamental particles.
Whereas so-called "up" and "down" quarks form protons and neutrons, the addition of "strange" quarks might result in a stable form of matter that could grow far more massive than ordinary atoms.
There is some evidence that strange quark matter does exist in the cosmos. In April 2002, two different teams of scientists reported that they had identified collapsed stars that might be composed of the ultra-dense material.
In 1984, Harvard physicist and Nobel Laureate Sheldon Glashow suggested that physicists should team up with seismologists to search for traces of the strange matter that might have passed through the Earth at supersonic speed.
'Unassociated events'
He calculated that strange quark particles would dash through Earth with dramatic effect: a one-tonne spec would release the energy of a 50-kilotonne nuclear bomb, spread along its entire path through the Earth.
In 1993, Vidgor Teplitz, Eugene Herrin, David Anderson and Ileana Tibuleac, all of the Southern Methodist University in the US, began looking for such events.
They searched the world's seismographic records for so-called "unassociated events". They looked at more than a million records collected by the US Geological Survey between 1990 to 1993 that were not associated with traditional seismic disturbances, such as earthquakes.
Previously, Herrin and Teplitz speculated that it would be possible to search for seismic events that might indicate passage of strange quark matter (also known as nuclearites) through the Earth because such events would have a distinct seismic signal - a straight line.
This seismic signature would be caused by the large ratio of the nuclearites speed to the speed of sound in the Earth. It was estimated that the strange quark matter might pass through the earth at 400 km per second (250 miles per second), 40 times the speed of seismic waves.
Data collection halted
The team also determined that the minimum requirement for detection of a nuclearite would be detection of its signal by seven monitoring stations.
The researchers latest findings single out two seismic events with the linear pattern they were looking for.
In two cases, the arrival times and forms of seismic waves at nine far-flung stations pointed to linear bursts of energy. The ruptures ripped through the planet at hundreds of kilometres per second rather than fracturing only near the surface, as typical earthquakes do.
One event occurred on 22 October 1993, when, according to the researchers, something entered the Earth off Antarctica and left it south of India 0.73 of a second later.
The other occurred on 24 November 1993, when an object entered south of Australia and exited the Earth near Antarctica 0.15 of a second later.
The first event was recorded at seven monitoring stations in India, Australia, Bolivia and Turkey, and the second event was recorded at nine monitoring stations in Australia and Bolivia.
"We can't prove that this was strange quark matter, but that is the only explanation that has been offered so far," Herrin says.
Unfortunately, scientists may not be able to find any more events that suggest the passage of strange quark matter through the Earth.
In 1993 the US Geological Survey stopped collecting data from "unassociated events."× East Berlin man charged after fleeing from traffic stop
CARROLL TOWNSHIP, YORK COUNTY, Pa.– A 72-year-old man was arrested Tuesday after police say he tried to flee from a traffic stop in York County.
Wayne L. Trostle, 72, of East Berlin is charged with fleeing or attempting to elude police officers, firearms not to be carried without a license, reckless driving and other summary traffic violations.
Officers responded to a report of a man, later identified as Trostle, acting strangely and stumbling as he walked to his pickup truck in Carroll Township, according to the criminal complaint. Police received information from dispatchers that Trostle was last seen driving along Route 15 near Orebank Road. When police tried to pull him over, Trostle sped up and a brief chase ensued, according to police reports.
During the chase, police say Trostle ran a red light and swerved off the road–nearly hit a concrete divider.
Trostle eventually pulled off the road and into the parking lot of the Franklintown Fire Department, but he refused to put the truck into park, court documents state. When police opened the driver’s side door to get Trostle out of the vehicle, they found a loaded rifle sticking out from between the front passenger seat.
A preliminary hearing is scheduled for March 27."It is a low-level war to the extent that NATO has not gotten directly involved. But it is exactly what happened in Libya last year. An insurgency began. Washington orchestrated it. Insurgents were recruited. They were funded. They were armed."
An American author says agents of the CIA and MI6 are directing armed groups to carry out massacres inside Syria, Press TV reports.Stephen Lendman, writer and radio host from Chicago, said the CIA and MI6 "special forces" are in Syria now, directing massacres."They go after pro-Assad loyalists," Lendman stated in an interview with Press TV on Saturday."There is no question this is a Washington-orchestrated war."The American author stated thatLendman also referred to the six-point peace plan presented by the UN-Arab League envoy to Syria, Kofi Annan, in March."His so-called peace plan puts the onus on a side. He barely mentions these insurgents, these death squads, these killers.""I have written about Kofi Annan. I have written several times about him. During his tenure as UN secretary general, a decade, a solid decade, he never did a thing to stop imperial wars," Lendman added.He made the comments on the same day when the opposition Syrian National Council (SNC) elected 56-year-old Abdulbaset Saida, a Kurdish activist, as its new leader during a meeting in Istanbul.Saida replaced former SNC leader Burhan Ghalioun, who resigned in May.Meanwhile, Russian Foreign Minister said in a press conference in Moscow on June 9 that Russia "will not sanction the use of force (against Syria) at the United Nations Security Council."Lavrov added that the Annan plan had begun to "seriously falter," but that there was "no alternative" to it.More than 90 per cent of young children living in some Canadian aboriginal communities have cavities in their baby teeth, say dentists who are calling for preventive solutions.
Untreated tooth decay in young children is a big problem in some some Canadian aboriginal communities. (Dan Cepeda/Casper Star-Tribune/Associated Press) Monday's issue of the journal Pediatrics includes a joint position paper by the Canadian Pediatric Society and the American Academy of Pediatrics urging "immediate attention" to the problem of infectious tooth decay in primary teeth in aboriginal communities in both countries.
Dr. Robert Schroth, a specialist in pediatric dentistry at the University of Manitoba in Winnipeg, says he has seen aboriginal children from remote communities with 18 out of 20 of their baby teeth rotting away.
"The crowns have broken away and it's only the little root stubs left and sometimes little draining abscesses," said Schroth, one of the co-authors of the paper.
What used to be called baby-bottle tooth decay is an infectious disease most often caused by a strain of streptococcus bacteria in combination with poor diet habits and lack of oral hygiene that can weaken tooth enamel.
Known in medical and dental circles as "early childhood caries," the condition can be painful and affects a child's ability to chew food, disrupts sleep and causes problems with |
it go. But I’d also be reluctant to see my rates used to save it, especially if doing so compromised the development opportunities of the site.- A new bill coming to the State Senate aims to toughen up charges for crimes against cops.
State Senator Rene Garcia of Hialeah filed a bill Monday to add crimes against first responders to Florida’s hate crime statute.
If passed it would increase the severity of charges the state could bring against suspects, if they can prove that the crime was committed because of a person’s position as a first responder.
The bill’s filing comes just two days after two police officers in Kissimmee were killed by a gunman. That man, Everett Miller, now faces premeditated murder charges.
Senator Garcia attempted a similar bill during the last legislative session that failed to take off.
Many mourning at the memorial to the fallen Kissimmee officers agreed with the move on Tuesday.
One man said the pain surrounding the flowers and signs outside of the police department there showed the hate he felt went into the crime.
Others are cautious about the bill though.
Jerry Hagan, Executive Vice President of the Central Florida Police Benevolent Association, said he worries the bill would be too difficult to enforce, and that proving hate as a motivator in court would be easier said than done.
"Make sure that it's a good sound law that can withstand scrutiny,” said Hagan.
Hagan added that he’d like to see organizations like his brought in to discuss the bill or similar measures so that they can be more affective. He said he’s not against this one necessarily, but he wants to make sure it’s done right.
The bill will be considered when the State Legislature reconvenes in January.Four teenagers have been charged with attempted homicide, robbery, assault and other counts after they allegedly tried to rob two state representatives only blocks from the Pennsylvania state capitol and ended up exchanging gunshots on a public street.
State Rep. Marty Flynn, D-Scranton, formerly a prison guard for the Lackawanna County Prison, was walking along the street with Rep. Ryan Bizzarro, D-Erie, late Tuesday after a day of legislative work then dinner out, according to PennLive.com.
The men were confronted by a man who allegedly pulled out a gun and demanded their wallets, police reported.
According to Thom Welby, chief of staff for Flynn, one of the alleged attackers pulled the weapon and demanded money, “to which Rep. Flynn responded with some expressive language that they’re not getting anything from him.”
The suspect, who was described by Welby as “nervous,” then fired a shot, “and Marty pulled his weapon and fired two shots,” Welby told PennLive.
Both lawmakers were uninjured. A statement released later by Democrats in the state House said they were prepared to testify in any court proceeding.
See the WND Superstore’s offerings on the issue of weapons, including “The Future of the Gun,” “The Gun Rights War,” “The Heller Case” and “Armed Response,” among others.
Flynn also said in the statement: “We are used to fighting for the people in our districts every day. We certainly are going to stand up for ourselves and not become victims.”
Both were elected in 2012. With such a short tenure in the legislature, their records were scant, but VoteSmart reported Bizzarro’s rating by the National Rifle Association on gun rights was 92 percent.
Reports say Harrisburg police were charging Jamani Ellison, 17; Jyair Leonard, 15; Derek Anderson, 17, and Zha-quan McGhee, 15, with a laundry list of counts.
The Democratic Caucus report said Flynn turned his weapon over to Harrisburg police when he called 9-1-1, but he is licensed to carry the gun he fired.
At the BearingArms.com blog, Bob Owens wrote: “Unlike most lawmakers, Flynn has extensive first-hand experience with criminals thanks to his former career as a prison guard. He was smart enough to get a concealed carry permit, and carried a concealed weapon for self-defense.”
Owens said that because of Flynn’s “decision to be prepared,” he was able to defend himself.
“While we’re always happier when the criminals are incapacitated and/or apprehended at the scene, the important thing is that Reps. Flynn and Bizzarro are safe … and aren’t likely to ever consider voting for gun control.”A newly-released picture of Mr Moore (left) shows how he has changed Freed British hostage Peter Moore has told how he was subjected to "rough treatment" while in captivity but treated well in the final six months. BBC security correspondent Frank Gardner said Mr Moore had told his family that from June he had even had access to a TV and a Playstation. Our correspondent said Mr Moore and his bodyguards were separated soon after their kidnapping in Iraq in May 2007. The Guardian has claimed Mr Moore and his four bodyguards were held in Iran. Three of the bodyguards were killed; the fourth is also thought to be dead. Iran has dismissed reports of its involvement as "baseless", the AFP news agency has reported. 'House arrest' Frank Gardner said that since June, Mr Moore had been given markedly better treatment by his captors, effectively placed under house arrest, with en suite facilities, access to satellite TV, a laptop - though not online - and a Playstation. This was in contrast to much rougher treatment earlier on in his captivity. Our correspondent said that Mr Moore's bodyguards were treated by their captors as "military personnel", in contrast to Mr Moore, who was treated as a civilian. Mr Moore is expected to return to the UK within days. The Guardian reported that all five were taken to a camp in Iran within a day of being seized. The UK Foreign Office said it had seen the "speculation" about Iran's role in the kidnappings. A spokesman added: "Iran of course has an influence in Iraq, but we have no evidence to substantiate claims of direct involvement in this case." ANALYSIS BBC security correspondent Frank Gardner The findings in the Guardian's year-long investigation into alleged Iranian involvement in kidnapping Britons in Iraq are being disputed by both British and Iraqi government officials. A senior Foreign Office official said that while it was "not impossible" that the British hostages had, at some stage, been taken across the border into Iran, that did not mean the Iranian authorities themselves were behind the kidnapping. The British government view remains that there is no firm evidence to suggest Iranian government involvement. But the Guardian is sticking by its story which includes interviews with a number of people who say Iran's Revolutionary Guards were behind the kidnapping. The Foreign Office agrees there are close links between the kidnappers and Iran's Revolutionary Guards who have provided them and other Iraqi militias with training, funding and weapons. Surprise release poses questions Iran's Revolutionary Guards US General David Petraeus, the US's top military commander in the region, told the BBC earlier this month that he thought "it was 90% certain" the Britons had been held in Iran. But our security correspondent said this was "not the same as saying that this was directed from the top by the Iranian leadership". The Guardian quoted an unnamed former Revolutionary Guard saying: "It was an Iranian kidnap, led by the Revolutionary Guard, carried out by the al-Quds brigade." The newspaper also said a serving Iraqi government minister with close links to Iran had told its reporter it was an Iranian Revolutionary Guard operation. 'Absolutely confident' But Sami al-Askari - an MP and a senior adviser to Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri Maliki - has denied the Guardian's allegation that Iran masterminded the kidnap. The newspaper also alleged that, as the chief negotiator, he flew to Iran several times to talk with the hostage-takers, which he has also denied to the BBC. Mr Askari said he had been involved in talks with the kidnap group inside Iraq, which were continuing over the whereabouts of the final hostage Alan McMenemy, who is thought to be dead. THE GUARDIAN'S ACCOUNT Kidnap takes place at Finance Ministry in Baghdad Hostages taken to Sadr City Guardian claims the hostages are later taken to various locations in Iran, including camps at Qasser Shiereen and Tehran Pars Guardian journalist Maggie O'Kane, who was involved in the investigation, told the BBC: "We are absolutely confident of the work we have done on the story." Frank Gardner said the paper's investigation did not provide conclusive proof the men had been taken to Iran. But he said the witnesses appeared to be credible and some had been re-interviewed by the BBC. Iranian foreign ministry spokesman Ramin Mehmanparast said the Guardian's reports "emanate from the British anger towards the rallies in which millions of Iranians took part to condemn British interference in (Iran's) internal affairs," according to the AFP news agency. Brown thanks Iraqis Mr Moore spent the night after his release at the British Embassy in Baghdad, where he has received medical attention and support as he prepares to return to the UK. He will also receive formal debriefing sessions. Downing Street said Prime Minister Gordon Brown had spoken to his Iraq counterpart Nouri Maliki on Thursday to thank him for his efforts in the release of Mr Moore. "They also discussed shared concerns for Alan McMenemy," said a spokesman. Please turn on JavaScript. Media requires JavaScript to play. The bodies of Mr Moore's British guards Jason Swindlehurst, from Skelmersdale, Lancashire, and Jason Creswell, of Glasgow, were returned to the UK in June 2009, followed by that of Alec MacLachlan, of Llanelli, Carmarthenshire, in September. Mr Moore had been working for US management consultancy Bearingpoint in Iraq, while the other men were security contractors employed to guard him. The kidnappers were understood to belong to an obscure militia known as the Islamic Shia Resistance, which demanded the release of up to nine of their associates held in US military custody since early 2007. Several had already been handed to the Iraqi government and some had since been freed under the reconciliation process. Frank Gardner said a senior Whitehall official had confirmed Qais Al-Khazaali - the leader of the kidnap group - was released "very recently" by the US to the Iraqi authorities. Mr Khazaali had been suspected of involvement in the kidnapping and eventual killing of five US soldiers, he added.
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StumbleUpon What are these? E-mail this to a friend Printable versionI love to see your artwork! If you have a picture you drew or colored that you would like me to see, ask your parents* to send it to my friend Peggy at peggymiller@objectiveministries.org, along with your first name and age. Everyone who sends me a picture will be in my prayers! Here are some of the super pictures that you have sent me...
Howard-Phillips (10) drew Jesus making a new friend! "It shows Jesus with an squid monster named Kootooloo.
Because Jesus loves everybodey,
even squid monsters and sinners.
I hope my pictere will help others find Jesus." Monsters are just God's creations
who haven't been hugged by Jesus yet!
Brittany (13) drew me with Shotacat
showing our love for Jesus! Yay! I don't know who Shotacat is
but I like his style!
Nice shirt!
Jonathan (9) drew this with the help of his big sister... "I have been practising my witnessing techniques
every day before bedtime and when I tried
them on the devil he wanted to be my friend
so here is a picture of me, Jesus and the
devil all being friends together. I hope very
much that Lambuel likes it and comes to play
with us all too." If only the devil would stop being such a jealous meanie
and accept Jesus' Love... then we could all play together
instead of having a huge war! Wouldn't that be nicer?
Matthew (13) shows us what that war might look like... In 1000 YEARS (that's 1/6 the age of the Universe!)
you, me, and all the saved people who disappeared in the Rapture
will descend down from Heaven with Jesus to New Jerusalem and
bring a Final Judgment to the people left behind! Those unsaveds
who rejected the mean old devil will get to stay with Jesus and us in
His Kingdom on New Earth and live forever in our new glorified bodies! Isn't that nice of Him to give the unsaveds a second
chance, even though they rejected Him?
Jesus really does Love everyone!
Great job! Send me more pictures* and remember... Jesus & I You!Justices OK some warrantless searches
WASHINGTON The Supreme Court by an 8-1 vote Monday bolstered police authority to break down a door and seize drugs or other evidence of wrongdoing if officers believe it is being destroyed.
The majority upheld the forced, warrantless entry of a Lexington, Ky., apartment that occurred after police, chasing a suspected drug dealer into a breezeway, focused on an apartment unit because of the smell of marijuana and noises coming from inside. Officers kicked in the door, saying later they believed people were trying to get rid of evidence.
Only Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg dissented, asserting that the majority "today arms the police with a way routinely to dishonor the Fourth Amendment's warrant requirement in drug cases."
Officers had entered the breezeway looking for a man who sold crack cocaine to an undercover informant and then fled. Police heard a door slam, but did not know which of two units the suspected dealer had entered. A marijuana odor was coming from one of the doors.
They knocked on that door, announced they were the police, and, hearing noises, broke down the door. They found Hollis King, defendant in Monday's case, and two other people inside with marijuana and cocaine. (The dealer police had chased was in another apartment.)
By H. Darr Beiser, USA TODAY The ruling tests the 4th Amendment, says Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg.
Monday's case tested the reach of the Fourth Amendment rule that police enter a home only when they have grounds to suspect wrongdoing and have obtained a warrant from a judge. A key exception — at issue here — arises when police believe evidence is being destroyed or some other emergency is underway.
The question was whether police may enter based on urgent circumstances if officers have essentially created those circumstances, for example, by causing occupants to panic and try to destroy drug evidence by flushing it down a toilet.
The Kentucky Supreme Court had ruled that the drug evidence should not have been used against King because the urgent situation police cited was of their making. The state court said officers would have known that their actions at the door would lead to noise and commotion inside.
Reversing that decision Monday, Justice Samuel Alito wrote for the majority that as long as police do not create the urgent circumstances by threatening to barge in without grounds, officers have met the Fourth Amendment rule. Alito said officers should not vow to break down the door if the occupants fail to voluntarily open up, and he stressed that people do not have to open their door to police who do not have a warrant.
"Occupants who choose not to stand on their constitutional rights but instead elect to attempt to destroy evidence have only themselves to blame for the warrantless exigent-circumstances search that may ensue," Alito wrote, joined by Chief Justice John Roberts and Justices Antonin Scalia, Anthony Kennedy, Clarence Thomas, Stephen Breyer, Sonia Sotomayor and Elena Kagan.
Dissenting in Kentucky v. King, Ginsburg wrote, "In lieu of presenting their evidence to a neutral magistrate, police officers may now knock, listen, then break the door down, nevermind that they had ample time to obtain a warrant."
Brent Jones. For publication consideration in the newspaper, send comments to For more information about reprints & permissions, visit our FAQ's. To report corrections and clarifications, contact Standards Editor. For publication consideration in the newspaper, send comments to letters@usatoday.com. Include name, phone number, city and state for verification. To view our corrections, go to corrections.usatoday.comKeurig Green Mountain–The maker of single-serve brewing systems announced a 9 percent price increase for its pods and bulk coffee products, effective November 3.
Cisco Systems—The networking equipment maker reported fiscal fourth quarter profitof 55 cents per share, excluding certain items, two cents above estimates. Revenue was also above consensus, but the company also announced current quarter revenue would be flat to slightly higher, and said it would cut 6,000 jobs or eight percent of its workforce.
Amgen–Amgen said its Kyprolis drug did not improve survival rates in a trial of patients suffering from advanced multiple myeloma. The biotech giant also said the trial showed an increase in negative effects affecting kidney function compared to a control group.
Noodles & Co–Noodles missed estimates by two cents with second quarter earnings of 12 cents per share, excluding certain items, with revenue also falling below analyst forecasts. The restaurant chain cut its full-year outlook, although it did say it had a "solid finish" to the second quarter and a positive start to the current quarter.
Overstock.com—Chief executive officer Patrick Byrne told Reuters the online retailer's acceptance of Bitcoin will add four cents per share to its earnings for 2014.
Tekmira Pharmaceuticals–Tekmira said it was discussing options for distributing its experimental Ebola treatment with various governments around the world, noting the difficulties that stem from its status as a yet-to-be-approved drug.
UPS, FedEx–The two companies have received licenses that allow the companies to extend their express package services to new cities in China.
General Electric–GE is in talks with Sweden's Electrolux and consumer product development startup Quirky to sell its household appliances business, according to Bloomberg. The business could reportedly bring in as much as $2 billion.
Avago Technologies—Avago sold its Axxia Networking Business to Intel in a $650 million cash deal. Axxia was part of LSI, which Avago bought late last year.
Burger King Worldwide–The fast food giant is dropping its lower calorie "Satisfries," which were not a hit with customers since their introduction less than a year ago.
—By CNBC's Peter Schacknow
Questions? Comments? Email us at marketinsider@cnbc.comFor a century now, Republicans have confused being the party of plutocrats with being the party of prosperity. Thus Mitt Romney.
To win back the so-called 47 percent—an insulting description Romney doubled down after the election when he blamed his loss on Obama’s “gifts”—Republican might look farther back, past Calvin Coolidge and Herbert Hoover to their first president, Abraham Lincoln.
Not only did he spring from the ranks of the plebeian, not the preps, but—as Michael Lind points out in What Lincoln Believed—he aimed to both increase opportunity and expand national power. A corporate attorney, he backed railroad interests and their expansion, which paced the nation’s economic ascendancy, but saw this as part of creating greater opportunity, particularly in the West, for the country’s middle and working classes. He also enacted the Homestead Act, which supplied aspiring settlers with a gift: 160 acres of federal land.
Whether or not these acts were populist in their intent, their effects helped people achieve their aspirations. Expansion westward was nothing less than the basis of the American dream, allowing millions, many from land-poor and feudalized Europe, an opportunity to strike out on their own.
This aspirational element should be the centerpiece of the Republican message in this age of growing class bifurcation. The loss of upward mobility long predates President Obama, though it has accelerated under him—with median household incomes down by more than $4,000 since he took office. Even the tepid economy has not done much to improve middle-class fortunes since nearly three-fifths of new jobs are in lower-wage positions.
Without some unforeseen economic rebound, class issues will dominate our politics in the future even more than they do today. To recover, Republicans, now losing consistently (and often deservedly) on cultural issues, need to outmaneuver the Democrats on their ability to provide opportunity and upward mobility to a broad range of Americans.
In his time, Lincoln understood the usefulness of class warfare. Tied to industrial interests, he waged a bloody class war on the slave-owning gentry of the South, a group so detestable it makes today’s Wall Street elites seem almost saintly by comparison. Financiers and industrialists may have supported this brutal war between the states, but it was largely aspiring yeoman farmers, skilled workers, and small merchants—all beneficiaries of Lincoln’s expansive economic vision—who fought it.
In recent decades, Republicans—conscious of their patrician backers—have suppressed thinking about class, often criticizing Democrats for having no such scruples.
This made them unable to turn issues such as the bank bailouts to their favor; Romney, himself an economic royalist, could not bring himself to denounce the administration’s policies that have worked out wonderfully for large banks now enjoying record profits while pummeling the middle class.
In the past, Republican deflected class concerns by focusing on cultural issues, national defense, or ideology—but these tactics have worn themselves out. Of course, some conservatives will blame their defeat on a candidate of uncertain convictions and without commitment to the social regressive policies. Yet evangelicals mounted a record effort to get out the vote; it’s hard to see how Romney would have done better trying to sound more like Todd Akin and Richard Mourdock.
What should concern Republicans was declining turnout in traditionally GOP-leaning suburbs, the very places where middle-class professionals and business owners reside. These voters were not energized by Romney. So even though he improved the GOP’s 2008 vote among the middle class and independents, Romney’s total was about 1,000,000 below that of John McCain. Had Romney equaled McCain’s performance in four states (Florida, Ohio, Virginia, and Colorado), he would have won, rather than losing to a president who received 7 million fewer votes than in the previous election.
Let’s take a measurement of base stagnation: the nation’s population has grown 20 million since George Bush was elected in 2004, but the GOP vote has actually shrunk. This correlates as well with a stunning decline of roughly 8 million white voters compared to 2008. The white population may be getting old, but it’s not dying off that rapidly.
This low turnout is remarkable given how unfavorably Obama is viewed by much of the yeoman class. In fact, as Gallup notes, nearly 60 percent of small-business owners disapprove of Obama. The problem was many simply did not see Romney as a viable—let alone an attractive—alternative. In contrast, the Obama team did a far better job of turning out their base of minority, youth, single and childless women, and union members—an effort that delivered their margin of victory in swing states including Ohio, Nevada, and Colorado.
To change the political dynamic, Republicans need to address class concerns, particularly those of small property owners and aspirant small entrepreneurs. Yet the GOP has no program for this group other than lower taxes and hollow promises to cut the budget (which, of course, they have not done, even when holding both houses of Congress and the presidency). The party’s hodgepodge of corporate managerialism, social regressiveness, and, above all, protection of the plutocratic class is demonstrably not compelling to most Americans.
It’s hard for a Main Street business owner, or sole proprietor working from home, to relate to a plutocrat, like Romney, who pays lower effective tax rates than they do. Outrage against looming tax hikes would be justifiable, if the true motivation were not so plainly to preserve the privileges of the haute bourgeoisie. This is a politically doomed approach; while small business is widely revered by Americans, big business and banks are among the least well-regarded.
Class also would provide a means to define negatively the current regime. Instead of making silly attacks on President Obama as a “socialist,” he would be more accurately portrayed as the tribune of both the crony capitalists on Wall Street or Silicon Valley and of big labor, particularly public-employee unions. Obama should also be toxic to grassroots entrepreneurs, who will bear the brunt of the new regulatory regime, health-care system, higher energy prices, as well as rising income taxes.
Rather than label him as a radical, Republicans should identify him as an avatar of those who are doing best in our concussed economy, and presumably want things to stay that way. His most ardent backers include many of our richest, most celebrated citizens—fabulously wealthy Hollywood types, the Silicon Valley elite as well as those controlling our major media and universities. There’s a reason Obama bested Romney in eight of America’s 10 richest counties.
In Marin County, Calif.—where Obama claimed nearly 75 percent of the vote—expensive energy and higher housing prices represent not a burden but an environmental good, and, when it comes to housing, an economic opportunity for some to benefit from artificial, government-imposed scarcity. Ban new single-family homes, and the value of the existing stock goes up; for the elite investing class, incentives for “green energy” developments offer insider opportunities to enjoy windfall profits at the expense of middle-class-rate payers.
If Wall Street wants to join the “progressive” gentry parade again, as it did in 2008, Republican should encourage them. Being the candidate of the phenomenally unpopular financial overclass may have bought Romney the nomination, but it sealed his fate in the general election.
To reclaim its Lincolnesque transformation, the GOP needs to fundamentally pivot on the role of government. Laissez-faire ideology has its merits, but cannot compete successfully with a population weaned on the welfare state, whose members are keenly attuned to their vulnerability in our volatile era.
By admitting that government is sometimes a necessary partner in nurturing and sometimes financing infrastructure critical for economic expansion, Republicans can offer their own vision of what growth-inducing services such as new roads—as opposed to the increased regulation and transfer payments and pension bloat peddled by Democrats—government can and should provide. This could appeal to Hispanics, Asians, and younger people who would be the prime beneficiaries of tangible investments.
As generational chroniclers Morley Winograd and Mike Hais have suggested, most younger people support government action to solve problems but generally dislike the kind of top-down solutions often supported by Democrats. As these voters age, seek to buy homes and start businesses, they might listen to a sensible alternative that does not seek to enhance the left-wing clerisy’s ambition to control all aspects of their lives.
It’s time for Republicans to break with the traditions of Goldwater, Reagan, and, particularly, Bush and shift to something more akin to the party’s roots in the mid-19th century. This party needs less preaching and libertarian manifestos that essentially defend plutocracy. Instead it’s time to embrace class warfare on today’s gentry, and embrace the aspirations of today’s middle-class. Honest Abe in 2016?
Joel Kotkin is executive editor of NewGeography.com and is a distinguished presidential fellow in urban futures at Chapman University, and contributing editor to the City Journal in New York. He is author of The City: A Global History. His newest book is The Next Hundred Million: America in 2050, released in February, 2010.
This piece originally appeared at The Daily Beast.
Lincoln Memorial photo by Bigstock.I’ve posted before on the propensity of Trump supporters to engage in violence and Trump’s propensity to play the role of the little, loud-mouthed sixth grader on the sidelines inciting other so fight (see here | here, for example). Having said that, as the primary season has continued it has become obvious that the protest movement that sprung up about Trump’s campaign is every bit as unhinged as Trump’s most rabid neo-nazi supporters.
The leading edge of this effect took place in early March when scuffles between Trump protesters and supporters forced the cancellation of a rally in Chicago. The situation has turned uglier, now riots requiring police intervention are nearly a part of the Trump campaign.
On April 28, a peaceful protest against Trump in Costa Mesa metastasized into a street riot that led to clashes between anti-Trump protesters and police.
Police in riot gear working to clear protesters at Trump rally after police cars were damaged @CBSLA @KCBSKCALDesk pic.twitter.com/GrQm5qDgQ5 — Chris Ercoli (@CERCOLICBS) April 29, 2016
May 25, Trump was in Anaheim, CA,
In Albuquerque, May 24, several police officers received injuries in this riot
Yesterday, in San Jose, CA, Trump supporters who, apparently, were simply trying to go to a Trump rally were attacked:
In San Jose, however, the violence had the imprimatur of the mayor of the city:
The mayor of San Jose, Democrat Sam Liccardo, reacted angrily to the events. Not that he was particularly upset at the violent mob that attacked innocent Americans, of course. No, his ire was directed at Mr. Trump. “At some point Donald Trump needs to take responsibility for the irresponsible behavior of his campaign,” the mayor said. Apparently it was downright “irresponsible” of Trump to even set foot in California’s third largest city.
It appears that the same crop of psychos who wore papier-mache puppets to protest “globalization” over a decade ago have found a new target for their energies. The protests directed at Trump are actually a mask used to disguise their true purpose which is to create havoc.
This type of behavior is nuts. Protesting Trump is fine, even laudable, but rioting pretty much makes the case Trump is trying to make in a way that Trump, himself, never can. The rioting associated with the anti-Trump protests have gone beyond scuffles with pro-Trump hooligans. Now the targets are police, property, and innocent bystanders. The same sort of reaction is possible that happened during the Vietnam War when campus protests directed at the draft moved to domestic terrorism and Kerry-esque collaboration with the North Vietnamese created the “hard hat riot” of May 8, 1970
By making street violence synonymous with anti-Trump demonstrations, the demonstrators are perversely making themselves the issue and Trump a palatable alternative to their excess. It is almost as if Trump had hired them to make his point.
It is only a matter of time until someone gets seriously injured or killed in one of these performances… and you can bet that person will not be involved in the riot. All is needed is one person trying to attend a Trump rally getting killed and we will be on the edge of Horst Wessel territory.Erdoğan to banks: Ease loans or you’ll face us
ANKARA
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan called on the financial sector on Jan. 17 to open the taps of credit or face a reckoning.“Unless those who control the finance sector open the credit taps to entrepreneurs and investors, they will face us,” he said in Ankara, adding that loans should be offered at lower interest rates.“When the credit taps open with lower rates in a more decent manner, the investors will become more competitive,” he said.“In such a climate, it would be easier for Turkey to climb,” said Erdoğan.Erdoğan favors low interest rates to spur growth, a philosophy that has put him at odds with international investors who say Turkey’s Central Bank needs to aggressively hike rates to stave off inflation.“When some people call for you to keep your money in banks, what does it mean? It means give your money to the owners of the financial institutions and give them an opportunity to make a big haul without making any investments,” he said.Erdoğan also said the Turkish economy has been “under attack” since 2013.“I describe those who ruthlessly use the money as economic terrorists, as there is no other way,” he added.“Who can deny that the latest fluctuations in the foreign exchange rates are not based on any rational reasons and that the main point is to slow down the economy?” Erdoğan said.“There are some people who are uncomfortable with my words. I am in charge. I have to say it. The people have asked me to protect their rights, and I have to do this to the end,” he added.According to Erdoğan, there is an economic message behind all terror attacks.“If Istanbul, our most significant brand, is attacked by the Kurdistan Workers’ Party one day and by the DAESH another day, can we ignore the hidden motivation which aims at slowing down the economy? One kilo of tomatoes rises to 7-8 liras in the market…This is too high,” he said, adding that the all these issues were discussed in a meeting with top economy officials late on Jan. 16.“We need to find a solution to all these problems,” he added.Erdoğan also said he talked to his Russian counterpart, Vladimir Putin, to boost trade ties.“We want to sell tomatoes and grapes to Russia. We want to boost our ties with Russia and increase our exports there. They should also import our products on a lira basis. In such a way, we can get rid of forex pressure,” he added.CONTEST: WIN TIX TO 'TATTOOS & SCRIMSHAW' Here's how to nab one of seven 'group passes' to TATTOOS AND SCRIMSHAW: The Art of the Sailor: Vancouver Maritime Museum's spring and summer exhibit celebrates the long history of nautical tattoos and sailor art, with a blend of historical artifacts, archival photos, and contemporary photography. Bring your tattoo'ed sailor grandpa, or the friend you got those (regrettable?) tattoos with when you were 19. If Grade Four was the last time you went to Vancouver's Maritime Museum, you're in for a refreshing treat. Whether you're interested in tattooing culture, maritime culture or both, this exhibit will inform and entertain. For more info, and to enter the contest, click here. Contest deadline is Wednesday, March 20.
How to Read Prison Tattoos read more
Announcements, Events & more from Tyee and select partners ‘Punch to the Gut’ Musical on Residential Schools Returns to Vancouver Children of God has been shaped by intense audience reactions, says director Corey Payette.
At first glance, Chris Hold and the Vancouver Maritime Museum may seem an unlikely pair. Having received his first tattoo at the age of 18, the 36-year-old has since amassed a healthy collection: a kewpie mermaid, a bullfighter, a rose -- visual reminders of places visited, as well as a representation of the work of influential artists from around the world. However, Hold is also a tattoo artist himself, and as such, has donated a considerable amount of artwork, equipment and expertise to the museum's latest exhibit, one which explores the best-known of the maritime arts: tattoo and scrimshaw.
"Without sailors, I really don't think tattooing would be what it is today," Hold explains. "It's a tradition that will probably never go away. And we as tattooers survived on the sailor's fascination with tattoo images, and a lot of those images were created just for them -- tailor-made for particular divisions and particular occupations within a ship. It was pretty co-dependent."
The exhibit, due to open March 14, also features contemporary photography, illustrations, equipment, tattoo "flash", and dozens of pieces of scrimshaw (engravings made on whalebone) carved by generations of scrimshanders. All of which serves to illuminate the unique connection between these vastly different art forms, and the seafarers with whom they are linked.
"There was a rhyme to the reason," says Patricia Owen, the museum's curator. "Tattoos for sailors were like a code for a select group. You could look at another sailor, and you could know where they'd travelled."
For early sailors, Hold notes, a tattoo was as much an identity statement as it was a description of achievements and places visited: a single anchor to denote passage across the Pacific, a dragon to indicate time spent in the Orient. A palm tree to show service in Hawaii. Crossed anchors indicated that the sailor was a boatswain or a boatswain's mate, while crossed cannons signified service in the navy. And, although "sailor" tattoos evolved and rose to prominence in the North America of the 20th century, both Owen and Hold are quick to note that the practice has existed for thousands of years.
"Tattooing has existed in all areas of the world for a very long time," explains Owen, who wrote her master's thesis on Haida tattoos. "The idea of marking on the body isn't something new. The connotations in western society -- especially in the olden days, were negative. It's written in the bible in a negative context.... It was associated with prisoners or deviant behaviours. But in various indigenous cultures of the world, it was revered. It was seen as a form of beauty, or status, or cultural identity."
"It's always been practiced, since prehistory," Hold notes. "People have been poking each other with sticks with charcoal on them for 5,000-plus years.... It's been used punitively, it's been used as tribal marking -- there are so many applications."
Though it was often historically treated as an unsavoury practice (The Book of Leviticus, for example, sternly prohibits the marking of the flesh), tattooing has been practiced for more than 7,000 years, on everyone from unwilling prisoners, to sailors, to royalty, to members of Europe's upper class. Otzi the Iceman, Europe's oldest natural human mummy (dating from at least 5300 BCE), bears a number of distinct tattoo markings. Polynesian cultures, New Zealand's Maori in particular, would bear elaborate markings on their faces and bodies which gave information on genealogy and family affiliation. However, the the art form had all but disappeared in Europe by the 18th century, until the voyages of James Cook brought it back to national prominence.
"Both sexes paint their Bodys, Tattow, as it is called in their Language," Cook wrote in July of 1769, observing the practice in Tahiti. "This is done by inlaying the Colour of Black under their skins, in such a manner as to be indelible... As this is a painful operation, especially the Tattowing of their Buttocks, it is performed but once in their Lifetimes."
Tattooed elites
Cook's fascination with the practice -- not to mention the fact that his botanist Joseph Banks returned with a tattoo of his own -- touched off a minor frenzy amongst Europe's upper class; King George V, Kaiser Wilhelm II, and later Winston Churchill are all said to have sported tattoos of varying degrees of complexity. In fact, it is a result of Cook's voyage that the word "tattoo" exists in the West at all -- derived from the Tahitian "tatau." From there, tattooing made its leap to the United States (the first recorded instance of the practice is during the Civil War), where it remained closely linked with both sailors and the |
But people involved in the process said it was not just foreign policy that tilted the balance. They said Mr. Obama’s decision had as much to do with Mr. Biden’s appeal among white working-class voters and compelling personal story, and his conclusion that the Delaware senator was “a worker.”
The plans for the announcement began to take shape in early July. Until the end, aides said, a small team inside the Chicago headquarters planned for four possibilities: Mr. Biden, Mr. Bayh, Gov. Tim Kaine of Virginia and Gov. Kathleen Sebelius of Kansas. Speeches were written, media plans were made and private planes were at the ready to take any of the four to Springfield, Ill.
Mr. Biden was hardly considered a likely pick at the start of the process. His reputation for verbosity was Washington legend. While he impressed at the debates by defying expectations with his brevity, his presidential campaign foundered and ended quickly.
“I think in his heart of hearts he thought in the end he wouldn’t get it,” said Gov. Edward G. Rendell of Pennsylvania, a friend. “During the vetting process you mostly hear why you wouldn’t be a good candidate,” he added, naming “the change issue” and “some of the things he said during the campaign.”
But Mr. Biden had some powerful patrons in his corner whose opinions Mr. Obama respected, like Mr. Rendell; Representative Rahm Emanuel of Illinois, the chairman of the House Democratic caucus; and Senator Edward M. Kennedy of Massachusetts — not only a respected Senate lion but also uncle to a senior member of Mr. Obama’s vetting team, Caroline Kennedy.
As the vetting team sorted through Mr. Biden’s financial statements, political statements and medical records, Mr. Obama’s top political aides — Mr. Axelrod chief among them — reached out to friends in Mr. Obama’s orbit to get a sense of what sort of politician Mr. Biden was. The results belied Mr. Biden’s reputation. Reports came back that he was not only potentially more energetic and disciplined than widely known, but also that he had a distinct appeal suited to the areas throughout the industrial Midwest where Mr. Obama had struggled in the primaries.
But Mr. Obama was seeking a running mate with whom he would be comfortable governing for four or eight years, a bit of advice Senator John Kerry of Massachusetts had given him.
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“I get the sense that he was quite serious about thinking through about the nature of who his partner will be there and, I think, the role of the vice president as a future partner in government,” said David Wilhelm, a former chairman of the Democratic National Committee, who worked on Mr. Biden’s 1988 presidential campaign and is close to Mr. Obama.
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“I think it’s easy to give that sort of thing short shrift,” he added, “so ‘what kind of partner I’m getting’ mattered quite a bit.”
Much of the process unfolded in silence as dozens of lawyers completed their tedious assignments for the vice-presidential vetting team. They conducted lengthy sit-down interviews with at least six Democratic prospects, and they demanded thousands of pages of documents, including copies of speeches delivered more than two decades ago.
In addition to the four ultimate finalists, Democratic officials said, Gov. Bill Richardson of New Mexico and Senator Christopher J. Dodd of Connecticut were also among those who received extensive consideration. Teams of lawyers, at least 10 for some candidates, were assembled to inspect finances, medical histories and political backgrounds of the prospective candidates and their families.
In an interview Saturday, Mr. Richardson said that Mr. Obama called him soon after he claimed the nomination on June 3 to tell him that he wanted to put him on his list of prospects. But, Mr. Richardson said, Mr. Obama warned him that it would be an intensive process, and asked him to consider whether he was up for it. (After checking with his wife, Mr. Richardson said, he called back to say he was.)
Mr. Obama called to check in with him midway through the process, Mr. Richardson said, before his vacation to Hawaii. As always, Mr. Obama dialed Mr. Richardson himself from his cellphone. Mr. Richardson said he told Mr. Obama that he had not seen his name on lists in the news media, and Mr. Obama responded by saying, “No, you’re in this thing.”
Mr. Richardson was alerted weeks later that his vetting process had gone well, he said, but late last week — he would not say exactly when — Mr. Obama called to thank him and tell him, “I’ve made up my mind, and we’re going in another direction.”
In the waning days, several people close to Mr. Bayh said he remained upbeat over the possibility that he would be Mr. Obama’s choice. He had met with Mr. Obama several times, and the amount of information Mr. Obama’s staff had asked for was beyond anything Mr. Bayh — who has been in contention for the vice-presidential position at least twice before — had experienced.
Mr. Biden, meanwhile, was viewed as undercutting himself with his own behavior as reporters staked out his Delaware residence. When Mr. Biden returned home in his white pickup truck from a garbage dump and made an off-color joke to camera crews last week, an e-mail message circulated among Mr. Bayh’s closest associates that read, “Keep talking Joe, please keep talking.”
He did not.Hillary Clinton likes to claim that she represents the average everyday workers and the middle class. This was just an attempt to swoon Bernie Sanders’ supporters after she cheated to beat him in the primary.
Hillary Clinton only thinks of herself and is deeply embedded in the mega banks and Wall Street, shown by the millions of dollars she raised in her Super PACS from Wall Street and the hundreds of thousands of dollars she was paid for speeches.
Now WikiLeaks has just exposed the truth of how Hillary Clinton will really operate if she were to get elected.
Remember all of those times in every single debate that Hillary claimed that she would give tax cuts to the middle class?
Wrong. She never had any intention of doing so.
Clinton: "I don't think this is time for a middle class tax cut"#ImVotingBecause #podestaemails34 pic.twitter.com/3yhFX2lpP9 — TakebackAmerica2016 (@Fight4America16) November 8, 2016
It’s not the “right time” for a middle class tax cut because it wouldn’t benefit Hillary Clinton personally.
“I don’t think this is the right time for a middle class tax cut. I think liberals will see it a craven 90s centrism driven out of fear and liberals seem to be driving the narrative these days.”
The only time that Hillary Clinton will do something that will benefit other people is when it benefits her as well.
Hillary Clinton is the most corrupt and two-faced politician in United States history. She doesn’t care about the average workers or the middle class like she claims over and over again. She only cares about herself and that is why she should not hold the office of President and represent the entire country.
The president speaks for all of the people and does things to help the country, not destroy them like Hillary will do.
Thank you Julian Assange and WikiLeaks for helping reveal the truth in Hillary Clinton’s lies.
Share this everywhere to end Hillary Clinton in the polls tomorrow!Larry David may have taken his misanthropic routine too far, insulting all Romanian, Hungarian, and Bulgarian women in the latest episode of Curb Your Enthusiasm. The joke was pretty uncomfortable and lasted far too long, like most jokes in the latest season of Curb. What’s worse, David returned to the same Romanian Uber driver again and started insulting his country’s women, again. While that’s a classic move for Larry David, it’s getting really fucking old watching Larry be downright insulting to people.
Curb Your Enthusiasm is typically very clever, but the latest season has been trending downward from the start, with unimaginably uncomfortable scenes, like the plane ride, that last far too long. Not to mention the incredibly derivative jokes that have been played out in the years since David was last on TV (the awkward movie theater scene). He seems to have forgotten that good jokes have a basis in reality, whether stereotypes or not, and I’ve never heard anything that would make this Romanian women-bashing funny. Additionally, the joke carelessly assumes that the Hungarians and Romanians look the same.
While it’s part of Larry’s shtick to call people on their bullshit, a man as ugly as him should not be insulting the appearance of anybody, let alone an entire country. Like it says in the episode, you’re a ‘2 out of 5’ at best Larry, wake up. No one believes you could actually get Elizabeth Banks or Lauren Graham in real life or on screen, and now that you’ve used this joke 15 times it’s lost any humor it had.
Curb Your Enthusiasm has turned into Larry David’s fantasy world, where he dates unobtainable women and engages in incidents that would get his ass beat in real life. More evidence of this trend came when he made a holocaust joke while hosting SNL. As Salon put it, the monologue was “more evidence of a comic unable to update his views…or his act.” While David may think his racial and ethnic jokes are pushing the boundaries of comedy, he’s actually just insulting a shitload of people and it’s getting pretty uncomfortable.
Related Reading
Larry David Apologizes on SNL for Concentration Camp Jokes
Why Larry David’s Holocaust Joke Was So Uncomfortable
Has Larry David officially curbed our enthusiasm?Squalid press releases… Opportunistically orchestrated (Italy & beyond)
Translated from informa-azione.
From terrorists to repugnant individuals, the words used by the press to describe anarchists may change but the substance of the police operations against them remains the same. In a time when growing social uneasiness is swinging between the possibility to stir conflicts against those responsible for total exploitation and the risk of generating a great number of little wars among the poor, it is important for politicians and bosses to spread the idea that those who oppose the misery of the present are worthless madcap people who are threatening everybody’s ‘security’.
The word ‘terrorist’ has served this purpose for a long time by distorting the meaning of the struggles. In spite of the obsessive use of this epithet it has never been difficult to sent the accusation back to its sender and expose the nature of the real producers of global terror. However, the abuse of this word has diminished its evocative power and, consequently, the ability to see the responsibilities of the powerful, thus concealing the reasons of those who attack the interests of capital.
Perhaps this is why the portrait of those who are struggling against the horrors of capitalism is taking on different shapes. After the clashes of the 15th October in Rome, it seems that the journalists of the regime are developing the idea that those who oppose the authority’s violence with violence are animated by blind and meaningless anger.
The most outstanding and shameless example of this is offered by an article recently published by the weekly ‘L’Espresso’, signed by Lirio Abbate and promptly picked by the TV show ‘I fatti vostri [Your business]’ (that’s it!) on RAI 2 channel.
In this article some anarchists of Bologna, charged with organized crime and for this reason put in jail for a few months, are described as individuals with squalid squad tendencies who would plan attacks against homosexuals or harmless Pakistanis and be ready to throw acid on the faces of Muslim women. It doesn’t matter that most of the charges against them are due to initiatives against migrant detention centres and in solidarity with the immigrants locked up in there. Rather than pointing out this contradiction, which could weaken the lies told by the servant journalists, this very contradiction is being used to strengthen the depiction of completely unreliable individuals who would carry out meaningless actions, pushed by repugnant feelings. The ‘dangerous’ links between anarchists and immigrants, established during years of struggles and initiatives, must be broken.
Moreover, in times pregnant with tensions that could blow up at any moment even in this country, anarchist ideas and practices run the risk of becoming dangerously attractive and understandable by the majority. Therefore the guardians of social order are stirring the idea that the only possible alternative to social misery is a reactionary war of everybody against everybody.
Anarchists have always been on the side of the exploited in struggle and ready for conflict throughout the years. By presenting them as individuals animated by the worst racist feelings, power is nourishing the idea of the ineluctability of this world. The authorities think they are dealing with idiotic men and women, who will believe whatever they are told.
Beyond the disgust we feel while reporting this media rubbish worth prestigious awards, we think we should reflect on these repressive outcomes and then engage in a thorough discussion.
Now that the river is in full spate they are trying to divert the waters of a furious rivulet.
From Bologna.
–
Translator’s note
It comes as no surprise that journalists, the most faithful servants of power, love to produce disgusting reports, especially when they deal with rebels and anarchist comrades. The article of ‘L’Espresso’ mentioned in the leaflet is just one of countless examples of journalistic rubbish, and in this case it is so repulsive that it deserves no attention.
It can be interesting to flip through newspapers sometimes, but what the vultures of the press, fuck them, have to say about our comrades is totally irrelevant. To hell with it. Fuoriluogo, a beautiful anarchist place in Bologna, was raided and closed down by the cops in April, and six comrades were jailed for about five months. Recently released on bail under restrictions, these comrades and a number of others will face trial soon. We must be close to them at a time when they risk heavy sentences for having always denounced power and all its servants, for having always struggled for freedom and against exploitation with generosity and tenacity. Solidarity with them should come from everywhere, with any means, because when our comrades are hit by repression, no matter where, we are all under attack.
Let’s leave the rubbish to the journalists.
B.pd
Tags: Bologna, Economic Crisis, Fuck the Mainstream Media, Italy, Migrants, Repression
This entry was posted on Tuesday, November 15th, 2011 at 2:54 am and is filed under Social Control.NEW YORK -- Former New York Yankees outfielder Shane Spencer was the victim of a hoax in which an impersonator called an Albany radio station on Monday and made steroid allegations involving the Yankees teams Spencer played on between 1998 and 2002.
A podcast of the interview, with host Mike Lindsley of ESPN Radio 104.5 The Team, remained on the station's website until nearly 6 p.m. Tuesday until it was taken down after the hoax was discovered.
By then, the content of the interview -- the bogus "Spencer'' claimed to have taken steroids as a Yankee -- had reached the Yankees clubhouse; Derek Jeter, whose name was mentioned by the hoaxster, listened to it shortly before Tuesday's game against the Angels and had Charlie Wonsowicz, the Yankees head video coordinator, call the real Shane Spencer in the clubhouse of the Somerset Patriots of the independent Atlantic League, for whom he serves as the hitting coach.
"I listened to (the interview) for about a minute and I about threw up,'' Spencer told ESPNNewYork.com by telephone Tuesday night. "I just want it out there that it wasn't me.''
Later Tuesday, Spencer provided a statement to "The Michael Kay Show" on ESPN New York 98.7 FM:
"In response to an interview that ESPN Radio 104.5 FM host Mike Lindsley claims to have done with me on Tuesday afternoon, I would like to set the record straight that I did not participate in any such interview.
"Someone called into the station claiming to be me and spoke on my behalf regarding some very sensitive topics surrounding baseball. This caller spoke as me about topics ranging from steroids, to my time with the New York Yankees, Roger Clemens, and my feelings about the great Mariano Rivera.
"I am outraged that someone would do this and at the same time disappointed that the station believed it to be me despite not coming from the contact information they had for me.
"I am hearing about this interview from friends, family, former teammates, and fans. It is very disappointing that someone was able to go on the air as me and speak for me about these topics.
"I would like to set the record straight that the interview was not done with me and all the opinions were not mine.''
Spencer, who batted.263 with 43 home runs and 167 RBIs in five seasons with the Yankees, also vehemently denied ever using steroids.
"I try to be a positive role model,'' he said. "I never touched the stuff.''
According to Spencer, a member of three Yankees world championship teams, he and Lindsley exchanged emails over the weekend trying to set up an interview for Monday afternoon, but could never settle on a time.
Still, a man identifying himself as Shane Spencer called into the station about 1:30 p.m. Monday, and was put on the air for nearly a half-hour, during which he spun tales of drug use in baseball, and on the Yankees, during his time with the club.
"It's embarrassing,'' the real Spencer said. "It's almost like I want to drive to Yankee Stadium and apologize.''
Station officials said they were investigating who might have perpetrated the hoax.
"We just want to do the right thing by Shane Spencer,'' said Stephen Giuttari, the station's director of operations.NBC10 obtained new surveillance video of a mob style attack that injured three students, a campus officer and a police horse at Temple University Friday. Four teens were arrested in connection to the attack. (Published Tuesday, Oct. 25, 2016)
Four juveniles were arrested in a series of flash mob-style attacks on Temple University's campus this weekend that left students and police officers hurt, police and university officials said.
Groups of young people, estimated to number between 20 to 100, roved the school's North Philadelphia campus Friday night for nearly two hours causing havoc, authorities said.
Students were punched and kicked, an officer tossed to the ground and stones were thrown at passing cars, police said. Officers from three agencies — the Philadelphia Police Department, Temple University police and SEPTA police —responded to the incidents.
4 Juveniles Arrested in Mob-Style Attacks at Temple University
At least five people were assaulted around Temple University’s campus Friday night, including students and one police officer during mob-style attacks. NBC10 found out what changes the school is making to protect its students. (Published Monday, Oct. 24, 2016)
As many as six Temple students were hurt in the attacks as they walked around campus between 8 p.m. and 9:30 p.m. that night, along with a university police officer and a Philadelphia police horse.
Top News Photos: R. Kelly Leaves Jail After Paying Bond
One student, who was not identified, told the college news site The Tab she was walking with her boyfriend near 16th and Oxford streets around 8 p.m. when they were attacked by two kids.
The student told the news site her boyfriend was able to run away but she was grabbed by the hair and beaten on her head and back.
“I somehow got to the other side of Oxford Street by the time they got me to the ground. I remember shoes coming for my face and after that I heard other kids from the group saying ‘Yo chill, yo chill, it’s just a girl’ and they pulled my attackers off me," she reportedly said.
Police said a 20-year-old man also fell victim to an attack by kids from this group.
At 9 p.m., a Temple police officer was tossed to the ground, landing on top of her patrol bike, while trying to apprehend a 15-year-old boy who was seen throwing rocks at cars driving along Broad Street, police said.
The teen was running from officers when he attacked the patrolwoman, police said. She suffered bruises to her leg and a scrape to her knee. The teen was apprehended a block away.
About 10 minutes later, a 15-year-old teen walked up to an equine officer and punched the animal in the head and face at Broad Street and Cecil B. Moore Avenue, police said. The mounted officer had been dispatched to help disperse as many as 100 kids at that corner.
He was arrested following a short chase.
Another attack happened about 10 minutes after that, around 9:20 p.m., along the 1700 block of Cecil B. Moore Avenue. Three teens, an 18-year-old girl and two 19-year-old boys, were beaten down by as many as 30 young people, police said.
The girl suffered scrapes and cuts to her legs. Her cellphone was smashed and debit card stolen. Between the boys, an iPhone, wallet, backpack and Bluetooth wireless speaker was taken, according to police.
The suspects in this attack have not yet been arrested.
In all, as many as 50 juveniles were taken into custody and four — ranging in age from 15 to 17 years old — were charged with crimes. The charges include aggravated assault, robbery and assaulting a police officer.
Temple spokesman Ray Betzner said Friday the juveniles played a "cat-and-mouse game" with officers. A campus alert warning students and staff was sent around 9:30 p.m.
Joe Lauletta, the father of one of the apparent victims, posted an angry message to Facebook about his daughter's attack.
He said the youth who attacked his daughter "held her down and kicked and stomped on her repeatedly," referring to the attackers as "sick animals." The attack landed her in the hospital, he added.
NBC10 reached out to Lauletta for an interview.
Lauletta said his daughter and two male friends were exiting the subway, coming home from the Temple football game when they were beaten.
Philadelphia police, Temple police and the university are all investigating the incidents.Guest Opinion: Dr. Tim Ball
Recently I spoke at the Freedom Force Conference in Phoenix on Climate Change. The person who made the connection between climate and freedom clearly and concisely was former Czech Republic President Vaclav Klaus. He was the keynote speaker at the first Heartland Climate Conference in New York. His opening comment “We have just gone through 70 years of communism, why the hell would you want to go back to that?” brought a standing ovation. He summarized his views in a brief book with the pointed title “Blue Planet in Green Shackles: What is Endangered: Climate or Freedom.”
Forget about politics for a moment and consider that the recent US election was the final phase of the American Revolution. Web sites, like WUWT, were a major part of this event as I will explain.
The deliberately created illusion was that “American exceptionalism” meant Americans thought they were superior to everyone. I hear it all the time in Canada, from family and friends in the UK, and during my recent trip to Australia. The term applies properly and only to the unique political system created by the US Founding Fathers. In very simple terms, the first two legs were free speech and private ownership of land. They do not exist in any other country and are under attack in the US because they are essential to freedom, free will, and an environment for every individual to maximize their potential. This was my philosophy in the classroom: provide an environment in which every student could achieve their potential. Of course, like life, many would not avail themselves of the opportunity, but at least they had the chance.
People claim the Magna Carta was about private ownership of land. That is nonsense. It was known at the time as the “Articles of the Barons” because it represented the anger of the great aristocratic feudal landowners against the monarch. It was akin to the modern aristocratic landowners as members of the House of Lords telling the Queen that they want better treatment. It did absolutely nothing for the serfs, tenanted slaves, back on their estate, and it wasn’t to do anything until the American Revolution. Even then it didn’t do anything in Britain. My brother went to agricultural college and specialized in sheep husbandry. He became the chief shepherd on an estate in which a Lord owned five farms and the local village. As recently as the 1960s when the Rolls Royce went through the village the older women curtseyed, and the men doffed their hats. Unable to carry out a popular revolution in Britain, the people led by the Founding Fathers seized the opportunity in America and for the first time secured free speech and ownership of land for the individual. However, that left one important leg of the triumvirate of true freedom outside the control of the individual.
Up until recently, whenever a revolution occurred the first imperative was to seize the radio and TV stations. To maintain a dictatorship, it is essential to control the mainstream media is critical. This implies that the mainstream media is a free agency that challenges and holds the people in power to account. This is another illusion. The mainstream media have always been the voice of the power elite. Consider William Cowper’s 1782 poem “Progress of Error” that I published earlier.
How shall I speak of thee or thy power address,
Thou God of our idolatry, the Press?
By thee, religion, liberty and laws
Exert their influence and advance their cause;
By thee worse plagues than Pharaoh’s land befell,
Diffused, make earth the vestibule of Hell;
Thou fountain, at which drink the good and wise;
Thou ever-bubbling spring of endless lies;
Like Eden’s dead probationary tree,
Knowledge of good and evil is from thee.
All this changed with Brexit and the American election. For the first time in history, most of the people had access and input to a vast pool of information. The power elite lost control of information that allowed them to manipulate the system and the people. This occurred despite the bias and efforts of the mainstream media to direct and control the outcome of the Brexit and US election votes for the political power elites. It was the final stage of the Revolution. The people bypassed the mainstream media and accessed information from the Internet via blog sites and social media. We must block any attempt to limit and control the Internet, the voice of the people.
The battle over dissemination and access to climate information was central to defeating the control established by Maurice Strong through the United Nations Environment Program (Figure 1).
Figure 1
Limited Access and Input Before the Internet.
The leaked emails are a litany of attempts to control the message. The only access the public or climate skeptics had to the media was through letters to the editor and in most cases, they were controlled to present only the ‘official’ science. I learned early being as skeptical of the consensus about global cooling continuing in the 1970s as I was of the warming continuing in the 1980s. Very few climate journals existed, and neither Nature nor Science published much on weather or climate at the time. After that had changed in the late 1980s and the political misuse of global warming began, they were coopted into the global warming deception and only published supportive material. One journal that broke the trend was Geophysical Research Letters (GRL) and as I wrote in an earlier WUWT comment,
I remember when Geophysical Research Letters (GRL) first started publishing papers related to climate. It was the among the first to address the cross-disciplinary nature of climatology, which previously was restricted to just a few climate and meteorological journals.
This is likely part of the reason why the CRU gang later worked to get the GRL editor James Saiers fired.
I also wrote;
The behaviour of journals and especially their editors has been a disgraceful episode in their lack of objectivity essential to good science. There are a variety of causes not least the taking over of journals by publishers. Profit became the driving force and sensational papers producing the prevailing political wisdom the hallmark for high sales. Of course, there was also the realization that control of editors was essential if you wanted to control the scientific method – something the CRU people did with frightening efficiency and effect. They also realized that even being editors themselves gave inordinate control. They could hide behind the secrecy of not disclosing reviewers to peer-review each other’s work. Donna Laframboise, author of two books on the corruption of the IPCC apparently identified this problem for the Journal of Climate.
All that changed with the advent of the Internet. Although it took a semblance of the current form in the 1980s, the Internet became global in the 1990s as it shifted from a government and academically controlled system to a global commercial operation. A major key to the success was that
The Internet has no centralized governance in either technological implementation or policies for access and usage; each constituent network sets its own policies. Only the overreaching definitions of the two principal name spaces in the Internet, the Internet Protocol address space and the Domain Name system (DNS), are directed by a maintainer organization, the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN). The technical underpinning and standardization of the core protocols is an activity of the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF), a non-profit organization of loosely affiliated international participants that anyone may associate with by contributing technical expertise.
I realize this is a Wikipedia quote, but it is a reasonable summary that conveys the point that the Internet was operating outside of government. Marshall McLuhan’s global village was realized through the electronic village of the Internet. The power of the Internet and thereby its threat to the power elite who want total government control.
The mainstream media and their political masters were end run by the people ignoring them and seeking facts evidence and information from fellow citizens. Internet success and power were confirmed when the power elite and media tried to participate by creating websites. A classic example of the power of climate blog sites like WUWT on the deception propagated by the people at the Climatic Research Unit (CRU was creation of RealClimate. Here is a portion of a quote from what went on as reported by Bishop Hill.
Many thanks for your very helpful comments. Essentially I agree on all counts, and indeed the “sceptics ask, scientists answer” web-page that you have set up is exactly the sort of thing I had in mind as a possible minimal response that we (Tyndall et al, and even maybe the Royal Society if it wants to get involved) might undrertake (sic). Wherever possible this could/should refer to other reputable sites (incl IPCC, Hadley Centre, the ones you mention, etc etc) rather than duplicating the material. I would envisage that such a site could be maintained by a consortium of the willing, in this case involving (say) Tyndall, Hadley & PIK. We could then asked the RS (et al) to mention it and link to it on some sort of “sound science” page on their own web-site(s) (Rachel, do you think that this might fly?).
Notice the use of traditional centers of the power elite namely the Royal Society who in turn orchestrated similar propaganda through science societies in other nations. Realclimate and others tried but failed to stop the explosion of information accessible to people. A citizen’s army of people grasped the opportunities for input and power. The battle was enjoined by passage of Freedom of Information legislation that triggered various blocking attempts. Most notorious of these were cataloged in a notorious email.
At 09:41 AM 2/2/2005, Phil Jones wrote:
Mike, I presume congratulations are in order – so congrats etc!
Just sent loads of station data to Scott. Make sure he documents everything better this time! And don’t leave stuff lying around on ftp sites – you never know who is trawling them. The two MMs have been after the CRU station data for years. If they ever hear there is a Freedom of Information Act now in the UK, I think I’ll delete the file rather than send to anyone. Does your similar act in the US force you to respond to enquiries within 20 days? – our does! The UK works on precedents, so the first request will test it. We also have a data protection act, which I will hide behind. Tom Wigley has sent me a worried email when he heard about it – thought people could ask him for his model code. He has retired officially from UEA so he can hide behind that. IPR should be relevant here, but I can see me getting into an argument with someone at UEA who’ll say we must adhere to it!
Exposure of the global warming deception was one manifestation of the final phase of the American Revolution. For the first time in history, the people had access to and control of information. The battle to control information, as with all gains of the Revolution, will continue. However, as John Adams warned,
“I am well aware of the toil and blood and treasure that it will cost to maintain this Declaration, and support and defend these States.”
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RedditThere’s a tool to check what games are registered on Steam. Well, it’s mostly reliable and has leaked many games coming to the service.
Furthermore, it looks like there are plenty of new games that could be heading to Steam. People normally use this tool to peek into the Steam database.
Some of them are games we already know like La-Mulana and Resident Evil: Revelations, however, Halo 3 has also been discovered in the database which could mean, Microsoft will start releasing older Xbox 360 games published by Microsoft Game Studios on PC, or Valve is adding support for Steam Community hubs for non-Steam games.
Here’s the listing for Halo 3 (via GAF). You can find the complete list of all the games that have been found so far below, and plenty of them are already confirmed to be heading to Steam. Games like Fez are obvious because it was confirmed to be going multiplatform.
La-Mulana
The Splatters
Octodad: Dadliest Catch Beta
Duke Nukem 3D: Atomic Edition (Duke Nukem 3D+)
Super House of Dead Ninjas
Fez
LucasArts Test App
Fast and Furious 6
Lococycle
Yogventures!
Hardware
Hardware (Demo)
Dyad
Cut the Rope
Shadow Warrior Complete
Hardware (VIP)
Hardware (Internal)
THE KING OF FIGHTERS XIII
Retro/Grade
Resident Evil: Revelations
THE KING OF FIGHTERS 2002 UNLIMITED MATCH
THE KING OF FIGHTERS ’98 ULTIMATE MATCH
Quantum Conundrum 2
Halo 3
Halo 2
Halo: Combat Evolved
The Witness
Angry Birds Space
Angry Birds Seasons
Second Life
Has something gone wrong or Halo 3 is indeed coming to the PC? Well, we know for a fact that earlier Microsoft was planning to monetize Steam, so time will tell, but for now there’s hope considering this Steam database tool has been mostly accurate.Get the biggest Weekday Swansea City FC stories by email Subscribe Thank you for subscribing We have more newsletters Show me See our privacy notice Could not subscribe, try again later Invalid Email
Carlos Carvalhal has emerged as a potential target for Swansea City as they refuse to rush their decision on replacing Paul Clement.
Carvalhal was sacked by Sheffield Wednesday on Christmas Eve but has long had admirers at the Liberty for his style of football and work to turn the Owls into promotion contenders, leading them to the Championship play-offs in successive seasons.
And the 52-year-old former Besiktas and Sporting Lisbon boss is among those now being seriously considered to become the new man at the helm.
(Image: Getty Images Europe)
Swansea want Premier League experience but are now widening their search, with the Portuguese being considered alongside Fulham’s Slavisa Jokanovic who refused to rule out interest in the vacancy following his side’s 4-2 win over Cardiff.
Swansea are keen on a swift appointment but accept they may have to keep Leon Britton in caretaker charge for Saturday’s clash at Watford, with club hierarchy aware of the need to get such a significant managerial decision right.
"There is no change, I spoke with the chairman on Christmas Eve and that is the last conversation I have had," Britton said following the 5-0 defeat at Liverpool on Boxing Day.
"We are in training on Wednesday, I don't know if I will speak to the chairman of the owners tonight or tomorrow, but as things remain I will be in charge for Watford and for training."
Clement became the fourth boss to lose his job at the Swans in the space of two years having failing to repeat the success of his first term in charge, the club currently bottom of the Premier League and five points from safety following the Boxing Day defeat to Liverpool.
Jokanovic also has admirers at Swansea with the Serbian having impressed plenty with his side’s style of play, taking Watford to promotion in 2015 and leading Fulham to an unexpected top six finish last year.
(Image: Huw Evans Picture Agency)
And he admitted links to the Liberty job were flattering as he refused to rule out interest in the role, saying: “I am working with my team, I am happy with where I am, my job is here and not with another side, but if somebody is interested in myself then I must be happy.”
Tony Pulis had been the bookmakers’ favourite to replace Clement but was named as Middlesbrough manager, replacing former Swans boss Garry Monk at the Riverside.
Monk has been backed to return to Swansea, though it is thought to be an unlikely scenario at this stage. Frank de Boer has also been sounded out, though it has been suggested there has been a cooling of interest from Swansea in the former Palace, Inter and Ajax manager.After railing against Iran’s “commitment to deception and defiance” of US demands, newly appointed US Ambassador to the IAEA Joseph Macmanus stormed out of the meeting in anger, along with Canadian and Australian counterparts, during Iranian envoy Ali Soltanieh’s comments.
The record of the closed-door meeting was not made public, but Soltanieh reported referred to an Israeli policy of “genocide” during his comments, at which time the envoys got up and left in unison.
In comments after the meeting, Soltanieh reiterated Iran’s opposition to IAEA demands for access to military sites without any relation to their nuclear program, and complained that the bureaucrats in Vienna have been trying to micromanage the IAEA’s operations in Iran, instead of letting the inspectors and negot |
people from Prevelly, Gnarabup and other communities in the popular tourist region yesterday spent the night at evacuation centres as more than 100 firefighters, assisted by two aerial water bombers, fought the blaze.This control also provides France with leverage over regimes at risk of collapse or overthrow. Though secret, many of the national defense agreements allegedly stipulate that France is obliged to protect a nation's sovereignty rather than its government. This grants France the latitude to determine when (and whether) a regime merits protecting. For example, in 2012 the president of the Central African Republic, Francois Bozize, called on France to support his administration in the face of impending rebellion. French President Francois Hollande rebuffed his plea, reiterating that France intervenes to secure its own interests and not those of any government. Before appealing to Paris, Bozize had wanted to move his country away from France's sphere of influence, courting South Africa as an alternative backer. Consequently, when Bozize asked for help, France was best poised to gain by inaction. Only after the rebels chased Bozize into exile did French forces deploy to guard the flow of traffic at the country's lone international airport in Bangui.
In the Chad conflict, Paris employed a similar strategy. After taking power in a Libyan-backed revolt in 1990, President Idriss Deby dismantled Chad's French- and American-backed government and bristled at France's presence in the country. But after Paris helped save his administration in 2008, Deby realized that he stood to benefit by ingratiating himself to France. To that end, Chad has become a backbone of France's strategy in Africa, supplying thousands of soldiers to aid in efforts against al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM) in Mali, and in France's intervention in the Central African Republic.
A Wait-and-See Policy
For any number of reasons, French military planners in Africa adhere to a "wait-and-see" policy when crises such as coups or uprisings unfold. Because France has limited resources and manpower at its disposal, it will intervene in a conflict only once it has escalated. Furthermore, waiting may enable France to intervene — or not — at the optimal time and place to maximize its gains. During the early stages of Mali's Tuareg rebellion and after the coup that displaced civilian rule there, for instance, France opted not to step in because the instability did not pose a sufficient threat to its interests. Instead, France interceded only once the situation became a serious transnational terrorist insurgency that threatened to overwhelm the entire country. Paris then mobilized far and wide to beat back the jihadists in Mali. Since this endeavor aligned with the United States' counterterrorism goals, France enjoyed extensive U.S. support in the operation. Moreover, the international community widely hailed France's efforts as a defeat for Islamic terrorism in the Sahel, boosting the country's image across the region.
At the same time, this circumspect approach puts France in a reactive position. Destabilizing events may now drive French action in Africa. Meanwhile, France occupies a unique position on the continent, having not only a large presence but also the political capital to take action there. These combined factors can propel France into conflicts it does not fully understand. A 2014 French government report revealed that soldiers who participated in France's 2013 Operation Sangaris in the Central African Republic experienced a higher rate of trauma than those who fought in Afghanistan. Among the factors cited were the unanticipated dangers and "horrors of the civil war," a poorly identified enemy, and French troops who were ill-equipped and underprepared. The report's authors further noted that, due to the state's growing military demands, the French army's traditional training and deployment cycle has noticeably contracted, hampering the force's overall efficacy.
The Next Intervention
France's traditional role in Africa provides a basis from which to assess the circumstances that would provoke a future intervention on the continent. The past several conflicts in which France intervened involved the near total collapse of authority in a former colony. But as long as it does not threaten the security environment, Paris can tolerate a certain level of instability, such as a rebellion in a remote region. In light of these considerations, the current situation in Mauritania provides a potential flashpoint. Weak under the best of circumstances, Mauritania has long used economic resources to buy support for the government in Nouakchott among the country's various tribal factions. But now, the country's resources are dwindling and falling increasingly into the hands of the president's clan. As a result, Mauritania's tribal factions, whose support is integral to preserving harmony in the country, are becoming agitated.
On top of this, the country's president, Mohamed Ould Abdel Aziz, who has held office since a 2009 coup, may push for a controversial third term. This could deepen fissures in the country, possibly leading to coup attempts, an occurrence familiar to Nouakchott. Furthermore, regional terrorist groups such as AQIM have successfully used Mauritania as a transit zone for attacks in nearby countries. If the groups were to redirect their efforts to destabilizing Nouakchott or using Mauritanian territory to conduct more transnational operations and recruitment, they could make significant inroads with the country's dissatisfied population. And since Mauritania falls mostly outside of Operation Barkhane's scope, terrorist groups may have more room to work there. If the president continues to narrow his patronage priorities, denying resources to tribal and other constituents and upsetting the country's traditional balance of power, backlash against the president and his clan is likely.
At this point, France — whose principal interest is stability — may view Abdel Aziz as a threat to regional security. To mitigate this risk, Paris could provide intelligence and encouragement to forces aligning against the president. But if deeper instability erupts in Mauritania, Paris will likely be compelled to intervene more overtly. Other international actors, such as the United States, would likely urge France to action because it remains the only country with the interest, ability, political capital and regional knowledge to undertake such a mission. And this is not only true in Mauritania. Because of this reality, France's interventions in Africa will continue.Showing 1 - 20 of 43 results Sort by Please select Relevance Brand - A to Z Brand - Z to A Price – low to high Price – high to low Customer rating Discount % (High to Low)
Whether you’re looking to watch digital TV, want an easy way to watch on-demand shows, or want the added functionality of being able to pause, rewind and record shows too, then a set top box is the answer.
Today’s set top boxes perform a range of functions. At their most basic they pick up HD digital TV signals, provide you with easy to navigate TV listings and offer instant access to on-demand catch-up TV services like BBC iPlayer and ITV Player. Many set top boxes also enable you to pause live TV, rewind to bits you’ve missed, and record loads of your favourite shows on sizeable built-in hard-drives – our Humax set top boxes offer up to 600 hours of recording.
Most set top boxes offer Series Link functionality – which means you can record an entire series at the touch of a button so you’ll never miss an episode of your favourite shows. Connecting to your TV via HDMI or scart, and to the internet via Ethernet or WiFi, smart connectivity means you can access the likes of YouTube, social media, Netflix streaming and more on your TV. Plus with Now TV you can even get weekly or monthly passes to Sky Sports and Sky Movies.
If you’re looking for a digital TV solution, set top boxes are now so much more than just receivers. They allow you to access the web, record in seconds, and store the shows you love.
Back to topFormer world champion Victor Ortiz made weight as he prepares to return to the ring and battle Mexico's Saul Corral in the main event of Premier Boxing Champions on FS1 and FOX Deportes Sunday, July 30 live from Rabobank Theater in Bakersfield, California. Photos by Ryan Hafey/PBC.
Ortiz came in at 145.2-pounds, and Corral was 145.6-pounds.
Televised coverage begins at 7 p.m. ET/4 p.m. PT and will feature super welterweight contender Justin DeLoach taking on once-beaten Nathaniel Gallimore in a 10-round showdown and 2016 U.S. Olympian Karlos Balderas in his second pro fight.
Tickets for the live event, which is promoted by Ringstar Sports, are priced at $80, $45 and $30 and are available for purchase online at AXS.com.
VICTOR ORTIZ
"The hunger is definitely still there inside of me. When I became world champion, it was a short-lived experience. I had reached a high pinnacle and lost it in a fashion that I was never satisfied with. I'm blessed to be healthy enough to come back.
"Having my son be born (Victor Royal Ortiz) is probably part of the reason that this hunger grew inside of me and motivated me to get back in the ring. I have goals and accomplishments that I want to reach.
"I know that Saul Corral will be ready for me. This is a camp where I made sure to listen to everything my coach said. I went to work 110 percent every day. I didn't take any shortcuts and I'm feeling great.
Fans can live stream the fights on FOX Sports GO, available in English or Spanish through the FS1 or FOX Deportes feeds. The fights are available on desktop at FOXSportsGO.com and through the app store, or connected devices including Apple TV, Android TV, Fire TV, Xbox One and Roku. In addition, all programs are also available on FOX Sports on SiriusXM channel 83 on satellite radios and on the SiriusXM app.Hi guys, let me just get down to the meat of the issue. I think its time we all come together and apply some form of social pressure on samsung concerning their update road map for the (second gen) galaxy tab series (10.1,8.9 and 7 plus) I paid about $575 for the 16gb 3G version of the galaxy tab 8.9 and almost returned it immediately because of the horrendous lag of the device (in landscape mode) when swyping across home screens and application grid. Thankfully I followed the advise of many here and installed a custom rom (in my case overcome) which made the device much more usable. What is most annoying is not just how samsung allowed such a laggy device to be released but also keeping mute about any update plans whatsoever. I am not even talking about ice cream sandwich, honeycomb 3.2 has been out for a couple of months now and all the major android honeycomb tablets (The Xoom and transformer) has received updates on their devices. even though mainly a bug fix release. Honeycomb 3.2 would go a long way to fix many of the annoyance currently experienced by galaxy tab owners.
I am not saying samsung should update my device tomorrow, but at least don't keep me in the dark. We all paid top dollars for their device hence the least they could do is to keep us informed on pending updates and also be damn fast about it. There is no doubt as to the legendariness of samsung's hardware awesomeness. Till date they have the best phone hardware in the market (galaxy s2 is the gold standard by which other mobile phones are measured) and their 2nd generation galaxy tab are the best tablets hardware ever. But samsung scores a zero when it comes to communicating with their users. It doesn't hurt to let your users know what is coming.. it removes the need for rumours and makes them even more loyal. And we are loyal bunch of users. Even though the world would have us believe that tablets start and ends with ipad. we stuck with samsung and all we ask is that they at least treat us with respect. Acknowledge by taking to us.
I can not describe the wave of jealousy I get everytime I hear acer talk about how their updates plans for ice cream sandwich and how the OG transformer would be receiving updates this year end, how the transformer is getting the second batch of ice cream sandwich updates.. all the while I am refreshing XDA forum waiting for a good Samaritan from the community to release the fix that I expected from samsung. I think this is unacceptable.
I don't think we sit milkly by and accept this kinda treatment from samsung. I think its time we take them to task using social media. I don't own a facebook account but I don't mind creating one. Its time we make our self heard and get samsung to listen to us.. Goal is simple. samsung needs to become more engaged with its fans and users. I mean what harm could come out of letting users know about update plans? what ill could come out of prompt updates to recent android release. I am a proud owner and the galaxy s2 and with that device I am not so much concerned with updates. But that is because the galaxy s2 is a master piece and runs fine as it is. I can not say the same about my galaxy tab 8.9.. The performance of that device could be better. software not hardware is behind the laggy performance which is why it pisses me to no small extent knowing they is a software update out there which fixes my issue. Other OEMs are releasing it to their devices (or engaging their users on future release) while samsung just keeps mute.
My goal is to get samsung to engage us their users more on update plans. or roadmap.
And To get them to be more speedy when it comes to releasing updates.
How do we go about this. looking at the success of how sustained facebook campaigns has worked for HTC, LG and motorolla users in the past, how it has gotten these companies to reverse policies which were unfriendly to their users. I think its time samsung galaxy tab users get on facebook and mount a sustained but peaceful and civil plea to samsung. Let us make our voices heard.
Its time we direct our inquiries directly to samsung. Hopefully we can raise enough dust that someone high up would push the button that makes the necessary changes.
Either way it's in samsung interest to be known as an OEM which listens to their users.
Its in their interest to be known as an OEM who always release updates for their device.
Does anyone share my thoughts on this?Like President Obama, he proposes circumventing the Constitution. What will his anti-war endorser Senator Rand Paul say?
On Face the Nation on Sunday, Mitt Romney said that if elected president he wouldn't have to get congressional permission for a military strike on Iran.
To quote him directly (emphasis added):
I can assure you if I'm president, the Iranians will have no question but that I will be willing to take military action if necessary to prevent them from becoming a nuclear threat to the world. I don't believe at this stage, therefore, if I'm president that we need to have a war powers approval or special authorization for military force. The president has that capacity now. I understand that some in the Senate for instance have written letters to the president indicating you should know that a containment strategy is unacceptable. We cannot survive a course of action which would include a nuclear Iran we must be willing to take any and all actions.
All those actions must be on the table.
If a President Romney waged war without Congressional approval, it would be the first time a sitting president violated the Constitution's separation of powers and the War Powers Resolution since President Obama did it in Libya.
Says Daniel Larison:
The United States survived decades of containing Soviet power. America outlasted what may have been the greatest security threat in our history partly because of a policy of containment. Iran is far weaker than any threat the USSR ever posed. If the U.S. could not survive a nuclear-armed Iran, a President Romney would be powerless to change that. On the other hand, back in the real world, if the U.S. has little to fear from a nuclear-armed Iran and is more than capable of deterring any threat from Iran, there is no reason to listen to anything Romney has to say on this subject. Romney obviously does not believe war is a last resort, and he clearly doesn't believe that the Congress has anything to say about attacking Iran. According to Romney, it is something that the president could do tomorrow if he believed it necessary. The Constitution is completely irrelevant to Romney, and so is the consent of the American people expressed through its representatives. No one should have any illusions about how Romney would conduct foreign policy if he is elected.
This puts Senator Rand Paul in an interesting position. At the end of March, he was doing his best to preemptively assert that an attack on Iran or Syria must involve congressional approval, per the Constitution.While the previous Anxiety Survey indicated that it would kill most women to sever ties with their parents, the numbers here indicate that more women (44.3%) are likely to cheat on their romantic partners when compared to men (39.7%).
More women (70.2%) may also lie to their parents, as opposed to 63.1% men. At 70.1%, however, more men indulge in activities likely to be “disliked” by their parents than women (66.5%).
Nevertheless, men (82%) appeared to be more determined than women (81.1%) when it comes to “begging, borrowing and stealing” to get what they “really want”.
Even when it comes to doggedly pursuing something “that benefits them”, more men (83.1%) are likely to go for it than women (81%). Both sexes are equally intent on fast-tracking their desires, stating that they want “everything, and fast”.
Men are more likely to treat friends well, with as many as 79.8% saying they’ll do anything to gain their approval – as opposed to 78.7% women. At 73.6%, males are also more likely to overlook rules and violate traffic regulations than women (62.2%).
For more stories from HT Youth Survey 2017, click here. Send in your comments and suggestions at talktous@hindustantimes.com or use #HTYouthSurvey on social media.
First Published: Oct 13, 2017 12:33 ISTPresident-elect Donald Trump Donald John TrumpHouse committee believes it has evidence Trump requested putting ally in charge of Cohen probe: report Vietnamese airline takes steps to open flights to US on sidelines of Trump-Kim summit Manafort's attorneys say he should get less than 10 years in prison MORE on Saturday vowed to negotiate a peace deal between Israel and Palestinians, despite a U.N. Security Council resolution passed Friday.
"The big loss yesterday for Israel in the United Nations will make it much harder to negotiate peace.Too bad, but we will get it done anyway!” Trump wrote on Twitter.
The big loss yesterday for Israel in the United Nations will make it much harder to negotiate peace.Too bad, but we will get it done anyway! — Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) December 24, 2016
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The resolution, which condemned Israeli settlement building as illegal, was passed as the U.S. abstained despite calls from Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu for the Obama administration to veto the measure.
Trump even intervened to pressure Egypt, the resolution’s sponsor, to delay the vote.
The president-elect’s vow to negotiate a peace agreement comes a week after announcing his pick for ambassador to Israel, David Friedman, a hardliner who has challenged a two-state solution to the conflict.Lecture Transcriptions by Bettina Bien Greaves
Originally published in 2006, ISBN 1-57246-210-8
Introduction by Richard M. Ebeling
1ST LECTURE Mind, Materialism, and the Fate of Man
2ND LECTURE Class Conflict and Revolutionary Socialism
3RD LECTURE Individualism and the Industrial Revolution
4TH LECTURE Nationalism, Socialism, and Violent Revolution
5TH LECTURE Marxism and the Manipulation of Man
6TH LECTURE The Making of Modern Civilization: Savings, Investment, and Economic Calculation
7TH LECTURE Money, Interest, and the Business Cycle
8TH LECTURE Profit and Loss, Private Property, and the Achievements of Capitalism
9TH LECTURE Foreign Investments and the Spirit of Capitalism
The lectures by Ludwig von Mises contained in Marxism Unmasked were delivered at the San Francisco Public Library, June 23–July 3, 1952, under the sponsorship of The Freeman magazine. They were taken down, word for word, in shorthand and transcribed by Mrs. Bettina Bien Greaves. She has very kindly made these lectures available to the Foundation for Economic Education for publication. Mrs. Greaves worked as a senior staff member at FEE for practically 50 years, only retiring in 1999. Along with her late husband, Percy L. Greaves, Jr., she was a long-time friend and associate of Ludwig von Mises. Indeed, there are few people in the world today who are as conversant with Mises’s ideas and writings as she.
The publication of these lectures has been made possible through the kind and generous continuing support of Mr. Sheldon Rose of Farmington Hills, Michigan, and the Richard E. Fox Foundation of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Special thanks are due to Mr. Michael Pivarnik, Executive Director of the Fox Foundation, for his dedicated interest in the ideas of the Austrian School of Economics and Ludwig von Mises in particular.
Mrs. Beth Hoffman, managing editor of FEE’s monthly magazine, The Freeman, has once again overseen the entire preparation of the manuscript. Her eye for detail in all things is reflected in the fine final product.
INTRODUCTION
by Richard M. Ebeling
AUSTRIAN ECONOMIST LUDWIG VON MISES delivered these nine lectures, which we have titled Marxism Unmasked, from June 23 to July 3, 1952, in San Francisco at a seminar sponsored by The Freeman. A history teacher who received a scholarship to attend the program later wrote to the magazine to say:
“The lectures themselves I found provocative, stimulating and highly rewarding. As a classic exposition of the virtues of individualism and the evils of socialism, buttressed with an impressive array of scholarship, they were unmatched.... I am not trying to say that I became converted completely to the set of ideas that Dr. Mises and the Freeman represent. But I do say that any student or teacher of the social sciences who fails to think deeply on these ideas is negligent and ill-informed, if not worse. This feeling the seminar did leave me with. Certainly I personally appreciate some of these ideas far more than I did a month ago.’[1]
It is worth recalling the state of the world in 1952 when Ludwig von Mises gave these lectures. Everywhere around the globe Soviet socialism seemed to be on the march. World War II had left all of Eastern Europe in the grip of the Soviet Union. In 1949, mainland China had fallen under the control of Mao Zedong’s communist armies. In June of 1950 the Korean War had broken out, and in 1952 American armies under the UN flag were in a bloody stalemate along the 38th parallel against the forces of North Korea and Communist China. The French were immersed in a seemingly endless colonial conflict in Indochina against Ho Chi Minh’s communist guerrilla army.
In the West, large numbers of intellectuals were persuaded that “history” was inescapably on the side of socialism, under the leadership Comrade Stalin in the Kremlin. Communist parties in France and Italy had large memberships, and followed every ideological twist and turn made by Moscow. Even many of those who rejected the brutality of Soviet-style socialism still believed that economic planning was inevitable. A prominent political scientist at the University of Chicago even declared in 1950 that “Planning is coming. Of this there can be no doubt. The only question is whether it will be the democratic planning of a free society, or totalitarian in character.”[2]
In both Europe and the United States it was presumed that capitalism, when left unregulated, could only lead to exploitation, misery, and social injustice. Governments on both sides of the Atlantic were introducing ever more stringent interventionist and welfare statist policies meant to ameliorate the supposed cruelty of the market economy. And because of the “emergency” of the Korean War, the U.S. government had further burdened the American people with a comprehensive system of wage and price controls that hampered almost every aspect of economic activity.[3]3
The primary source and impetus for the global bias toward socialism were the writings of Karl Marx (1818–1883). He claimed to have discovered the invariant “laws” of human historical development that would lead to the demise of capitalism and the triumph of socialism, followed by a final transition to a blissful, post-scarcity communist world. During the intermediary socialist stage leading to communism, Marx declared, there would be a “revolutionary dictatorship of the proletariat.” It would prevent remnants of the old capitalist ruling class from trying to return to power and would “reeducate” the workers into a “higher consciousness” free from the residues of the prior bourgeois mentality.[4]
What makes this entire process inescapable and irreversible, Marx insisted, is that the physical means of production follow technological transformations in a series of historical stages that are beyond man’s control. Each of these stages of transformation requires a particular set of human institutional relationships for the full blossoming of that technology’s potential. What men, in their limited and subjective views of the world, take to be the invariant foundations of human life—morality, family, property, religious faith, customs and traditions, and so on—are merely the temporary elements of a societal “superstructure” serving the ends of the objective material forces of production during each of these historical epochs.Therefore, even man’s “consciousness” about himself and the world around him is a product of his particular place and role in this process of historical evolution.[5]
Every man’s “class” position in society, according to Marx, is determined by his relationship to the ownership of the means of production. Those who own the means of production in capitalist society must, by historical necessity, “exploit” the others who offer their labor services to them for hire. The capitalist class lives off the labor of the working class by expropriating as “profit” a part of what the laborers in their employ have produced. Hence, these two social classes are in irreconcilable conflict with each other for the material rewards of human labor. This conflict reaches its climax with the violent overthrow of the exploiters by the proletariat, who experience an increasing economic misery during the final death throes of the capitalist system.[6]
In the new socialist order that replaces capitalism, the means of production will be nationalized and centrally planned for the economic betterment of the vast majority of humanity, and no longer will be used only for the profit-oriented benefit of the capitalist property owners. Economic planning will generate material prosperity far exceeding anything experienced under capitalism; technological advances and rising production will not only eliminate poverty but also push society to a level of material abundance at which all physical wants and worries will be a thing of the past. This final stage of communism will create a paradise on earth for all mankind.[7]
Ludwig von Mises as Critic of Socialism
There were many critics of socialism and Marxism in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. One of the most outstanding was the French economist Paul Leroy-Beaulieu, who in 1885 penned an extremely insightful and devastating analysis of collectivism, addressing its dangers to both personal liberty and economic prosperity.[8] In 1896 one of Ludwig von Mises’s own professors at the University of Vienna, the internationally renowned Austrian economist Eugen von Böhm-Bawerk, published the most damaging critique of Marx’s labor theory of value and the accompanying idea of exploitation of labor under capitalism.[9] There were even highly effective anti-utopian novels that depicted the disastrous effects to be expected if a socialist regime were to come to power and impose central planning on society.[10]
But none of these writers was as penetrating in demonstrating the inherent unworkability of a system of socialist central planning as Ludwig von Mises. During World War I and its immediate aftermath there was an enthusiastic confidence that the age of government planning had finally arrived. The wartime price and wage controls and production planning boards imposed in virtually all the belligerent nations were considered by many the precursors of continued peacetime planning. Following the Bolshevik Revolution in Russia in 1917, Lenin’s Marxist regime imposed “war communism” in 1918, heralding it not only as an emergency device to fight the anti-communist White armies during the three-year civil war in Russia, but also as the great leap into the fully planned society. And following the end of the war in November 1918, new Social Democratic Party governments in Germany and Austria declared that the time for “socialization” and economic planning had finally arrived.[11]
In 1919, at a meeting of the Austrian Economic Society, Mises delivered a paper on “Economic Calculation in the Socialist Commonwealth,” which was published in a leading German-language journal in 1920.[12] He incorporated this article as the centerpiece in a comprehensive treatise on collectivism that he published two years later in 1922, titled Socialism: An Economic and Sociological Analysis in its English translation.[13]
Mises observed that most of the earlier critics of socialism had rightly pointed out that a system of comprehensive government planning of economic affairs would create the worst tyranny ever experienced in human history. With all production, employment, and distribution of output completely under the monopoly control of the State, the fate and fortune of every individual would be at the mercy of the political authority. In addition, these earlier opponents of socialism had cogently argued that with the end of private property and freedom of enterprise, individuals would lose much of the self-interested motivation for industry, innovation, and work effort that exists in a market economy.
But, Mises said, what had not been thoroughly examined and challenged was whether a socialist economic system was even workable in practice. In other words, would the socialist central planners be able to rationally and efficiently manage the everyday affairs of economic life? His answer was no. In the market economy production is guided by the expected consumer demand of the buying public. Businessmen and entrepreneurs, in the quest to earn profits and avoid losses, must direct the resources at their disposal in a way that minimizes their costs of production relative to the expected revenues from supplying goods and services that consumers want to purchase.
Money prices for both finished consumer goods and the means of production facilitate the process. The prices for consumer goods tell entrepreneurs what consumers want. The prices for the means of production—land, labor, and capital—tell them the costs of producing those goods with different types of resources and raw materials in different combinations. The entrepreneur’s task is to select that resource “mix” that minimizes the expense of bringing goods to market in the quantities and qualities demanded by consumers.
The price attached to any one of those resources (whether it be land, labor, or capital) reflects its value in alternative uses, as represented by the competing bids to purchase or hire it by rival entrepreneurs who also seek to employ it for some production purpose in the market. Unless the expected price for the finished good is able to cover the costs necessary to employ a variety of resources to produce it, it is uneconomical— wasteful—to devote those resources for its manufacture. As Mises later explained in his book on Bureaucracy, “To the entrepreneur of capitalist society a factor of production through its price sends out a warning: Don’t touch me, I am earmarked for the satisfaction of another, more urgent need” of the consuming public. [14]
This means that the price system of a competitive free market tends to assure that the scarce resources of society are allocated and used in a way that best reflects the wants and desires of all of us in our roles as consumers. Since one of the inescapable elements of the world in which we live is constant change, every shift in consumer demand and every modification in the availability and uses of those scarce resources are reflected in changes in the market structure of relative prices. Such changes in the structure of market prices provide new information to both producers and consumers that they may have to adjust their buying, selling, and production decisions, given the new circumstances.
Mises’s challenge to the socialists was to argue that this “rationality” of the market, which constantly coordinated selling prices with cost-prices, and supply with demand, would be totally absent under a system of central planning. Prices emerge out of the buying and selling of the market participants. But buying and selling are only possible with the institution of private property, under which goods and resources are owned, used, and transferred through voluntary exchange at the discretion of the owners.
Furthermore, under capitalism the complex network of market transactions is made possible through the use of a commonly accepted medium of exchange—money. With all goods and resources bought and sold in the market through a medium of exchange, their respective exchange values are all expressed in terms of the same common denominator: their money prices. This common denominator of money prices enables the process of “economic calculation,” i.e., the comparing of relative costs with selling prices.
The primary goal of practically all socialists in the nineteenth century and most of the twentieth century was the abolition of private property, market competition, and money prices. In their place, the State would nationalize the means of production, and as the “trustee” of the interests of the “working class” would centrally plan all of society’s economic activities. The central planning agency would determine what got produced, how and where it was produced, and then distribute the resulting output to the members of the new “workers’ paradise.”
Mises showed that the end of private property would mean the end to economic rationality. Without private ownership of the means of production—and no competitive market upon which rival entrepreneurs could bid for those resources based on their profit-motivated estimates of their respective values in producing goods desired by the consuming public—there would be no way to know real and actual opportunity costs among the potential alternative uses for which they might be applied. How, therefore, would the central planners know whether or not they were misusing and wasting the resources of society in their production decisions? As Mises summarized the dilemma,“It is not an advantage to be ignorant of whether or not what one is doing is a suitable means of attaining the ends sought. A socialist management would be like a man forced to spend his life blindfolded.”[15]
Even if a socialist system were not controlled by brutal dictators but instead by human “angels” who only wanted to do “good” for humanity, and even if the incentives for work and industry were not reduced or eliminated through the abolition of private property, Mises was able to demonstrate that the very institutional structure of a socialist regime made it impossible for it to produce a material “heaven on earth” for mankind superior to the productive and innovative efficiency of a functioning free-market economy.[16] It is what enabled Mises to declare in the early 1930s, when the appeal of socialist planning around the world was reaching its zenith, that,“From the standpoint of both politics and history, this proof is certainly the most important discovery made by economic theory.... It alone will enable future historians to understand how it came about that the victory of the socialist movement did not lead to the creation of the socialist order of society.”[17]
Mises’s San Francisco Lectures
Mises believed that any comprehensive critique of socialism had to deal with more than merely its unworkability as an economic system, however central this was to the case against socialism. It was also necessary to challenge and refute the philosophical and political underpinnings of the socialist and Marxian conceptions of man and society. His 1922 book on Socialism attempted to do this in great detail. And he returned to this theme a few years after he delivered these lectures in San Francisco in his work on Theory and History.[18]
What Mises offered those attending these lectures in late June and early July of 1952 was a clear understanding and insight into the fundamental errors and misconceptions to be found in Marx’s theories of dialectical materialism and class warfare, as well as a historical analysis of the real benefits from the Industrial Revolution that coincided with the emergence of modern capitalist society. He also explains the role of savings, investment, and the profit and loss system as the engines for economic and cultural progress, and which have helped eliminate the poverty that has plagued mankind through most of history.
In an especially insightful lecture, Mises discusses the nature and workings of capital markets and the importance of market-based interest rates free from government manipulation and inflation. In addition, he shows that foreign investment in underdeveloped parts of the world have not been the cause of poverty or exploitation, as socialists have constantly claimed, but the source of accelerated prosperity and human improvement for tens of millions of people in these countries.
All of these arguments and analyses are placed in the wider context of individualism versus collectivism, the importance of freedom for the dignity and betterment of every human being, and the dangers from surrendering liberty and property to the paternalistic state. Through it all, the reader is offered a vision of the classical-liberal ideal of the free and prosperous society.
As with an earlier series of lectures that Ludwig von Mises delivered in 1951, and which was published by FEE under the title The Free Market and Its Enemies,[19] a unique quality of Marxism Unmasked is that it captures Mises as teacher. Unlike many of his longer, more formal writings, these lectures are peppered with numerous historical asides and common-sense examples that convey the ease and spirit of the spoken word.
These lectures, like the earlier ones, were taken down, word for word, in shorthand and then transcribed by Bettina Bien Greaves, a long-time former senior staff member at the Foundation for Economic Education. Mrs. Greaves is one of the leading experts on the ideas and writings of Ludwig von Mises, and her deep appreciation for his contributions to economic theory and policy is reflected in the care with which she transcribed these lectures for eventual publication. They would not be available now in print if not for her dedication and diligent scholarship, for which we are all especially grateful.
When Mises delivered these lectures Marxian socialism seemed to be conquering the world. Despite the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989 and the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, Marxian criticisms of capitalist society still set the tone for those around the world who persistently hope for the end of human freedom and the market economy.[20] For that reason, what Mises had to say more than 50 years ago still has much meaning for us today.
But now, simply enjoy “listening” to the mind of one of the greatest economists of the twentieth century as you read this book.
1ST LECTURE
Mind, Materialism, and the Fate of Man
THE FIRST FIVE LECTURES IN THIS SERIES will be on philosophy, not on economics. Philosophy is important because everybody, whether or not he knows it, has a definite philosophy, and his philosophical ideas guide his actions.
The philosophy of today is that of Karl Marx [1818– |
aver had already billed the province for her surgery. A lawyer wrote Dr. Javer, asking him to refund his patient, but he didn't reply.
Last year, Dr. Javer billed the public system $697,567. He stressed that he no longer double-bills for surgeries done at the private clinic, but said he still charges the system for the follow-up appointments.
Ultimately, say many, the solutions are political
The Specialist Referral Clinic, where taco-stand owner Ms. Guthrie paid for her surgical consultation with shareholder Dr. Regan, has also been audited. The province found significant extra-billing, so much so that it has since attempted to shut the clinic down – attempts that have been stymied by the clinic's lawyers.
Shareholders there, who also own the Cambie Surgery Centre in Vancouver, are trying to justify extra-billing in a B.C. court challenge that has dragged on for almost a decade, with no end in sight. The clinics admit they are billing illegally, but they are challenging the laws that ban it, claiming they are unconstitutional.
The court case has been widely publicized, but many people don't realize how it came about. The president of the two clinics, Dr. Brian Day, engaged the lawyers after the province told him that auditors were on their way.
After years of legal delays, in 2012 the audit eventually uncovered 170 instances of extra-billing to patients "contrary to the Act," within a very small sample of 468 services over 10 years. It also flagged 93 instances of double-dipping, in which 19 doctors charged a total of $66,734 to the province, while the clinic charged patients or their representatives $424,232 for the same courses of treatment.
At the time, the clinic told auditors that it "does not compensate" its physicians. It said that doctors bill the province, while patients are only charged "facility fees," for equipment and staff. Financial records later filed in court showed that wasn't true. Those records demonstrated that the clinic paid 140 people, mostly doctors, $1.5-million or more per year in "consulting fees," over five years. That included a total of $1.36-million paid to Dr. Day during that period.
Dr. Regan – Ms. Guthrie's surgeon – was paid as much as $120,000 a year by Cambie, from 2008 to 2012, plus up to $10,000 in annual dividends. During the same period, Dr. Regan also charged B.C. taxpayers more than $250,000 a year.
Dr. Day has since acknowledged that the clinic does pay its surgeons. Its position now – laid out in recent court statements – is that doctors have stopped billing the province for work they do there.
However, one patient's records reviewed by The Globe show charges by surgeons – to the government – for treatments at Cambie, as recently as February of this year. The two doctors billed the province for exactly the same treatments the patient paid for. In the meantime, clinic lawyers convinced the judge to stop the province from shutting down the whole operation, pending the outcome of the constitutional court challenge, which is expected to take years.
Whatever the outcome of that particular case, doctors and patients The Globe talked to – on both sides of the private-versus-public debate – all say that governments have let the situation slide for too long. "Patients can wait, so the system makes them wait, and right now – officially – they have no other option," says Kamloops Surgical Centre founder Dr. Outerbridge. "I just have to shake my head. This should have been dealt with long, long ago."
"I think it's an abdication of the responsibility of government," says Dr. Etches, of Doctors for Medicare. "The private clinics are now deeply entrenched in the health-care system … and that lies at the feet of the politicians."
INVESTIGATION
Where Canada's private clinics are, and what they do
A sample of private clinics and service costs from across Canada Filter results by clinic type or location. Clinic type All Boutique physician Diagnostic imaging Gastrointestinal screening Opthalmology clinic Surgical Location All Alberta British Columbia Ontario Nova Scotia Quebec Saskatchewan Search Clinic name Clinic type Location Sample service Sample service cost Request healthcard Preventous Collaborative Health Detail Boutique physician Calgary, Alberta Annual Physical / Ongoing Services $4,895 No Provital Health and Wellness Ltd. Detail Boutique physician Calgary, Alberta Annual Physical / Ongoing Services $3900/yr No Mayfair Diagnostics Detail Diagnostic imaging Calgary, Alberta MRI $950 No Dominion Medical Centres Detail Boutique physician Edmonton, Alberta Annual Physical / Ongoing Services $1,775 No The Allin Clinic Detail Boutique physician Edmonton, Alberta Annual Physical / Ongoing Services N/A No Insight Medical Imaging Detail Diagnostic imaging Edmonton, Alberta MRI $575 Yes Medical Imaging Consultants Detail Diagnostic imaging Edmonton, Alberta MRI $575 Yes Central Alberta Medical Imaging Services Ltd. Detail Diagnostic imaging Red Deer, Alberta MRI $725 Yes Fraser Valley MRI Clinic Detail Diagnostic imaging Abbotsford, British Columbia MRI $750 No Valley Laser Eye Surgery Detail Opthalmology Clinic Abbotsford, British Columbia Cataract Surgery $1,000 Yes Boyd Vision Detail Opthalmology Clinic Burnaby, British Columbia Cataract Surgery $1,500 Yes Comox Valley Surgical Associates Detail Surgical clinic Comox Valley, British Columbia Knee Surgery (Torn ACL) $8,000 Yes Vancouver Island MRI Detail Diagnostic imaging Courtenay, British Columbia MRI $875 No Welcome Back Pain Management and Upright MRI Centre Detail Diagnostic imaging Kamloops, British Columbia MRI $995 No Kamloops Surgical Centre Detail Surgical clinic Kamloops, British Columbia Knee Surgery (Torn ACL) $6,000 Yes Image One MRI Clinic Detail Diagnostic imaging Kelowna, British Columbia MRI $895 No Okanagan Health Surgical Centre Detail Surgical clinic Kelowna, British Columbia Knee Surgery (Torn ACL) $8,000 Yes Anderson Eye Surgery Detail Opthalmology Clinic Langley, British Columbia Cataract Surgery $2,000 Yes Langley Surgical Centre Detail Surgical clinic Langley, British Columbia Knee Surgery (Torn ACL) $10,000 Yes Nanaimo MRI Detail Diagnostic imaging Nanaimo, British Columbia MRI $875 Yes New Westminster Surgical Centre Detail Surgical clinic New Westminster, British Columbia Knee Surgery (Torn ACL) $8,900 Yes Prince George Surgery Centre Detail Surgical clinic Prince George, British Columbia Knee Surgery (Torn ACL) Yes Access MRI Detail Diagnostic imaging Surrey, British Columbia MRI $595 Yes Surrey MRI Detail Diagnostic imaging Surrey, British Columbia MRI $650 Yes Continuum Medical Care Detail Boutique physician Vancouver, British Columbia Annual Physical / Ongoing Services $2400/yr No Copeman Healthcare Centre Detail Boutique physician Vancouver, British Columbia Annual Physical / Ongoing Services $1850/yr No AIM Medical Imaging Detail Diagnostic imaging Vancouver, British Columbia MRI $825 No Canada Diagnostic Centres Detail Diagnostic imaging Vancouver, British Columbia MRI $900 No Canadian Magnetic Imaging Detail Diagnostic imaging Vancouver, British Columbia MRI $895 No MedRay MRI Detail Diagnostic imaging Vancouver, British Columbia MRI $700 No North Shore Medical Imaging Detail Diagnostic imaging Vancouver, British Columbia MRI $895 No Pezim Clinic Detail Gastrointestinal Screening Vancouver, British Columbia Colonoscopy $625 Yes Ambulatory Surgical Centre Detail Surgical clinic Vancouver, British Columbia Knee Surgery (Torn ACL) $5,000 Yes Cambie Surgery Centre/Specialist Referral Clinic Detail Surgical clinic Vancouver, British Columbia Knee Surgery (Torn ACL) $6,000 Yes No Creek Healthcare Centre Detail Surgical clinic Vancouver, British Columbia MRI $895 No West Coast Medical Imaging Detail Diagnostic imaging Victoria, British Columbia MRI $875 Yes White Rock Orthopedic Surgery Centre Detail Surgical clinic White Rock, British Columbia Knee Surgery (Torn ACL) $7,300 No Healthview Medical Imaging Detail Diagnostic imaging Halifax, Nova Scotia MRI $895 No Halifax Eye Institute Detail Opthalmology Clinic Halifax, Nova Scotia Cataract Surgery $5,000 Yes Halifax Vision Centre Detail Opthalmology Clinic Halifax, Nova Scotia Cataract Surgery $2,400 No Lasik MD Detail Opthalmology Clinic Halifax, Nova Scotia Cataract Surgery $2,500 No Durham Endosurgery Centre Detail Gastrointestinal Screening Ajax, Ontario Colonoscopy Yes Genesis Professional Group Detail Boutique physician Concord, Ontario Annual Physical / Ongoing Services $4068/yr Yes Taunton Surgical Centre Detail Surgical clinic Oshawa, Ontario Colonoscopy $60 Yes La Vie Executive Health Centre Detail Boutique physician Ottawa, Ontario Annual Physical / Ongoing Services $1500/yr Yes Shouldice Hospital Detail Surgical clinic Thornhill, Ontario $980 Yes Healthcare 365 Detail Boutique physician Toronto, Ontario Annual Physical / Ongoing Services $3300/yr Yes Medcan Detail Boutique physician Toronto, Ontario Annual Physical / Ongoing Services $895/yr Yes Medisys Detail Boutique physician Toronto, Ontario Annual Physical / Ongoing Services $3250/yr No Regal Health Services Detail Boutique physician Toronto, Ontario Annual Physical / Ongoing Services $3700/yr Yes MedCentra Detail Diagnostic imaging Toronto, Ontario MRI N/A Yes Crystal Clear Vision Detail Opthalmology Clinic Toronto, Ontario Cataract Surgery $1,500 Yes TLC Yonge-Eglinton Laser Eye Centre Detail Opthalmology Clinic Toronto, Ontario Cataract Surgery N/A Yes Sentinelle Health Group Detail Boutique physician Gatineau, Quebec Annual Physical / Ongoing Services $399 Yes Clinique d'Ophthalmologie Iris Detail Opthalmology Clinic Laval, Quebec Cataract Surgery $1,290 Yes Clinique Chirurgicale de Laval Detail Surgical clinic Laval, Quebec Knee Surgery (Torn ACL) $6,000 Yes Duval Orthopedic Clinic Detail Surgical clinic Laval, Quebec Knee Surgery (Torn ACL) $7,500 Yes MD-Plus Medical Clinic Detail Boutique physician Montreal, Quebec Annual Physical / Ongoing Services $75+ Yes Cliniques Michel Pop Detail Opthalmology Clinic Montreal, Quebec Cataract Surgery $2,200 Yes Laservue Detail Opthalmology Clinic Montreal, Quebec Cataract Surgery $1,000 Yes Lasik MD Detail Opthalmology Clinic Montreal, Quebec Cataract Surgery $2,500 Yes Montreal Eye Institute Detail Opthalmology Clinic Montreal, Quebec Cataract Surgery $2,300 Yes Institut de Chirurgie Specialisee de Montreal Detail Surgical clinic Montreal, Quebec Knee Surgery (Torn ACL) $3,600 Yes Rockland MD Detail Surgical clinic Montreal, Quebec Knee Surgery (Torn ACL) $7,195 Yes Medicine Privee Notre Dame Detail Boutique physician Saint Lambert, Quebec Annual Physical / Ongoing Services $150+ No ChirurgiVision Clinic Detail Opthalmology Clinic Trois-Rivieres, Quebec Cataract Surgery $2,500 Yes Westmount Square Surgical Centre Detail Surgical clinic Westmount, Quebec Knee Surgery (Torn ACL) $7,600 Yes Mayfair Diagnostics Regina Detail Diagnostic imaging Regina, Saskatchewan MRI $950 No Open Skies MRI Diagnostics Detail Diagnostic imaging Regina, Saskatchewan MRI $900 Yes Regina Surgical Centre Detail Surgical clinic Regina, Saskatchewan Knee Surgery (Torn ACL) $5,525 Yes THE GLOBE AND MAIL, SOURCE:ONTARIO HEALTH COALITION Clinic title Location Location Clinic type Type Sample service Sample service | $COST
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Kathy Tomlinson is a member of The Globe and Mail's investigative team, based in Vancouver.
With a report from Michael Pereira“Los Alamos’ RAPTOR telescopes in New Mexico and Hawaii received a very bright cosmic birth announcement for a black hole on April 27,” said astrophysicist Tom Vestrand, lead author of a paper n the journal Science Nov. 21 that highlights the unusual event.
“This was the burst of the century,” said Los Alamos co-author James Wren. “It’s the biggest, brightest one to happen in at least 20 years, and maybe even longer than that.”
The RAPTOR (RAPid Telescopes for Optical Response) system — designed by Los Alamos National Laboratory — is a network of small robotic observatories that scan the skies for optical anomalies such as flashes emanating from a star in its death throes as it collapses and becomes a black hole, an object so dense that not even light can escape its gravity field.
This flash — optical light generated simultaneously with x-rays and gamma rays during a gamma ray burst (GRB) — provides clues about the nature of the explosions that occur as massive stars collapse. It arrived from the constellation Leo in the form of an exceptionally bright flash of visible light that accompanied a powerful burst of cosmic gamma-ray emissions. It lasted about 80 seconds before it faded below the ~10th magnitude sensitivity limit of the RAPTOR full sky monitors.
Witnessed by an armada of instruments
What made such an extremely rare event even more spectacular for scientists, however, is that, in addition to the RAPTOR sighting, it was witnessed by an armada of instruments — including gamma-ray and X-ray detectors aboard NASA’s Fermi, NuSTAR and Swift satellites. While the NASA instruments recorded some of the highest-energy gamma-ray bursts ever measured from such an event, RAPTOR noticed that the massive and violent transformation of a star into a black hole yielded a lingering “afterglow” that faded in lock-step with the highest energy gamma-rays.
“This afterglow is interesting to see,” said paper co-author Przemek Wozniak of Los Alamos’s Intelligence and Space Research Division. “We normally see a flash associated with the beginning of an event, analogous to the bright flash that you would see coinciding with the explosion of a firecracker. This afterglow may be somewhat analogous to the embers that you might be able to see lingering after your firecracker has exploded. It is the link between the optical phenomenon and the gamma-rays that we haven’t seen before, and that’s what makes this display extremely exciting.”
A Rosetta-Stone event
The event was among the brightest and most energetic of its type ever witnessed. “This was a Rosetta-Stone event that illuminates so many things — literally,” Vestrand said. “We were very fortunate to have all of the NASA and ground-based instruments seeing it at the same time. We had all the assets in place to collect a very detailed data set. These are data that astrophysicists will be looking at for a long time to come because we have a detailed record of the event as it unfolded.”
Already the event, labeled GRB 130427A by astrophysicists, is testing some long-held assumptions about the nature of the universe. For example, scientists recorded energy levels for gamma rays that are higher than what some researchers thought theoretically possible. This revelation may require physicists to modify existing theories about radiation. No doubt, the data set could yield more surprises in the future, Vestrand said.
Other organizations affiliated with the research include Stanford University, the University of Alabama, Las Cumbres Observatory Global Telescope Network and the Universities Space Research Association.
Abstract of Science paper
The optical light generated simultaneously with x-rays and gamma-rays during a gamma-ray burst (GRB) provides clues about the nature of the explosions that occur as massive stars collapse. We report on the bright optical flash and fading afterglow from powerful burst GRB 130427A. The optical and >100 MeV gamma-ray flux show a close correlation during the first 7000 s, best explained by reverse shock emission co-generated in the relativistic burst ejecta as it collides with surrounding material. At later times, optical observations show the emergence of emission generated by a forward shock traversing the circumburst environment. The link between optical afterglow and >100 MeV emission suggests that nearby early peaked afterglows will be the best candidates for studying particle acceleration at GeV/TeV energies.Rest is important. Heck, Arianna Huffington wrote a book called "The Sleep Revolution," and more than a few adults are tearing a page from their toddler days and taking naps again.
Rests makes you your best self!
Some Power 5 conferences understand this, which is why national title contenders No. 1 Alabama, No. 2 Clemson, No. 4 Florida State and No. 5 LSU each have bye weekends before their biggest games this season. It's why Alabama plays Chattanooga the weekend before the Iron Bowl, and Tennessee plays Tennessee Tech before it winds up its season with the, er, gauntlet of Kentucky, Missouri and Vanderbilt.
The Pac-12, however, doesn't seem to understand the value of rest. The Pac-12 doesn't feature a whole lot of strategically placed bye weekends, nor does it schedule a November patsy to ease up the pressures of the season. Pac-12 teams play nine conference games and at least one strong nonconference foe -- some more than one -- and that means 10 to 11 rugged dates when losing is a distinct possibility if a team doesn't show up in peak form.
USC will face No. 1 Alabama and No. 10 Notre Dame in addition to its conference slate. Mark J. Rebilas/USA TODAY Sports
Topping this list is USC, which is playing No. 1 Alabama and No. 10 Notre Dame in addition to its conference slate, which includes four ranked teams and one other, Utah, that should be ranked.
Stanford is next with nonconference battles with Kansas State and Notre Dame. Moreover, the Cardinal's bye week comes in Week 2 before USC's visit, then it plays 11 weeks in a row. In fact, the most notable bye week among Pac-12 contenders is Washington State getting the week off before playing host to Oregon on Oct. 1.
When media sorts talk about the Pac-12 getting left out of the 2016 College Football Playoff, it's about two things. First, it is fair to say the conference doesn't seem to have an obviously elite team this season, at least from a preseason perspective. Every Pac-12 team has significant questions, including Stanford, South Division pick UCLA and preseason hot new thing, Washington, which has a notably weak nonconference slate (best foe being Rutgers).
Just as significant, though, are the schedules. It's difficult to imagine any Pac-12 contender weathering its schedule with one or fewer losses, and our general perception of the CFP is two losses is at least one too many for inclusion.
That might not end up being the case, of course. The selection committee has repeatedly said that strength of schedule matters a great deal. That could mean that an 11-2 Pac-12 champion could eclipse an 12-1 or 11-1 team from another conference, particularly if the Pac-12 features a bevy of ranked teams at season's end and the overall resume is bolstered by a strong record in key nonconference matchups.
The transitive property of college football will be in play with the committee, though they might not call it that. If Team A in one Power 5 conference beats Team B in another Power 5 conference, there's a trickle down effect, suggesting teams thereafter that lose to Team B are -- at least arguably -- inferior to Team A.
What if the Pac-12 owns nonconference wins over Texas Tech (Arizona State), Texas (California) and Texas A&M (UCLA)? In this perfectly plausible mess-with-Texas scenario, the Pac-12 could insinuate trash-talking rights into the Big 12 and SEC. Throw in a Stanford victory over Kansas State, and a 3-0 record versus the Big 12 certainly might diminish Oklahoma's expected cakewalk to the conference title.
In college football's subjective system of evaluation, everything matters, from where you start in the polls to the timing of a loss. That's why even UCLA fans should be rooting for USC to at the very least play a competitive game into the fourth quarter against Alabama on Sept. 3. No matter what the Trojans do the rest of the season, their losing, say, 20-17 to the Crimson Tide would be impossible to ignore, particularly if the Tide rolls through the SEC slate.
The simple fact is many top contenders have much easier schedules than their Pac-12 counterparts. Look at Clemson and Florida State's schedules after they play each other Oct. 29. Talk about coasting home. Michigan doesn't play a ranked team until visiting Michigan State on Oct. 29. After playing at TCU on Oct. 1, Oklahoma next plays a ranked team Nov. 12, Baylor.
This, by the way, is not intended to slight Clemson, Florida State and Oklahoma, teams that annually seek out rugged nonconference games, this year being no exception by any measure.
And, yes, the Pac-12 could solve this oft-discussed problem by, well, just winning its darn football games.
No, the thoughts here are mostly to again buttress a common preseason theme about the Pac-12.
It's difficult to imagine a Pac-12 champion with fewer than two losses, and that likely means the conference will be sitting out the CFP for a second consecutive year.DETROIT - A man was shot and killed while waiting in a car with his two children in the back seat at a gas station on Detroit's east side Saturday night, according to police.
The shooting happened around 7:30 p.m. Saturday at a gas station on the corner of East Vernor Highway and Mount Elliott Street.
Andre Johnson Jr., 23, was waiting in his minivan with his two baby daughters while his girlfriend was inside the gas station.
Detroit police said the victim was reaching into the back seat taking care of his kids when he was shot through an open window. About a half-dozen shots were fired into the van. Detroit police said the Johnson had no time to react.
The shooter ran away and the victim's girlfriend rushed out of the store screaming for help.
Johnson died at the scene.
The two infants in the back seat were unharmed.
At this time, police do not see any indication of a robbery. Detroit police are reviewing surveillance video and are asking for the public's help.
Detroit police are searching for the shooter, who is described as a black male who is about 6 feet tall. He was wearing a blue hoodie pulled up and dark pants, and was last seen on Mount Elliot.
Stay with Local 4 and ClickonDetroit.com for updates on this developing story.
Copyright 2015 by ClickOnDetroit.com. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.The photographs, hugs and congratulations from family members would have to wait.
First, several dozen of the nation’s newest citizens who gathered at the Institute of Texan Cultures in San Antonio would have to endure some harsh words about the state of the country they had just become a part of. The topic: President-elect Donald Trump.
Federal Magistrate Judge John Primomo presided over the induction ceremony late last week. In his speech to the émigrés, he touched on the protests that have cropped up across the nation since Trump’s election.
And he told those gathered what they could do if they didn’t like the person who won Nov. 8.
“I can assure you that whether you voted for [Trump] or you did not vote for him, if you are a citizen of the United States, he is your president and he will be your president,” the judge said, according to CBS affiliate KHOU. “And if you do not like that, you need to go to another country.”
Following several days of controversy over Primomo’s remarks — and calls for his punishment and possible termination — the judge on Monday was suspended from performing any other naturalization ceremonies, according to the San Antonio Express-News.
The following day, Primomo submitted notice for his retirement effective September, following his 65th birthday. Until then, he will continue to serve in his current capacity as a federal magistrate, “making bond decisions and holding other pre-trial hearings,” according to the Express-News.
[White Texas teens chant ‘build that wall’ at Hispanics during high school volleyball match]
Primomo, who did not return messages from The Washington Post, had also criticized American protesters who carried “he’s not my president” signs, according to KHOU.
The judge also lashed out against Colin Kaepernick and other National Football League players who choose to take a knee instead of standing during the national anthem.
“I detest that, because you can protest things that happen in this country; you have every right to,” Primomo said. “You don’t do that by offending national symbols like the national anthem and the flag of the United States.”
Primomo told San Antonio CBS affiliate KENS last week that he wanted his words to be unifying and respectful of the office of the president, not political or divisive.
He said that he didn’t vote for Trump.
Still, his words set off a controversy, with some calling for him to be removed from office.
Critics started a petition on MoveOn.org to censure the judge, who was appointed in 1988.
Dear Judge Primomo, you black-robed pomposity, nothing's more American than dissent. You're unfit to welcome anyone: https://t.co/UiZDVPKdYe — David Simon (@AoDespair) November 21, 2016
According to the Express-News, Primono’s letter of resignation, sent to U.S. district judges, “did not reference the controversy” over his remarks.
The newspaper noted:
Primomo declined to comment Tuesday, except to say he was not a Democrat nor Republican, but was “just trying to say something nice and it didn’t turn out that way.”
Since Trump won, thousands of people have protested in dozens of U.S. cities.
[‘Intolerable’: Judge reprimanded after she ‘berated and belittled’ domestic-violence victim]
Among them were eight people who were arrested Saturday near Austin as White Lives Matter protesters clashed with counterprotesters, according to the Associated Press. The conflict happened after Texas Gov. Greg Abbott (R) dedicated a monument honoring African Americans’ contributions to the state.
Protesters interviewed by The Post have cited myriad reasons for taking to the streets — fears about climate change, even concerns about the electoral system and capitalism itself.
But mostly, they don’t like Trump.
Nationwide protests gripped many cities for days following the presidential election as thousands march against Donald Trump's victory. Trump tweeted to condemn "professional protesters, incited by the media." (Jenny Starrs/The Washington Post)
The protesters have faced their own criticism from people who said they should be working to unite the country, not divide it.
According to The Post’s Abigail Hauslohner and Mark Berman, “The protesters have earned the ire of Trump and his surrogates, who have insulted them on television and social media, calling them paid professionals ‘incited by the media,’ jobless ‘crybabies,’ people with mental disorders and ‘goons.’ ”
This story, which was originally published Nov. 21, has been updated.
Read more:
‘I’m planning to populate hell’: Judge is disciplined for ‘undignified’ comments in court
Take a ship ‘back to Africa’: Florida judge reassigned after alleged comments about black people
This attorney wore a Black Lives Matter pin to court — and went to jail for itYou knew that last night’s Olympic Opening Ceremony was going to be musically special when the first minute included Elgar, The Jam, the Eton Boating Song and Fuck Button’s ‘Surf Solar’, as the camera tracked from the source of the Thames down to the Olympic Park.
Fuck Buttons!
This is, by definition, the most mainstream event on the plant, and Fuck Buttons are there, right at the start as a wild and wonderful flag-waving celebration of what is real and wonderful about our world. Not built-by-numbers pop hits, but by a gorgeous, brutal piece of Andrew Weatherall-produced synth noise, a ‘Glider’ for this decade.
Underworld, who masterminded the soundtrack to the ceremony, subverted everything music is supposed to do at a showcase event like the Olympics. Instead of broadcasting pop hits that were built with profit in mind, or that smooth out the rough edges of life into a lowest common denominator average, they took the music not underground, because these were predominantly pieces of music we all know and love, but back to the margins, where all the most interesting things begin.
Along with the aforementioned Fuck Buttons, whose name is censored down to a more acceptable F Buttons on TV and radio, the show also included at least five pieces of music that were either banned at the time of release or that had a controversial relationship with the establishment. There was not just one Sex Pistols track, but two, starting with God Save The Queen and culminating with the pogoing punks with big heads going mental to Pretty Vacant, a song whose chorus is usually sung along to with particular focus on the last two syllables of the final word.
You can only imagine what David Cameron made of it. #savethesurprise? Ho ho, yes!
Frankie Goes To Hollywood’s ‘Relax’ was intended by ZTT label co-founder Paul Morely as ‘an assault on pop’, an overt recognition of the band’s keystone reference points of sex, war and religion. Let’s not forget that the original ads for the release featured images of Rutherford in a sailor cap and leather vest and were accompanied by the legend ‘All The Nice Boys Love Sea Men’. As well having all the requisite rub points for an AIDS-bombarded youth, it was an awesome piece of pop music that cost producer Trevor Horn a reported £70,000 of studio costs.
Then there’s Prodigy’s ‘Firestarter’, the most commercial tip of an iceberg that started with hardcore and rave and their early shows at Dalston’s rave-mine Labyrynth and wheeled through jungle before ending up with the freak-faced hardcore pop of ‘Firestarter’. The video was banned by the BBC on the laughable basis that it might encourage arson.
I could go on, about the brilliant use of Underworld’s ‘Dark and Long’ (also used to soundtrack Renton’s worst hallucination in Trainspotting) or how grime was celebrated and showcased, or about how the athletes walked into the stadium to the sound of The Chemical Brother’s ‘Galvanise’ or about the twitter query that maybe, had the KLF organised the opening ceremony? (answer: there would have been a damn sight more blood and burning if they had) or just the whole, fantastic honesty of the thing. But instead, can I just say a heartfelt thank you to whoever let Danny Boyle and Underworld do whatever they wanted. It was an emotional, political, musical riot.
Just imagine, we could have had Gary Barlow in charge.
Fuck Buttons pic: mehan jayasuriya
AdvertisementsFor months, Israel’s leadership has made it appear as though a military strike against Iran may be imminent.
However, some (including myself) have viewed such sabre rattling as nothing more than a bluff – a bluff intended to politically scare up U.S. support for a military strike in an election year.
A report from The Washington Post today makes it appear as though President Obama agrees. For the Obama administration seems to be calling Israel’s bluff.
In short, Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu has been waving Iran before the GOP like a piece of red meat, imploring Republicans to hit Obama hard politically with the spectre of Israel’s vulnerability. Mitt Romney obliged in late July, pledging full support for an Israeli strike.
However, it appears President Obama hasn’t been moved. This much has been made clear by the host of Israeli figures who have been publicly whining recently about the fact that Obama hasn’t been puffing out his chest enough and threatening Iran with our military might.
Here’s the best quote from an unnamed Israeli official cited by the Post:
“What we’d like to see is President Obama saying something in the next few days or weeks, something serious,” said one official. “It could be (a declaration) of red lines, or some forceful statement,” he said. “The point is not to convince Israel, but to convince the Iranians, that we, the United States, mean business. We will tighten sanctions. There’s a military option. … The Iranians have to understand unequivocally that the Americans are serious about preventing them from acquiring nuclear weapons.”
The point is not to convince Israel, but to convince the Iranians, that we, the United States, mean business.The unintended meaning of the official’s words belies a current truth: the U.S. has made clear to Israel that it means business — it will not support a military strike in the present environment. Full stop.
As Netanyahu continues to bark, Israeli leaders are begging our President to bite. However, Obama seems intent on not allowing this tail to wag the dog.
Follow me on Twitter @David_EHGOn the anniversary of 9/11, an Italian-produced documentary called ZERO, investigating the tragedy, is opening in Russia. The authors believe that the U.S. official version of events surrounding the attacks can't be true. U.S. networks have rejected the f
The events of September 11 2001 sent shockwaves around the world as hijacked aircraft crashed into the World Trade Centre, bringing the landmark buildings down, the Pentagon, and into a Pennsylvania field in the wake of a failed attempt by passengers to regain control.
The Empty space at Ground Zero in Manhattan stands as a memorial to the collapse of the towers, which killed nearly 3000 occupants and rescuers.
The makers of the documentary claim that the report of the official U.S. commission into the tragedy of September 11, 2001 is false.
One of the films authors, Giulietto Chiesa, who's also an Italian member of the European Parliament, says some of the facts concerning the tragedy remain very suspicious and that a lot of questions are still unanswered.
“The people who organised 9/11 are people who knew the geopolitical and energy situation in the world very well. They knew exactly how the attack will change the future of the world,” Chiesa said.
The film claims the reason for the collapse of the two towers of the World Trade Center in New York was not the planes crashing into them but a controlled detonation of explosives planted inside the buildings. Referring to witness corroborations, they pose the question of how two of the worlds largest buildings collapsed on their own footprint, and without significantly affecting nearby buildings.
Chiesa says he was shocked by the absence of U.S. air defense on the day of the attack, which allowed the hijacked planes reach the World Trade Centre.
He also finds it strange that, just three days after 9/11, U.S. officials were able to name all 19 terrorist involved. The film presents evidence that CIA specialists not only new about the planned terrorist attack but assisted them in gaining U.S. visas.
The documentary also raises questions about whether the aircraft involved in the Pentagon attack was a Boeing-757. Adding to these questions is the absence of any footage from the many cameras installed around the U.S. Defense HQ, any wreckage from the aircraft, or passenger bodies.
The documentary also raises doubts, not only about Osama Bin Laden’s involvement in the attack, but also the existence of the Al-Quaeda terrorist organisation.
9/11 victims remembered in Moscow
A requiem service has been held in Moscow to remember those who died in the 9/11 terror attacks in New York seven years ago.
The requiem service was lead at St. Catherine's Church by U.S. born archimandrite Zahkey (Richard Wood). The ceremony was held both in Russian and English.
The U.S. Ambassador to Russia John Beyrle attended the service along with his international counterparts and Russian officials.
Beyrle said it was a day for people to mourn not only the victims of the 9/11 attacks, but for innocent people who have died in any terrorist attack.Jeff Bezos did not mince words when throwing shade on fellow tech billionaire Peter Thiel over his war with media company Gawker.
“Seek revenge and you should dig two graves, one for yourself," the Amazon founder said at the Code Conference in Los Angeles Tuesday night, in reference to a quote attributed to Chinese philosopher Confucius.
“The best defense to speech that you don’t like about yourself as a public figure is to develop a thick skin,” he added, stressing that this wasn't particularly directed at Thiel or any particular story. "If you absolutely can't tolerate critics, then don't do anything new or interesting."
Lucas Jackson / Reuters Peter Thiel has reportedly spent around $10 million hiring lawyers to find lawsuits to bring against Gawker.
Bezos then warned against the erosion of free speech in the U.S. “Beautiful speech doesn’t need protection," he said. "It's ugly speech that needs protection. That’s where the rubber’s gonna meet the road.”
Thiel has been out to get Gawker ever since the website ran a piece titled "Peter Thiel is totally gay, people."
But the PayPal co-founder's personal vendetta only came into the spotlight last week when it was revealed that he was secretly financing wrestler Hulk Hogan's $140 million lawsuit against Gawker after it published snippets of his sex tape.
Thiel told The New York Times in May he had helped fund other lawsuits against the media company, which he declined to identify publicly.* OMV, GDF, major German players to be approached
* Graphic on the pipeline: link.reuters.com/huq53w]
* Price tag between 750 million-1.2 billion euros
* Could also carry Russian gas
By Shadia Nasralla
VIENNA, Jan 28 (Reuters) - Slovak pipeline operator Eustream expects to sign a memorandum of understanding in the next two weeks with counterparts in Romania and Bulgaria on a proposed gas pipeline aimed at reducing Balkan reliance on Russia, its chief said on Wednesday.
The project, its backers say, would ensure countries including Bulgaria and Serbia can receive gas even if Russian supplies via Ukraine are disrupted.
The Slovak operator has proposed gas be piped from western European hubs via Slovakia’s existing system into Ukraine and then into Romania and on to Bulgaria.
“We expect to sign a memorandum of understanding with both Romanians and Bulgarians within, let’s say two weeks,” Eustream Chairman Tomas Marecek told Reuters on the sidelines of a European gas conference in Vienna.
“Eustream is working as a major promoter of the project but we still discuss with many counterparties who could theoretically participate as shareholders.”
Russia has halted gas flows to Ukraine three times in the past decade, disruptions that have hit especially hard in the Balkans where many countries rely almost wholly on Russian gas through a single transit route.
The Slovak pipeline operator is considering a joint venture with a number of foreign companies to build the project with an estimated price tag of between 750 million euros ($850.58 million) to 1.2 billion euros, depending on the final route Marecek said.
“We plan to discuss it with the big German names,” he said. “We will definitely discuss it with OMV and have already discussed it with Gaz de France.”
The proposed 570-kilometre project would have a potential capacity of up to 20 billion cubic metres (bcm) per year and the ability to transport gas either from Russia to the Balkans, or from the West to the Balkans |
he may have struggled with his finances, Robin had made sure his children would be cared for.
In 2009 the Oscar-winner had drawn up a document outlining their payments but made sure they only received the cash in stages.
When they were 21, they received a third of their trust funds. Four years later they were given half of what was left.
The final instalment is to be paid when they reach 30. It is unclear how much is in the trust, but a US website reports there is a “significant” amount outside of it and Susan will receive a large chunk.
Robin’s 640-acre Napa Valley ranch is still for sale. It is in the Mayacamas Mountains, 90 minutes from San Francisco.
Five years ago, Robin appeared in a movie advising people suffering mental health issues against suicide.
In World’s Greatest Dad he plays a grieving father called Lance Clayton, whose son Kyle has a fascination with auto-erotica and accidentally dies by asphyxiation.
Looking to camera, Robin says: “I am not going to pretend that I know what is going on in the mind of a teenager. If you are that depressed, reach out to someone. And remember, suicide is a permanent solution to a temporary problem.”
Investigation into the Death of Robin WilliamsFor those of us who’ve grown up always having cable or satellite service, paid television seems as basic an expense as groceries or electricity. But depending on what you watch, cutting the cord in part (or whole) can help cut expenses – but not your most vital TV services. You can watch HD Big Brother, House M.D., Survivor or American Idol for the cost of a $50 rooftop or balcony-attached antenna. Watch TV via internet streaming for as little as $0. And if you need a reminder regarding the value of the major networks, the top 20 primetime shows for the week of May 9th to May 15th were on free, broadcast television.
Still, if you watch more than broadcast television, you’re going to have do some research in order to avoid missing much programming. You’ll need a combo of internet and free television options, because watching TV without cable service isn’t as simple as placing one order and clicking power on your remote.
Know Your Options
For starters, there’s equipment. If you use an antenna for local television stations, you’ll want to plug in your address at Antennaweb.org. Just as with a satellite dish, says Consumer Electronics Association Director Megan Pollock, reception varies by the direction your home faces and interfering objects (such as if your apartment faces a tall cement building). If you don’t want to install an outdoor antenna (and antennaweb.org indicates you should get good reception), try an indoor antenna. Purchasing an indoor antenna is pretty goof-proof, too, since you can keep the box and return it if your signal isn’t clear.
When you browse channels to check reception, don’t just look for the expected local networks, such as PBS, NBC or Univision. Each channel can split their digital signal to create multiple channels of programming in a process called “multicasting.” According to American Broadcast Association spokesperson Dennis Wharton, you could watch your favorite primetime show via the primary NBC signal during primetime Thursday night on NBC, while NBC uses its secondary signals to broadcast a 24-hour sports, weather channel or a re-run of a classic sitcom.
Beyond antennas, increase your viewing options with Blu-ray players, Xbox, AppleTV or Roku. Each device functions as a programming hub similar to a cable box. You’ll utilize a wireless internet connection you purchase from your phone or internet company to stream programming from different web-based services such as Hulu, Amazon Video, Itunes, and Netflix. Also similar to cable and satellite, the programming you can choose from to create viewing packages varies from device to device. For instance, if you want HuluPlus – which offers a selection of broadcast and cable shows for $7.99 per month – you’ll need a device that supports HuluPlus. If you subscribe to Netflix or Amazon video to watch movies, you’ll want a device that supports these services.
Consumer Electronics Association Director, Megan Pollock subscribes to MLB.tv to get Red Sox games that normally aren’t available in her local area – at least without an additional subscription package on cable. When she prices out her cost for her programming package, she includes this subscription, which is $119 per year. When she’s not at home, she watches programming on her Ipad using free apps.
Where you may sacrifice by cutting cords is premium cable television shows. Giving up seeing shows on premium channels such as HBO or Showtime at premiere dates is the largest sacrifice you’ll make. As of now, there isn’t an alternative way to view these shows within a day or two of theor original airing. You can rent seasons on Netflix, or peruse iTunes, Hulu, Amazon video and other services for episode availability; however, you can usually just see the shows at later dates. For instance, Pollock watches shows a season behind utilizing Netflix and talks about the show with other coworkers who are also a season behind.
Being a cord-cutter may not be for everyone — but saving money is. If you choose satellite or cable service, negotiate your rate, choose only services you watch regularly, and ask for specials on movie channels and premium packages. (I call my cable service every six months to get on a new special.) Also, consider which tv you watch the most. You can always eliminate one tv’s cable box by using an internet-streaming device or watching local programming via an antenna. The best bundle for you maybe a combination of both cable and alternative viewing options.
Reyna Gobel is a freelance journalist who specializes in financial fitness. She is also the author of Graduation Debt: How To Manage Student Loans and Live Your Life.
RelatedThe financial situation in Detroit is inching toward critical mass and the governor is not standing idly by waiting for it to get there. File this story under “Just in Case.” Just in case the governor decides to send in an Emergency Manager to do what the Mayor and City Council have been struggling to do, the Snyder administration has directed Andy Dillon to float some names as possible EM’s. The state treasurer is looking for what they call “buy in” from community leaders because if and when the governor goes this route, he wants those leaders on his side. He won’t get all of them, but he wants somebody to have his back when the firestorm of EM protests erupt, which is likely to happen. Appointing an EM with local ties, knowledge and trust with the citizens is a must. Hence one of the names out there is
for mayor and the deputy guy in charge for former Mayor Dennis Archer. Word has it that he has not been asked but if he is, he would not rule it out, even though he refuses to confirm any of that. Charles Williams and Charles Beckham are also reportedly on the circulation list. Both bring a wealth of hands-on government experience in Motown via their insider work with former Mayors Kilpatrick and Young and in Mr. Beckham’s case, with current Mayor Dave Bing. Mr. Beckham left that post in 2010. Other names under consideration include the former Mayor of Washington D.C. Anthony Williams, current Allen Park EM Joyce Parker and Price Waterhouse consultant Daryl Berk, who is described as not interested in the post. The one potential challenge on Mayor Williams may be his lack of a long-term relationship with Detroiters. It’s important to underscore here that the governor has not decided to do this, but he promises that he will do what he needs to do to keep that important city from going under. This drama has been growing for years and is certainly not unique to the current Bing administration. One gets the feeling the current governor wants this thing resolved once and for all, but he can’t do it alone - especially given the history of the state trying to impose its will on the city. Think former Gov. John Engler, who tried that by abolishing the local school board. It did not exactly work wonders but it deeply poisoned the waters that the current governor is delicately trying to navigate right now. On Friday a financial review team sends the governor its analysis, which will not be pretty. Meanwhile the city leaders are scrambling to avoid the EM. It may be a question of too little, too late as this drama inches toward the final act. It will impact everyone in this state one way or the other.
Watch "Off the Record with Tim Skubick" online anytime at video.wkar.orgCLOSE USA TODAY Sports' Bob Nightengale details how the Houston Astros put together a World Series-winning club. USA TODAY Sports
The Astros celebrate their first World Series championship. (Photo11: Robert Hanashiro, USA TODAY Sport)
LOS ANGELES — Breaking down Game 7 of the World Series between the Houston Astros and Los Angeles Dodgers at Dodger Stadium:
Astros 5, Dodgers 1: Astros win series, 4-3
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The game: Pitching for redemption after a miserable outing in Game 3 of the series, Yu Darvish found no glory in Game 7. The right-hander failed to escape the second inning for the second time in as many starts.
George Springer opened the Astros' first-inning rally with a double down the left-field line. A throwing error by Cody Bellinger scored Springer and put Alex Bregman on second base with no outs. Bregman stole third, then scored on a Jose Altuve groundout to give Houston an early 2-0 lead.
An inning later, after a Lance McCullers groundout scored Brian McCann from third base, Springer hit his fifth home run of the series to end Darvish's night and put the Astros ahead, 5-0.
McCullers, the Astros' starter, struggled with his control but worked his way out of trouble in each of the first two innings. The pitcher left with one out in the third and a new all-time record with four hit batsmen in the World Series.
But a series of Houston relievers kept the Dodgers' offense at bay. Los Angeles got multiple runners on base in the first, second, third and fifth innings but did not score in any. In the sixth, a pinch-hit single for Andre Ethier off Charlie Morton plated the Dodgers' first run, but Morton struck out Chris Taylor and got a groundout from Corey Seager to end the threat.
MORE FROM GAME 7
Man of the moment: Springer. After batting only.115 in the ALCS against the Yankees and going 0-for-4 with four strikeouts in the Astros' Game 1 loss, the 28-year-old outfielder enjoyed a historic World Series. Springer set new World Series records by homering in four consecutive games and tallying 29 total bases in total, and became the third player in big-league history to hit five home runs in a single World Series.
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Manager's special: Given the shaky performance of his bullpen throughout the postseason, A.J. Hinch took a risk when he pulled McCullers with one out in the third. But Hinch got the most out of his available arms in the game, riding two shutout innings from Brad Peacock and largely effective outings from Francisco Liriano, Chris Devenski, Charlie Morton... to finish off Los Angeles.
Needing a mulligan: Though Clayton Kershaw joked after Tuesday night's game that he was ready to throw "27 innings" in Game 7 if asked, Dodgers manager Dave Roberts opted to start Darvish on regular rest over Kershaw on two days' rest. The choice made plenty of sense on paper: His poor Game 3 start notwithstanding, Darvish is a proven ace who pitched well for Los Angeles after his July 31 trade and flourished in his first two postseason outings.
But after Darvish managed only 1 2/3 lousy innings and Brandon Morrow came on to escape the second, Roberts used Kershaw for four full frames before he left for a pinch hitter in the sixth. Hindsight will always be 20/20 on such decisions, but the outcomes suggest Roberts -- who masterfully negotiated his bullpen to get the Dodgers to Game 7 -- should have simply allowed Kershaw to open the game. Game 7 might have gone a lot differently had Kershaw's four shutout innings come at the start of the contest instead of once the Dodgers were already down.
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What you missed on TV: The air sucked out of Dodger Stadium by the Astros' early runs. Though the Los Angeles crowd would get back into the game when the Dodgers threatened offensively and plated their lone run in the sixth, there were even audible chants of "Let's Go Astros" in the middle innings.
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State of the series: It's over. The Astros are your 2017 World Series champions.
Gallery: Best of the 2017 World SeriesThis article is over 1 year old
Developer says software will also contain prayers so it can be used by ‘members of all religions’
Indian neurologists have developed an app to address porn addiction that will play Hindu devotional songs, chant “Allahu Akbar” or recite speeches by Nelson Mandela when a user tries to access adult videos.
The app was developed by Vijay Nath Mishra, a professor of neurology at Banaras Hindu University, in response to behaviour problems he was seeing in his patients.
Petals, pilgrims and passengers: a snapshot of India – in pictures Read more
It currently plays Hindu chants and prayers when users try to access adult or violent material, but Mishra said he aimed to widen its appeal as much as possible.
“Within a month it will contain songs and prayers suited to the Muslim community, so that it could be comfortably used by members of all religions,” he said.
Also to be added are inspirational speeches from figures including Mahatma Gandhi, Nelson Mandela, and the Bengali poet and Nobel laureate Rabindranath Tagore.
“Addiction to pornography cannot be treated but this is a humble attempt at changing one’s behaviour,” Mishra said.
The app has been named Har Har Mahadev, a Hindu chant exhorting Lord Shiva to destroy all evil.
The website Pornhub says Indians make up its third largest user base behind Americans and Britons. According to 2014 data, Indian users who access porn are more likely to be female than the global average.
The Indian government tried to ban 857 porn websites in a sudden move in 2015 but was forced to back down less than a week later after a massive backlash and concerns the censorship may be illegal.
Sunny Leone, a Canadian porn star of Indian origin, leveraged her online popularity in 2012 to make the leap into Bollywood, where she has attained mainstream success despite opposition including a 2015 lawsuit alleging she was “destroying Indian culture”. She retired from the porn industry in 2013.Share. Ultimate Team is included, but League Battles and The Journey are gone. Ultimate Team is included, but League Battles and The Journey are gone.
FIFA 18 marks the long-running soccer franchise’s return to Nintendo systems after an absence since 2014. But the return of EA’s series, now on the NIntendo Switch, isn’t without its drawbacks.
EA has previously disclosed that FIFA 18 wouldn’t be feature-complete when compared to the PS4 and Xbox One versions of the game, as well as that it’s not running on EA’s internal Frostbite engine. With the game now out, and headlining one of Switch’s most-packed release weeks yet, we have a clearer picture of what is — and what isn’t — included in the Switch version of FIFA 18, as well as some explanation from previous EA interviews about these features’ respective absences.
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With that in mind, read on for a list of what’s missing compared to FIFA’s other versions, which IGN has already reviewed on Xbox One and PS4.
The Journey and the Frostbite Engine
Ahead of FIFA’s showing at the E3-adjacent event EA Play, a FIFA 18 trailer confirmed that The Journey: Hunter Returns, the latest FIFA’s story mode, would not be available in the Switch version. Additionally, the game would not be produced in EA’s Frostbite engine, used for a number of its games including Star Wars Battlefront, Battlefield, and, well, FIFA 18 on other platforms.
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The absence of The Journey is, according to EA, due to the absence of Frostbite on the Switch version.
“The Journey is powered by Frostbite. When we looked at the platform and its unique features, we made the choice of custom-building the game,” producer Andrei Lazarescu said during E3.
But Frostbite isn’t being used because EA couldn’t get it to run, according to Lazarescu — the company just felt a unique engine would better suit this iteration.
"It's not that you can't get Frostbite on it. It's just that we felt this custom-built engine would build the better experience,” he said at the time.
As Lazarescu explained at the time, EA looks at the Switch version as a “completely different FIFA experience on a completely different platform.”
Squad Battles and Weekend League
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FIFA 18 on Switch does have the Ultimate Team mode, however plenty of recent additions to the series' mode like Squad Battles and Weekend League are unavailable. Squad Battles tasks players on other platforms with playing a set of games to earn points and climb leaderboards, while Weekend League offers weekend tournaments with great prizes.
In a more recent interview, Lazarescu explained "If you look at the history of Ultimate Team on the likes of Sony or Microsoft—I think it's a seven year history if I recall correctly. If you throw everything from the get go to a completely new player base, you might not get the desired result."
Essentially, EA did not want to overwhelm new players when others have gotten used to them progressively over the course of years.
Echoing the belief that the Switch version is meant to be a different experience, Lazaercu said EA views the Switch FIFA as a more social iteration.
Online Play With Friends
Looking to go head-to-head with your pals in FIFA 18 online? Unfortunately, you can’t, according to Eurogamer.
While the Switch version supports online play, there’s no matchmaking function to use your Switch’s friend list and match up with a friend.
Of course, while the Switch does have a built-in friends list, it currently lacks an expansive online service, as Nintendo delayed the Switch’s paid online network to 2018.
Transfer Negotiations, Release Clauses, Some Player Formations
While FIFA 18 does have a career mode, some tweaks have also been made here as well. Transfer negotiations, as well as release clauses, are not available on the Switch version.
And, as reported by Kotaku UK, some player formations have been removed from the game as well. Whereas EA has explained the absence of modes wholesale, there is no current explanation for the slimming down of these options in content that does exist.
Reduced Presentation
Also reported by Kotaku, the actual environmental detail of the game has been reduced as compared to other versions. It won’t affect the pure gameplay necessarily, but fan chants and lighting are reportedly less complex than on other platforms.
So, how does FIFA 18 play on Switch?
Of course, if you’re looking to see what an actual, full match of FIFA 18 looks like, IGN has you covered:
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But fear not, FIFA on Switch may see enhancements in the future. Lazarescu recently said “ think we are going to see more FIFA on Switch in the future.”
So What Does FIFA 18 on Switch Include?
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As mentioned about, FIFA 18 does offer Ultimate Team, albeit missing some features, a Career mode, online and local multiplayer, Kickoff, and Local Seasons. Ultimate Team will include Icons, allowing players to experience soccer legends with Ultimate Team's Stories mode.
FIFA 18 on Switch also supports a split Joy-Con mode, so players can compete 1-on-1 on a single Switch without extra controllers needed.
For more discussion about FIFA 18 on Switch — and everything else released for Nintendo's console this week, be sure to check out the latest episode of IGN's podcast Nintendo Voice Chat.
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Jonathon Dornbush is an Associate Editor for IGN. Find him on Twitter @jmdornbush.Atari’s massive success in the late 70s presented many challenges, not least of which was one of logistics: How were they going to get arcade product shipped globally to meet the huge demand for its arcade games? Transporting bulky 300lb lumps of wood, glass and metal around the globe from a single operational base in the USA was (and still is) an expensive business. Expecting European arcade operators to soak up that additional cost would have been commercial suicide. Add that to the fact that its main production plant in Sunnyvale California was already close to capacity meeting the demand in the USA, it was clear that Atari had to do something to take advantage of what was fast becoming a global market for its coin operated products.
In 1978 Atari started looking at a number of locations in Europe that could act as a base of manufacturing and distribution. A variety of possible solutions were considered, but rather bizarrely, a small Irish town called Tipperary quickly became the obvious choice. A new factory building had just been built on the outskirts of the town, and the Irish government (in the form of the Irish Development Authority), keen to attract overseas investment in the struggling town, successfully courted Atari with some very lucrative subsidies, grants and incentives.
Ireland offered excellent tax breaks to manufacturers setting up plants on their shores, and as a member of the EEC (now known as the EU), exporting product to other European countries was in theory a slick process.
Atari would eventually purchase this building from the Irish Authorities. Furthermore, two companies that could act as a subcontractor to assist with the logistics of building arcade cabinets were identified: Murray Kitchens, an established wooden cabinet builder, was within spitting distance of the main factory just down the road in the small town of Ardfinnan; and an hour’s drive away, Kromberg & Schubert, an electronic components company based in the coastal town of Waterford was secured under contract to supply the wiring harnesses, switches and bulb assemblies required for the Tipperary-built arcade machines. Despite being just a one-room factory built from breeze blocks, Kromberg & Schubert had a great German engineering pedigree, having supplied European car manufacturers with wiring looms for many years.
On paper it looked to be a perfect solution. All Atari had to do was produce game PCBs in California, and ship them to Ireland ready to install into the locally produced arcade carcasses. Atari’s new Californian PCB plant was huge, so the required capacity could be met quite easily – it was simply a case of extending the normal run already in place for the USA market. Sourcing wood, sheet metal, components and parts from local suppliers simply made commercial sense, and would extend the economic chain further. One suspects also, that this ‘local supplier’ logistics solution was a requirement of the Government subsidy deal, as this would secure much-needed employment to the residents of this rural area of Ireland.
Irish officials were very keen to help Atari get things up and running quickly, and within months of an agreement being signed, Atari started its Tipperary manufacturing operations in 1978. But there were teething problems. Atari’s employees arrived from the US with various tools to get started, including a fax machine – one of the first to be used on Irish shores, but quickly discovered that Tipperary’s phone exchange was as yet unable to handle international direct dialling. (Not surprisingly this oversight was quickly put right by the Irish Development Authority).
Further issues were identified at the cabinet building operation. Murray Kitchens were struggling with their new brief from their American taskmasters. The transformation for the Ardfinnan based company from making kitchen cabinets to Atari arcade cabinets was proving difficult. Despite being housed in a 30,000 square foot factory, they were only managing to produce around 20 of these new fangled Atari cabinets each day, still trying to get to grips with the change (and probably still hanging onto a lackadaisical 70s workforce ethic). Atari’s expectations were that they should be producing five times that amount – the daily target was in fact 125 cabinets. Things weren’t going well.
I’ve told this story before here on the blog, but it’s worth repeating here: Sensing trouble, the Vice President of Atari USA sent a task force across the Atlantic to sort things out. James Riordan was the head of the team flown over, and describes what happened:
When we arrived at the plant, fresh off the plane, I was greeted by a room full of local engineers who, before even introducing themselves, asked sarcastically, “What makes you think you can do this any better than we can?”. I replied, “Because gentlemen, I am making 500 arcade machines a day in the United States and my boss told me to either make this place perform or turn it into a badminton court, so I expect you to either work with me, or I can go buy you all some racquets and I’ll be on the next plane back”. Let’s just say they had an immediate change of attitude.
And so with that rather awkward start, the team built new production lines, streamlined systems, and retrained staff. Within eight weeks, Riordan had this Irish factory churning out on average, 151 Atari cabinets every day ready for distribution across the European markets. Well over the expected target. The staff were motivated and worked hard. This small increase in expected daily production of just 26 cabinets, added $1 million of earnings to Atari’s bottom line every single month.
You can see that this was big business for Atari, and for several years, tens of thousands arcade cabinets were built at Tipperary and shipped throughout Europe and beyond in large shipping containers, using an export company called Bell via the port of Waterford, just south of the town.
Whilst they aren’t the best quality, Atari’s January 1981 edition of Coin Connection magazine (produced to keep operators up to date with the latest Atari business news), featured a couple of images showing off its then new European facility:
With so much at stake, Atari flew some of its best men over the Atlantic to oversee and run the operation as it grew. Gil Williams, a long-standing employee was placed in charge of the plant from 1979, along with Tommy Martinez and Phillip Stewart. All were American natives who brought a little bit of the California lifestyle to rural Ireland. The rest of the staff were all locals, including Kevin Hayes of Donegal, brought in as Financial Controller. Following Gil’s return to California in 1979, Kevin took over as Managing Director of the plant.
In time, production became slicker. Armed with each new cabinet plan from America, the factory at Ardfinnan would build the wooden cabinets. These shells would be moved to the main plant at Tipperary to be fashioned into the final product.
Former Atari employees recall a weekly container that would arrive by air every Friday direct from California. Within the shipment would be early build samples of prototype cabinets, parts, tools, printed circuit boards, schematics and plans, all with the intention of giving the Irish facility a guide to what they should be producing.
These three never seen before pictures from 1981, show rows of Asteroids Deluxe upright cabinets nearing completion at the Tipperary plant:
At its height, over 200 Irish workers were building 2,000 arcade cabinets a month ready to ship across Europe and beyond. Every major Atari arcade title was built here.
I personally own an Asteroids cabaret, Centipede cabaret, Battlezone cabaret and Tempest cabaret, all built at Tipperary. Although just a tiny fraction of the tens of thousands of cabinets that would have passed through the town during its heyday, it’s great to know that some of the cabinets pictured in these photos are still around to this day, safely in collectors’ hands across the world.
The cabinets produced at Tipperary and those pictured here will be familiar to US-based arcade collectors. The plans largely mirrored the designs pushed out by Atari in the American market. But interestingly, there were one or two cabinets that were unique to Atari Europe.
This cabinet design would house Atari’s European versions of Time Pilot, Food Fight, Millipede and Popeye games:
And this funky looking mid-sized cabinet was produced to house the Irish-built versions of Gravitar, Dig-Dug, Fast Freddie, Black Widow and Kangaroo:
Some of these European-exclusive cabinets have popped up in the US – the concensus of opinion here is that Tipperary was known to have shipped cabinets to Canada as well as Europe (weird!). Exactly why these particular two cabinet designs veered away from their equivalent US-style designs is a mystery.
So operations continued until 1984, when the global demand for arcade cabinets slowed significantly. What followed was a patchwork of ownership: during that year, Japanese manufacturer Namco looking for a similar European based arrangement set up a five-year joint partnership with Atari. This proved commercially successful and added stability and security to the local workforce. Kevin left the firm at this time, and Namco brought their own man in to head thngs up; another local, Mike Nevin. In 1990, ownership went back to Atari, until being sold to Midway lock stock and barrel in 1995 for a short period of time. Namco then bought the facility alone, and the plant was run and managed by Pat Pickham a local Tipperary man until its eventual closure in 1998, with the loss of the its final 42 employees. One could imagine this was quite a blow to the local economy.
The closure of the Tipperary factory and its impact on the local area was discussed in the Irish parliament. You can read the transcript of that debate here.
Tipperary’s historical association with Atari remains strong to this day. Many local people would have worked at the plant, and for us European collectors, the arcade machines built there still turn up to this day. No question it was a key part of Atari’s growth and dominance in the arcade market during the Golden Age of arcade gaming.
A company called MOY Insulation who occupied a neighbouring building for many years, took over the old Ardfinnan facility in 1998 until its demise in 2008. The buildings are still standing idle waiting for new businesses to arrive with investment for the local economy.
The main factory building in Tipperary is still there. The NAMCO sign is still present:
So there you have it. This small county in rural Ireland played host to one of the largest companies in the world, and produced huge numbers of arcade cabinets that were supplied across Europe. Atari Tipperary clearly played a key part in arcade history. Cool stuff.
Huge thanks to Jim Riordan, Mike Jang (again!), the good folk at The Strong Museum in Rochester, NY and Alan from the Ardfinnan History Facebook Page – all generously provided additional insight into this subject, and allowed me to share these great pictures here on the blog.
If anyone has additional pictures, info or corrections they’d like me to add to this article, do get in touch using the About/Contact link at the top of this page and I’ll get back to you.
Many thanks for your visit this week. I’d appreciate your help in sharing this article using the social media buttons below.
TonyReacting to news of Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf's resignation on Monday, John McCain put out a statement that described the breaking news development as "a step toward moving Pakistan onto a more stable political footing."
The tepid-sounding nature of those comments stems from the fact that McCain was never eager to see Musharraf fall.
As recently as February, the Washington Post described McCain as an "outspoken" supporter of the "legitimately elected" leader of Pakistan. In December 2007, just before the Iowa caucuses, McCain said, "I continue to believe Musharraf has done a pretty good job, done a lot of the things that we wanted him to do." Those remarks came on the heels of the assassination of opposition leader Benazir Bhutto, after which presidential candidate Gov. Bill Richardson expressed the opinion that Pakistan's president should step down.
While Barack Obama did not go as far as Richardson during primary season, his statement Monday on Musharraf's resignation reflects his historically tougher stand on issues related to Pakistan.
"President Musharraf has made the right decision to step down as President of Pakistan," Obama said, adding: "A year ago, I advocated that the US move from a 'Musharraf policy' to a 'Pakistan policy.'"Vivek Prakash/Reuters
The two young women who were arrested for their Facebook activity last week have found an unlikely champion for their cause: another young woman, Shreya Singhal, who filed public interest litigation with the Supreme Court to challenge one of the controversial laws used to justify the arrests.
That litigation was heard by the Supreme Court on Friday, which then ordered the central and some state governments to respond within six weeks. Ms. Singhal, who is a recent astrophysics graduate and plans to apply to law school, questioned the constitutionality of Section 66A. The dreary sounding, but much-talked about law criminalizes information sent online that can be considered “offensive.”
Although not many have petitioned the Supreme Court like the 21-year-old Ms. Singhal, thousands of social media users, civil society groups, lawyers and activists have protested Section 66A and the Internet laws in recent weeks. If readers believe the laws are muzzling online free speech, here are some ways experts offer to keep up the pressure to scrap the law:
ONLINE PETITIONS:
Change.org, which Nicholas D. Kristof of The New York Times describes as “the go-to site for Web uprisings,” has a petition that requests the minister for information and communication technology to amend Section 66A and relook at the Internet laws. Gautam John, a trained lawyer who now strategizes for nonprofits, started the petition on Tuesday to offer citizens a space to register their protest.
Although Mr. John acknowledged that the petition is unlikely to change the law, he still believes it’s an important resource to document people’s protest.
“One of the reasons why I support this petition in particular is because it offers very concrete suggestions, rather than just slamming the government,” Nilanjana Roy, a literary critic, journalist and author, said via email. “It points out a major area of concern: the government has a history of passing laws about the Internet in particular without involving stakeholders, or paying attention to the opinions and experiences of those who understand social media networks and online behavior patterns. Given the speed at which the Internet evolves and changes, this is a huge problem,” she said.
And maybe online petitions do work.
Another campaign on Change.org demanded that the charges against the women booked for their Facebook activity be dropped.
“This move by the police is a gross clamp down on an individual’s freedom of speech and expression,” said Mukut Ray, 28, an activist from Kolkata who started the online petition, according to a statement. More than 21,000 supporters signed it.
Although it’s difficult to gauge the role the petition had to play, charges against the women have reportedly been dropped.
2. LOBBYING LEADERS:
Citizens can lobby their political leaders to take actions on issues they care about, analysts say.
“We don’t contact our elected representatives enough,” said Mr. John, who recommends interested people to go to the Web sites of Parliament’s upper house, known as the Rajya Sabha, or the lower house, Lok Sabha, to find contact details for their representatives.
“Politicians should know it’s not just a small bunch of people who are concerned,” argued Mr. John. “There are a large number and they have an opinion, too.”
One lawyer who’s familiar with the Internet laws controversy, said Kapil Sabil, the minister for communications and information technology, is the right man to lobby. This is the contact page for his ministry.
3. GO TO COURT
People can file public interest litigation like Ms. Singhal did at the Supreme Court. Legal experts say that any citizen can write a letter to the High Court in their state or to the Supreme Court, which can then decide to file public interest litigation on behalf of the citizen.
This retired physics professor had also filed litigation with the Madras High Court earlier this month asking the government to repeal section 66A, which he called “arbitrary and unconstitutional.” The court responded to his request last week, serving notice to state officials, as well as the secretaries of India’s home, law and information and broadcasting ministries, asking them to respond to the lawsuit in four weeks.
“I think at this point groups with expertise on the issue should file petitions in the Supreme Court, to be heard with the law student’s petition,” said Karuna Nundy, a lawyer and civil liberties expert, who filed a more comprehensive petition along with Ms. Singhal’s on behalf of the People’s Union for Civil Liberties, a prolific human rights group.
4. SOCIAL MEDIA ENGAGEMENT
Citizens can continue to engage on Facebook and Twitter about the controversial laws.
Pranesh Prakash, policy director of the Centre for Internet and Society, notes that many traditional journalists are on social media sites and are bound to notice if users are protesting there.
Indeed. Many media outlets drew attention to the outcry on Facebook and Twitter that followed the arrest of the women for their Facebook activity.
5. GO OFFLINE
Offline protests are scheduled by Free Software Movement of India, a coalition of groups that lobby for free software, free knowledge, and a free society. The coalition demands that the central government review the Information Technology Act.
“Free Software Movement of India condemns the misuse of 66A and calls for protests across the country from 1st December 2012 to 7th December 2012,” the organization said on its Web site. “As a minimum it should come out with clear rules under the Act clearly limiting the scope of Section 66A and others to be in conformity with the freedom of expression guaranteed under the Article 19 of the Indian Constitution.”
Go to their Web site for a look at what’s happening in your city.
If users can think of other ways to make a difference, feel free to note them in the comments section below.In 1978, in the city of Rostov-a-don, it spewed forth such offspring.
Andrei Romanovich Chikatilo was born shortly after the Ukrainian famine. His mother filled his head with bedtime stories of an ill-fated older brother, Stepan, who was cannibalized at the hands of starving Ukranians. Such atrocities, Andrei's mother conceded, were not unusual in those times.
The story of a brother, then a child, being snatched up and used for food haunted the young boy. Still, he finished school, went to colleg, and married. Inside, however, something was deadly wrong.
Andrei's wife, Fayina, and two children were perhaps the only people who saw his calm, gentle side. He was a good husband and father, and never blew a gasket or flew into abusive tirades. He saved that for his fifty-plus victims.
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now determined not to be a bystander.
"If this is a dialogue that's to begin at AT&T, I feel like it probably ought to start with me," he said, to a standing ovation.We’re a little over 24 hours away from ESPN2 airing the first installment of Barstool Van Talk, and we’re already seeing some chafing between the two strange bedfellows as Sam Ponder took to Twitter dredging up past incidents of objectionable comments made by Barstool talent aimed at her.
Welcome to the ESPN family @BarstoolBigCat (& welcome to all ur minions who will respond to this so kindly) pic.twitter.com/AzgfdDx2FK — Sam Ponder (@sam_ponder) October 16, 2017
Ponder directed the tweet at Dan “Big Cat” Katz, who will be one of the two featured personalities on Van Talk, along with PFT Commenter. Ponder, vocalizing her frustrations, is certainly understandable given the history. What will likely work against Ponder’s desire to draw scrutiny to Barstool’s more controversial content over the years is the fact that Katz did not write the article Ponder screenshotted. The article Ponder tweeted was authored by John Feitelberg who goes by “Feitsbarstool.” You can imagine both ESPN and Barstool aren’t too keen on Feitelberg’s article being recirculated by a high profile personality more than three years after its original publishing.
Editors Note – I know Feits blogged this already. But I wrote it up too because I’m fired the fuck up. FUCK SAM PONDER THAT BIBLE THUMPING FREAK So it’s official. Sam Ponder is an idiot. I mean this tweet from her is not only infuriating but mindbogglingly stupid. Hey Sam you really can’t see the difference between saying a chick is hot and beating the fuck out of a woman? You don’t see the difference? Like guys can’t look at girls in bikinis or talk about sex without thinking it’s okay to knock them unconscious? Please tell me you’re not this dumb. Seriously you sound like a KO Barstool freak, not a chick that has a job where the #1 requirement is you make men hard. So give it a rest with your righteous indignation. Your entire career and livelihood is based on appealing to guys like me and blogs like ours. Bottomline is guys thinking chicks are hot is natural. It’s Darwinism. It’s never gonna change. But that doesn’t mean we don’t respect women and think it’s okay to hit a woman. I have no idea what’s so confusing about that. Go fuck yourself.
Those are the type of comments that a Barstool Sports detractor will point to as a reason why ESPN should not be partnering with the edgy content brand. On the flip side, the tribal readership of Barstool Sports would likely counter that it’s these types of comments that make Barstool special and they don’t want that unique voice being diluted just so the company can have a TV presence.
A reader pointed out that Katz did not in fact write the comments Ponder showcased although it’s unclear who exactly penned the editor’s note. Katz responded saying he didn’t write the post and claimed that he understood Ponder’s point.
Yes, yes he did. — Sam Ponder (@sam_ponder) October 16, 2017
Should I save the “rundown” where you call me a slut for later or use that one now? — Sam Ponder (@sam_ponder) October 16, 2017
OHH it was your boss?!?? And to ur tweet 2nite that I can’t find now,? I’m not mad I’m just shocked. Maybe relisten to the “rundown”? — Sam Ponder (@sam_ponder) October 17, 2017
Hey Sam, thanks for the welcome. I just want to clear one thing up, I didn't write this blog post (you make it seem like I did) and the rundown you reference I actually defended you. — Big Cat (@BarstoolBigCat) October 17, 2017
Yeah I did just re listen to the rundown. I said I understood your point at the time… — Big Cat (@BarstoolBigCat) October 17, 2017
What happened to your first tweet??Also, I see that y’all already removed the rundown. The transcript still exists though. Have a nice night. — Sam Ponder (@sam_ponder) October 17, 2017
I honestly think you have me confused for my boss Dave here. Have a nice night as well — Big Cat (@BarstoolBigCat) October 17, 2017
We actually covered Ponder’s original dustup with Barstool back in 2014, which led to the always colorful Barstool Sports President Dave Portnoy writing a retort titled “Some Absolute Idiot Is Saying Sam Ponder’s Twitter Feed Proves Her Point That Guys Who Objectify Women Don’t Have The Right To Complain About Beating Women Or Something.”
Although Katz didn’t seem to offer a comment on Ponder back in 2014, he did chime in by saying ESPN picking Ponder to replace Chris Berman as Sunday NFL Countdown host was “the worst choice possible,” citing her serious demeanor as not a good fit to replace Berman.
This is one of many mini controversies to pop-up for Barstool since we initially reported on their ESPN partnership two weeks ago. In fact, I just checked Portnoy’s Twitter feed to see if he had opted to address this newest story only to find he’s threatening to sue Deadspin for defamation for their coverage about some distasteful comments he made earlier in the day.
The reality is Barstool’s actions, past and present, are under a much larger microscope given the brand’s trajectory, prominence, and transition to traditional platforms. Those who feel Barstool’s past transgressions should disqualify them from partnerships like working with ESPN and other opportunities to crossover to a larger mainstream audience, have a lot of low hanging fruit to pick from in terms of spotlighting past incidents that reflect badly on the brand. Does Barstool’s core audience care? Not at all, and in fact spotlighting these things may even only further the loyalty between Barstool and their fans. But it’s still a pretty bad look for those becoming familiar with the brand as well as the folks at ESPN and Barstool, who have to really take ownership on this collaboration.
Ponder certainly didn’t help herself by calling out the wrong Barstool personality and while ESPN is probably unhappy that she assertively called out a new content partner at a critical time, there is absolutely zero chance they can do anything about it, given just how crude the original comments were regardless of who made them. As always with any controversy involving Barstool Sports on social media, it’s more or less like kicking over a hornet’s nest for a few days before people move onto something else. I’ll probably get stung a few times just for writing this not overly opinionated article.
At the end of the day, this is really just another datapoint on the tight rope Barstool Sports will have to walk to continue the trajectory they are on. Their large and growing audience craves the candid and controversial remarks the brand and their personalities make, but can Barstool retain that ethos while in search of mainstream partners, platforms, and advertisers? The answer to that question is probably one of the five biggest questions in sports media heading into 2018.This is a good song, but you have to download the part that sends it straight to Windows Media player. (Unless you have another file to send it to,) The FIRST time I bought it, it didnt give me that option so it just sent it to a file the I can not find.
So, I had to buy it a second time. In all, I had to spend $1.98
Its not a big problem, I just dont like that I had to waste my money.
So, unless you have another file to put the song in, you should download that part so you dont have to buy it again.
This will proboly not happen to you people out there unless you had the glitch to.
But I would recemend this song,Happy 100, BMW
One hundred years ago today, a few companies came together to form what would be known as Bayerische Motoren Werke AG, or “BMW”—and we’re certainly glad they did. Since, the Munich, Germany-based automaker has helped to revolutionize racing, build the ultimate driving machine, and design some of the most noteworthy cars of our time.
Those companies were Rapp Motorenwerke, Bayerische Flugzeugwerke (BFw), and Fahrzeugfabrik Eisenach, and had origins primarily in aircraft—BMW’s success in cars would have to wait. Its first taste of automaking was in the form of assembling British-designed Austin Sevens under license from 1929, and whose vehicles until the early ’60s focused primarily on the lower end of the market—ultra-luxury vehicles like the 507 excepted.
Still, the beginnings of a great marque were there: triumph on two wheels for its flat-twin R32 motorcycle and long distance racing successes—primarily with the 328 sports car—before the Second World War. It was not until the mid-’60s, however, until the firm started to establish the roots we still see today.
Driver-oriented vehicles, advanced technology, efficient performance, and proving its mettle in competition quickly became areas for the increasingly successful company to focus on—things that eventually led it to the top of the luxury car sales charts and magazine Top 10 lists.
Here are a selection of some of our favourite memories, stories, and experiences that we’ve enjoyed, thanks to Bayerische Motoren Werke AG. Happy 100, BMW.
Photography by Alexander Bermudez, Rémi Dargegen, Tom Horna, Josh Clason, & Nat Twiss
Join the ConversationKISSIMMEE, Fla. — Atlanta Braves president John Hart sports a tan this spring, which in itself isn’t particularly strange for someone in the baseball industry. In Hart’s case, the cause is the time he’s spent on the back fields, perhaps his favorite spot in the organization’s Disney-based complex. He rose to front-office prominence via an unorthodox path, having started on a managerial track in Baltimore until Hank Peters identified him as an executive candidate and brought him to Cleveland. He’s spent countless hours evaluating, coaching and encouraging on chain-link fields. It’s where the future is this time of year. But he also loves the back fields of the Braves’ complex this spring because of what he sees. It’s there where a small army of tall, lanky, projectable pitchers resides.
The Braves are the third franchise Hart is attempting to transform into a winner, and this rebuilding approach has been more pitching focused than his previous efforts in Cleveland and Texas. The Braves have four pitching prospects ranked in Baseball America’s top-100 rankings, five among Eric Longenhagen’s top 100, where two more just missed the cut in Sean Newcomb and Joey Wentz.
While the Braves have top-end positional prospects like Dansby Swanson (acquired via trade) and Ozzie Albies (signed by the previous regime), prospect talent acquired under Hart and general manager John Coppolella — particularly through the draft — has been pitching heavy.
I was curious to ask Hart about the subject after having interviewed him previously on the topic of the risk/reward dilemma presented by pitching prospects — particularly those drafted out of high school — back when Hart was an MLB Network analyst and I was a beat reporter covering the Pirates. At that time, I’d asked him about Pittsburgh’s Pitch-22 philosophy — i.e. the notion that most pitching prospects fail, but small- and mid-market teams must develop their own pitching.
The Pirates had made a historic commitment to pitching at the time. In three drafts from 2009 to -11, Pittsburgh expended 22 of their first 30 picks on pitchers. Seventeen were prep pitchers. The Pirates signed 18 of them to bonuses totaling $25.6 million.
Said Hart at the time:
“A truism is if you have 10, you can really count on two of them making it,” Hart said. “I came up in the (1980s) and never believed it. I said, ‘Come on, there can’t be that much attrition.’ Then bang: This guy gets hurt. This guy doesn’t develop a third pitch. … You can never have enough pitching.”
Hart’s estimate is pretty much in line with the success rate for pitchers rated as 100 prospects.
Back in 2011, Scott McKinney of Royals Review researched the failure rates of top-100 prospects. In examining Baseball America’s top-100 rankings from 1990 to 2003, he classified 77.4% of top-100 pitching prospects as “busts,” pitchers that either failed to pitch in the majors or averaged less than 1.5 WAR per season in the highest level.
In 2013, Jon Shepherd conducted a similar study for Camden Depot, extending the period of BA’s top-100 prospect lists from 1990 to 2006. The bust rate for pitchers remained a nearly identical, 77.5%, and he found them to be a more risky demographic than compared to position players (66% bust rate). And even among the elite prospects, those ranking 1-20 on lists, he found pitchers were still more likely to fail (51.7% bust rate) than succeed.
Hart knows the risks, yet the Braves have adopted a pitching-heavy approach nonetheless.
All three of the Braves’ first-round picks during the Hart Era have been high-school pitchers. Twelve of their first 14 picks in the 2015 draft were pitchers, and seven of their first eight picks in 2016 were pitchers. I wrote about the Braves’ risk tolerance last month. So, last week, I was curious to learn more about their approach by speaking directly to the key actors involved.
“Part of the reason we focused on pitching is that you need a lot of pitching,” Hart told FanGraphs. “When you go to try and buy it in the market, in the long term, it’s just not really an effective use of your dollars. You start buying starters in their 30s coming out in free-agent market, and you start having extended years, it usually doesn’t end well… When it came time for us to draft or make trades, we felt the best available prospects we could get were pitchers. A lot of guys were position players that we sought after that [teams] wouldn’t trade in some of the deals. When we started doing this, it wasn’t like we had three or four years left on deals of players that were All-Stars. Other than Craig Kimbrel, we traded Jason Heyward and Justin Upton on one-year deals on last years of contracts.
“We are a little pitching-centric and those are the reasons why: it’s cost prohibitive in the market, the attrition rate of what it takes to get there, and ultimately what presented itself in drafts and trades.”
But part of the strategy is also perhaps because of a risk tolerance that is greater than that of most clubs. As Coppolella suggested from the Champion Stadium dugout as the Braves took batting practice last week — a passerby joking about his heavy volume of trades — the Braves appear to be one of the least risk-fearing teams in the industry.
“If we are going to be wrong, we are going to be wrong for the right reasons,” Coppolella said. “We want to fail for the right reasons. You want to fail with upside guys… We have to take some risks. We don’t have as large a market, or the same TV deals, or the same revenues, as teams like New York, Washington and Philadelphia. So if we win, it will be about taking chances on guys with upside.”
Not only have the Braves taken pitchers early and often in drafts, Coppolella notes the Braves have taken the youngest pitchers on the board. The Braves’ 2015 first-rounders, Kolby Allard and Mike Soroka, were 17 at the time of the draft. Rany Jazayerli found back in 2011 for Baseball Prospectus that younger prospects in the draft tend to perform better as professionals.
“We’ve really tried to exploit that,” Coppolella said. “We draft guys that have room to grow, not the finished off college guy. If it’s Kris Bryant, I get it, but many of the best players never make it to college especially with new slotting rules.
“That nice analytics guy you take at the end of the first round, let’s call it what it is… you are going with a lot of safe college picks.”
A player with a higher floor but a lower ceiling.
It’s not just in the draft where the Braves have embraced risk. Consider the Justin Upton trade in December of 2014. The No. 1 asset for which the Braves asked in the returning package was pitching prospect Max Fried, a former first-rounder, who had Tommy John surgery several months prior to the trade.
I asked Hart about taking on that level of risk, not only a recent high-school pitcher, but one whose left elbow had been repaired.
“Let’s go, let’s go,” said Hart from a golf cart, situated near the batting cage covering the home plate area. That was a Hart-ism for saying he fully embraces risk.
“You don’t want to be crazy, don’t want to shoot from the hip,” Hart said of taking on risk, “but we did analytics on it, we did scouting reports on it. All the cadre of guys we have working in the front office worked on this deal, as well as the scouts. We went for the upside guy.
“We bought the player, we believe in [him]. We did a lot of research on the surgery. We know who did the work. We felt he had the most upside. We could have traded for two or three guys in that deal, but we took Fried as the lead player. How is it looking right now?”
It’s looking quite good.
Max Fried w a K in the 4th. He strikes out 2 in the inning. Game remains tied 1-1. #romebraves pic.twitter.com/LCtQPdGZxO — Rome Braves (@TheRomeBraves) September 11, 2016
Fried was dominant at the close of last year’s minor-league season and has been impressive this spring, touching 97 mph while showing a biting curveball.
“I think it’s instructive if you look at the Justin Upton trade,” Coppolella said. “Part of the catch in getting Max Fried is that he was hurt. He was going to be out for all of 2015 with Tommy John surgery. Could we have gotten him if he was healthy? Probably not. We kind of went with upside. We didn’t know if he would get back all the way. But we want to fail for the right reasons. That was a leap of faith that we took. What if it breaks again? Should we go with this guy? Well, we went with upside. The biggest thing for me personally is process over outcome.”
The Upton package also included Mallex Smith – flipped for Mariners pitching prospect Luiz Gohara this offseason – and second baseman Jace Peterson and cash savings. Coppolella said they used the cash savings to acquire pitching prospect Touki Toussaint from Arizona by taking on the contract of Bronson Arroyo, Coppolella described the deal as an “NBA-style” trade.
The Braves are well aware that not every pitcher will work out, with Coppolella citing Manny Banuelos as an arm the club acquired but who had faltered. And while the Braves are aware of the industry’s pitching attrition rate, they are also hopeful they can beat it — or at least create the depth that will produce multiple, quality controllable rotation arms.
“We feel that depth is going to go,” Hart said. “I don’t know that I’m quite as stringent on, you know, it takes 10 to get two. But, again, until these guys get here, we’ll see.”
While the idea that a club can beat historical attrition rates when it comes to pitching prospects seems to contain the perils of hubris, Hart said the club has focused on size and delivery in scouting. They’ve targeted prep pitchers in part because they have less wear and tear than a college arm, and they will better know their history compared to a college arm. They drafted a cold-weather arm in Ian Anderson with the third-overall pick last June.
And the Braves have also become more conservative in timetables for rehabbing pitchers. For instance, Fried had Tommy John surgery in August of 2014 and did not pitch at all in 2015.
“We didn’t do Jonny Venters, Brandon Beachy and Kris Medlen any favors in rushing them back from Tommy John surgery,” Coppolella said. “Beachy came back nine months. His first pitch was 95 and his last pitch was 81. He hasn’t really been back since… We don’t want guys back in 10 months or 12 months. We want to try and extend it to 15-18. Give them flexibility.”
Coppolella also believes, and rightfully so, that it’s easier to trade from a surplus of pitching than one of position players. So while Hart’s first two successful rebuilding projects in Cleveland and Texas were largely built around position players, the Braves have been nimble and have adopted for this pitching focus due to attrition, market conditions, and a greater willingness to take a risk. Said Coppolella: “We feel like we’ve done all that we could to put the Braves in the best spot possible.”
And if the Braves’ bet on pitching works, perhaps that spot will perhaps soon be at the top of the NL East.Welcome to our new summer series. A lot has happened over Todd Graham's first three seasons as Arizona State's head football coach. Over the next two weeks, we will be ranking 15 of Graham's 28 total wins so far before the 2015 season, which has potential to send the program to new heights.
Our No. 12 victory saw the Sun Devils squeak by Utah thanks to a 13-point fourth quarter. At No. 11 in our countdown, we have Todd Graham's first bowl victory as the head coach of ASU football.
No. 11: December 29, 2012 - ASU blows out Navy in Graham's first bowl game
Most would agree that 2012 was the start of something that's growing to be very special in Tempe.
Todd Graham's first season at Arizona State got off to a fast start, as the 2012 Sun Devils jumped out to a 5-1 record to begin the regular season. However, the Sun Devils would drop the next four games, all to Pac-12 foes. An emphatic 46-7 win over Washington State stunted the losing streak and simultaneously granted the Sun Devils bowl eligibility. They followed that performance with a come-from-behind victory over rival Arizona, which included a 24-point explosion in the fourth quarter to push the Sun Devils to a 41-34 win in Graham's first Territorial Cup game.
After finishing the regular season on a two-game winning streak, registering a winning record, and a win over Arizona in the Territorial Cup, Graham's first-year checklist was only missing a bowl win.
That goal ended up being accomplished, and in very assertive fashion.
Led by quarterback Taylor Kelly, the Sun Devils offense scored the game's first 21 points against an outmatched Navy defense, giving ASU a commanding three-score lead in the first quarter.
After a Navy touchdown to open the second quarter, Arizona State responded with 28 straight points, including two 50-yard connections between Kelly and receiver Rashad Ross.
The scoring run would end when Navy's Gee Gee Greene returned a kickoff 95 yards to chip into the Sun Devils' lead, 48-14. However, Graham's unit followed that with two 30-yard rushing touchdowns from running backs Marion Grice and Cameron Marshall, giving the Sun Devils a 62-14 advantage entering the fourth quarter.
The Midshipmen would tack on 14 points to end the game, bringing the final score to 62-28.
The Sun Devils' offense proved to be the overwhelmingly dominant force throughout the contest. Arizona State scored on their first nine possessions (all nine possessions during which the starting offense was in). The Mike Norvell-led unit racked up a whopping 648 yards of offense (268 passing, 380 rushing), with Kelly (who completed 17 of 19 attempts with four touchdown passes) as its focal facilitator. Defensively, defensive tackle Will Sutton was an absolute force, terrorizing the Navy backfield with three sacks on the day.
The win gave the Sun Devils a 8-5 record to finish the year, and closed Graham's inaugural season at the helm of the football program on a very high note.
WHAT IT DID FOR ASU: The momentum from finishing Graham's first season with an outstanding win over rival Arizona in the Territorial Cup, coupled with an emphatic blowout win to win a postseason bowl game carried over to the 2013 Sun Devil football season and beyond.
In 2013, the Sun Devils went on to win 10 games, along with the Pac-12 South crown. That was followed by another 10-win season in 2014, which included Arizona State peaking at No. 6 in the College Football Playoff poll.
Graham's tremendous first year has served as the foundation for future success at Arizona State, and since then his team has only continued to perform well.
The Sun Devils' blowout bowl win over Navy in the 2012 Kraft Hunger Bowl comes in at No. 11 in our countdown of his 15 best wins at ASU. Check back tomorrow for No. 10.nissan leaf ev 004
Nissan has released another video in the series that feature the upcoming Nissan Leaf EV. View the video in its entirety below.
This new video reveals a few addition details about the Leaf. According to the company, the Leaf will feature LED powered headlights and taillights. This design and use of LED technology will reduce the load on the battery system as LEDs operate with about 1/10 the electricity of conventional bulbs.
Additional design elements focus on aerodynamics of the vehicle. According to Nissan, aerodynamics were a main focus throughout the design process. For instance, the flat floor was designed to reduce wind resistance and the unique headlights were designed to reduce wind noise and resistance by splitting and redirecting airflow away from the outside mirrors.
Why did Nissan choose the unique shade of blue for the Leaf? According to the company, the color resembles "the color of the earth as seen from above." Nissan has named the Leaf blue as Aqua Globe.
The video goes into detail about the above aspects of the vehicle.
Source: NissanMedia playback is unsupported on your device Media caption Barack Obama opens up about how he felt after Donald Trump's inauguration
Former US President Barack Obama has warned against the irresponsible use of social media, in a rare interview since stepping down in January.
He warned that such actions were distorting people's understanding of complex issues, and spreading misinformation.
"All of us in leadership have to find ways in which we can recreate a common space on the internet," he said.
Mr Obama was quizzed by Prince Harry on BBC Radio 4's Today programme.
Prince Harry, fifth in line to the throne, is one of several prominent figures who are guest-editing the programme over the Christmas period.
Obama on the extremes of social media
The former president expressed concern about a future where facts are discarded and people only read and listen to things that reinforce their own views.
"One of the dangers of the internet is that people can have entirely different realities. They can be cocooned in information that reinforces their current biases.
"The question has to do with how do we harness this technology in a way that allows a multiplicity of voices, allows a diversity of views, but doesn't lead to a Balkanisation of society and allows ways of finding common ground," he said.
Mr Obama's successor Donald Trump is a prolific user of Twitter, but Mr Obama did not mention him by name.
Mr Trump has been accused of overusing Twitter and following only a narrow range of users, though he maintains it allows him to connect directly with the American people.
Media playback is unsupported on your device Media caption Boxers or briefs? Prince Harry grills Barack Obama on his likes and dislikes
Mr Obama suggested face-to-face contact would help counteract extreme views.
"Social media is a really powerful tool for people of common interests to convene and get to know each other and connect.
"But then it's important for them to get offline, meet in a pub, meet at a place of worship, meet in a neighbourhood and get to know each other.
"Because the truth is that on the internet, everything is simplified and when you meet people face-to-face it turns out they're complicated."
What were the pressures of being president?
"It's hard, being in the public eye is unpleasant in a lot of ways. It is challenging in a lot of ways.
"Your loved ones are made vulnerable in ways that might not have been true 20 years ago or 30 years ago.
"So it is a sacrifice that I think everybody has to be at peace with when they decide to go into politics. But, ultimately, I think the rewards of bringing about positive change in this world make it worthwhile."
Mr Obama pays tribute to the support of his family, especially his wife Michelle, describing how glad he is that she was "my partner throughout that whole process".
And leaving office?
Mixed feelings given "all the work that was still undone".
"Concerns about how the country moves forward but, you know, overall there was serenity there," he added.
Mr Obama compared his time in office to being a relay runner.
Image copyright AFP Image caption "Serenity" on leaving office - Obama's last White House press conference in January
"If you ran hard, you did your best and you were able to pass that baton successfully and the world was a little better then you had done your job."
He cites Obamacare - ensuring more people can afford basic healthcare - as a major achievement.
"What an enormous blessing it is to say that 20 million Americans have health insurance that didn't have it before."
How does he see the future?
Without dismissing the problems faced by the world, he remains an optimist.
"If we take responsibility for being involved in our own fate, if we participate, if we engage, if we speak out, if we work in our communities, if we volunteer, then all the problems that we face are solvable despite all the terrible news that you see.
"If you had to choose a moment in human history in which you'd want to be born you'd choose today because the fact is that the world is healthier, wealthier, better educated and more tolerant, more sophisticated and less violent."
What does Prince Harry have to say?
As well as editing, Prince Harry was himself interviewed on Today.
"I haven't done that many interviews but it was quite fun, especially interviewing President Obama despite the fact he wanted to interview me.
"It's been a big learning curve but also these are incredibly important topics we all need to think about and need to be discussed."
The prince's programme focused on issues such as the armed forces, mental health, youth crime and climate change.New Delhi: The Supreme Court has expressed concern over absence of a witness protection programme, saying it has resulted in witnesses turning hostile “frequently" and rise in unmerited acquittals in criminal cases.
“Unless the witnesses are protected the rise in unmerited acquittals cannot be checked. It is unfortunate that this important issue has not received necessary attention," a bench of justices Ranjana Prakash Desai and Madan B Lokur said.
The court said that the issue of witnesses protection is a serious matter which has not been addressed as yet. It made the observation while delivering a verdict in a dowry death case in which the parents of the victim had turned hostile and on the basis of which the trial court acquitted the husband.
“It is sad that even parents did not stand by their daughter. We do not understand how a woman, particularly a mother, turned her back on the daughter. Possibly these witnesses were bought over by the appellant," the bench said while upholding the Karnataka high court’s verdict convicting the man in the case.
The bench said that there is a need to ascertain why witnesses are “frequently" turning hostile. “Such conduct displays greed and lack of compassion. If they were threatened by the appellant and were forced to depose in his favour it is a sad reflection on our system which leaves witnesses unprotected.The reasons why witnesses so frequently turn hostile need to be ascertained. There is no witness protection plan in place," it said.The Official Uncharted Waters Online Transfer Service Starts: October 4th, 2017
Papaya Play Relaunches Uncharted Waters Online: October 18th, 2017
Transfer Service has concluded as of: 3 PM, January 31st, 2018 PST (12 AM, February 1st, 2018 CET)
Check the FAQs page for more information, and stay up to date with the UWO Community on the Official Papaya Play Forum and Facebook page!
Uncharted Waters Online Founders will receive exclusive rewards when the game relaunches based on their previously achieved game levels. (Users who applied for ID Transfer after 3pm December 29th, 2017 PST, are eligible for the item rewards but no longer for the tiered UWC credits.) Founders Rewards
What changes are being made?
The UWO Team will be using the relaunch through Papaya Play as an opportunity to revamp many aspects of PvP Battles, including plundered items and Deck Battle frequency, plus a number of other system rebalances. Due to the technical nature of the relaunch, however, all existing player progress and items from OGP will unfortunately be lost, and the game world/economy will undergo a complete reset.
What are the Founders Rewards?
In order to show appreciation for prior player progress and achievements, the UWO Team is offering all legacy OGP players exclusive tiered Founders Rewards, containing various boosts, support items, and Shipbuilding parts, to help launch the next chapter of high seas adventures. Complete the Transfer Service to receive your Founders Rewards upon logging in to UWO for the first time when the game relaunches on October 18th, 2017 (PDT). To complete the Transfer Service, simply follow the steps linked above to connect your OGP ID to Papaya Play.
Join the new UWO Forums to connect with the community and prepare for the relaunch on Papaya Play. Go To Forum
For more information on Papaya Play,
please visit our FAQ. GO TO FAQIt was just what Marco Rubio and Bernie Sanders had promised their supporters all along.
Rubio was routed in early races, but didn’t get discouraged. He pressed ahead with his message and connected with voters—and they responded by delivering a stunning, decisive margin affirming his potential.
That’s what happened on Sunday in Puerto Rico, where Rubio collected more than 70 percent of the vote—far more than he needed to sweep the island’s 23 delegates. Donald Trump was an afterthought, at 13 percent; Ted Cruz a distant third; and John Kasich a rounding error.
In the morning, though, the Republican race will return to the mainland, and to the grim reality confronting the Florida senator: Even with his latest win, he has no clear path to securing a majority of the delegates, and unless he can rally to win his own state, he may soon be forced from the race.
Bernie Sanders staged the political revolution he frequently invokes. He won the Maine caucuses decisively, defeating Hillary Clinton 64 to 36 percent, despite her institutional support. In Portland, so many voters came out to make their voices heard that the line stretched for more than a mile.
Sanders’s victory, like those the day before in Kansas and Nebraska, affirms his ability to prevail in contests that favor organization and grassroots support, and in states with predominately white electorates. He needs to continue to pile up wins in states like Maine. But they won’t be enough. Unless he can expand his reach beyond them, he, too, lacks a path to the nomination.
On Sunday night, Sanders faced that grim reality, as he debated Clinton in Flint, Michigan. Voters there will go to the polls on Tuesday—and the state is precisely the sort of contest that Sanders must begin to win if he wants to prevail at the convention.
—Yoni AppelbaumWelcome to the weekly roundup of the best new Android applications, games, and live wallpapers that went live in the Market or were spotted by us in the previous week or so.
This edition focuses only on new games. The app roundup is coming up soon.
If you enjoy this post, feel free to vote for it on Reddit.
Please wait for this page to load in full in order to see the Please wait for this page to load in full in order to see the AppBrain widgets, which include ratings and pricing info. Looking for the previous roundup editions? Find them here.
Featured App
Petri
This roundup is sponsored by Petri, from developer MobilWerx. The latest entry in the increasingly popular "chill out" genre, Petri follows the microscopic battlefield at 500x power. Part physics puzzler and part strategy, the laid-back visuals and music are meant to relax and challenge at the same time.
Though the theme of Petri is microscopic, some of the tactics you'll use are surprisingly familiar. You can use mitosis to literally divide and conquer, or expend energy to move your microbes rapidly or intimidate tiny opposing fauna. The game uses these three tactics to create multiple challenging levels.
Petri is 99¢ in the Google Play Store. It should work with all devices running Éclair or higher. If you're looking for a solid game with a decided lack of explosions, give Petri a try.
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Venture into the hostile world of a Petri Dish. Part gobble-up and part life simulation, Petri is survival of the fittest on a microscopic level. The game is easy to play, but difficult to master as you guide you microbial soldiers into battle against other hostile dishmates. Your choices, while navigating the dish, are simple. You can choose to split and expand your ranks, expend energy speeding away, or scare off potential threats and competition. Petri is deceptive, ambient, infuriating and soothing, all at the same time. Tactical warfare on a microbial level. Split, Speed, or Scare..What's a microbe to do?
The app was not found in the store. :-( Go to store Google websearch
Games
Amazing Alex by Rovio
Android Police coverage: Amazing Alex Is Now Available In The Play Store, Comes In Three Different Versions For Your Confus-Er, |
territory that it claimed.[40] TIME states that the Indian advance captured nearly 1,000 square miles (2,600 km2) of territory claimed by Pakistan.[10]
Further attempts to reclaim positions were launched by Pakistan in 1990, 1995, 1996 and even in early 1999, just prior to the Lahore Summit.[citation needed]
The Indian army controls all of the 76 kilometres (47 mi) long Siachen Glacier and all of its tributary glaciers, as well as all the main passes and heights of the Saltoro Ridge[41] immediately west of the glacier, including Sia La, Bilafond La, and Gyong La—thus holding onto the tactical advantage of high ground.[42][43][44][45][46] Indians have been able to hold on to the tactical advantage of the high ground... Most of India's many outposts are west of the Siachen Glacier along the Saltoro Range. In an academic study with detailed maps and satellite images, co-authored by brigadiers from both the Pakistani and Indian military, pages 16 and 27: "Since 1984, the Indian army has been in physical possession of most of the heights on the Saltoro Range west of the Siachen Glacier, while the Pakistan army has held posts at lower elevations of western slopes of the spurs emanating from the Saltoro ridgeline. The Indian army has secured its position on the ridgeline."[This quote needs a citation]
The line between where Indian and Pakistani troops are presently holding onto their respective posts is being increasingly referred to as the Actual Ground Position Line (AGPL).[47][48]
Views [ edit ]
Siachen is seen as a major military setback by the Pakistani Army. Pakistani generals perceives the Siachen glacier as their land that had been stolen by Indians.[51] When India occupied the Saltoro Ridge in April 1984, Benazir Bhutto publicly taunted the Pakistan Army as "fit only to fight its own citizens". When, in June 1987, the Indian Army captured the 21,153 foot high "Quaid Post" and renamed it to "Bana Top", in honour of Naib Subedar Bana Singh, Bhutto once again publicly taunted the Pakistani generals, telling them to wear bangles if they cannot fight on the Siachen.[53]
American observers say that the military conflict between India and Pakistan over the Siachen Glacier "made no military or political sense".[51] An article in the Minneapolis Star Tribune stated: "Their combat over a barren, uninhabited world of questionable value is a forbidding symbol of their lingering, irreconcilability."[51] Stephen P. Cohen compared the conflict to "a struggle between two bald men over a comb. Siachen is a symbol of the worst aspects of their relationship."[51]
In the book Asymmetric Warfare in South Asia: The Causes and Consequences of the Kargil Conflict, Khan, Lavoy and Clary wrote:
The Pakistan army sees India's 1984 occupation of the Siachen Glacier as a major scar, outweighed only by Dhaka's fall in 1971. The event underscored the dilution of the Simla Agreement and became a domestic issue as political parties, led by Benazir Bhutto's Peoples Party, blamed an incompetent military government under Zia ul-Haq for failing to defend Pakistani-held territory — while Zia downplayed the significance of the loss.
General Ved Prakash Malik, in his book Kargil from Surprise to Victory, wrote:
Siachen is considered a military setback by the Pakistan Army. That the Indians dominate the area from the Saltoro Ridge and Pakistani troops are nowhere near the Siachen Glacier is a fact never mentioned in public. The perceived humiliation at Siachen manifests itself in many ways. It is synonymous with Indian perfidy and a violation of the Shimla Agreement... In Pakistan, Siachen is a subject that hurts, just like a thorn in its flesh; it is also a psychological drain on the Pakistani Army. Pervez Musharraf had himself once commanded the Special Services Group (SSG) troops in this area and made several futile attempts to capture Indian posts.
Severe conditions [ edit ]
A cease-fire went into effect in 2003. Even before then, every year more soldiers were killed because of severe weather than enemy firing. The two sides by 2003 had lost an estimated 2,000 personnel primarily due to frostbite, avalanches and other complications. Together, the nations have about 150 manned outposts along the glacier, with some 3,000 troops each. Official figures for maintaining these outposts are put at ~$300 and ~$200 million for India and Pakistan respectively. India built the world's highest helipad on the glacier at Point Sonam, 21,000 feet (6,400 m) above the sea level, to supply its troops. The problems of reinforcing or evacuating the high-altitude ridgeline have led to India's development of the Dhruv Mk III helicopter, powered by the Shakti engine, which was flight-tested to lift and land personnel and stores from the Sonam post, the highest permanently manned post in the world.[56] India also installed the world's highest telephone booth on the glacier.[57]
According to some estimates, 97% of the casualties in Siachen have been due to weather and altitude, rather than actual fighting.[8] In 2012, an avalanche hit Pakistan's Gayari military base, killing 129 soldiers and 11 civilians.[58][59]
Kargil War [ edit ]
One of the factors behind the Kargil War in 1999 when Pakistan sent infiltrators to occupy vacated Indian posts across the Line of Control was their belief that India would be forced to withdraw from Siachen in exchange of a Pakistani withdrawal from Kargil.[60] After the Kargil War, India decided to maintain its military outposts on the glacier, wary of further Pakistani incursions into Kashmir if they vacate from the Siachen Glacier posts.[61]
Visits [ edit ]
On 12 June 2005, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh became the first Indian Prime Minister to visit the area, calling for a peaceful resolution of the problem. In 2007, the President of India, Abdul Kalam became the first head of state to visit the area. Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi visited Siachen on 23 October 2014 to celebrate Diwali with the troops and boost their morale.[62]
The Chief of Staff of the US Army, General George Casey on 17 October 2008 visited the Siachen Glacier along with Indian Army Chief, General Deepak Kapoor. The US General visited for the purpose of "developing concepts and medical aspects of fighting in severe cold conditions and high altitude".[63][64]
Since September 2007, India has welcomed mountaineering and trekking expeditions to the forbidding glacial heights. The expeditions have been meant to show the international audience that Indian troops hold "almost all dominating heights" on the important Saltoro Ridge west of Siachen Glacier, and to show that Pakistani troops are nowhere near the 43.5-mile (70 km) Siachen Glacier.[65]
Artistic depiction [ edit ]
The Siachen glacier and its conflict was depicted in a 48-page comic book, Siachen: The cold war, released in August 2012. Later its sequel, Battlefield Siachen, was released in January 2013.[66][67][68][69]
List of post-ceasefire avalanches and landslides [ edit ]
On 11 February 2010, an avalanche struck an Indian army post in the Southern Glacier, killing one soldier. A base camp was also struck, that killed two Ladakh scouts. The same day, a single avalanche hit a Pakistani military camp in Bevan sector, killing 8 soldiers.[70]
In 2011, 24 Indian soldiers died on the Siachen glacier from the climate and accidents.[71] On 22 July, two Indian officers burned to death when a fire caught on their shelter.[72]
In the early morning of 7 April 2012, an avalanche hit a Pakistani military headquarters in the Gayari Sector, burying 129 soldiers of the 6th Northern Light Infantry battalion and 11 civilian contractors.[73][74] In the aftermath of the disaster, Pakistan's army chief General Ashfaq Parvez Kayani suggested India and Pakistan should withdraw all troops from the contested glacier.[75]
On 29 May, two Pakistani soldiers were killed in a landslide in the Chorbat Sector.[76]
On 12 December, an avalanche killed 6 Indian soldiers in the Sub Sector Hanif in Turtuk area, when troops of the 1st Assam regiment were moving between posts.[77][78] In 2012, a total of 12 Indian soldiers died of hostile weather conditions.[71]
In 2013, 10 Indian soldiers died due to weather conditions.[71]
2015 [ edit ]
On 14 November 2015, an Indian captain from the Third Ladakh scouts died in an avalanche in the Southern Glacier while 15 others were rescued.[79]
2016 [ edit ]
On 4 January 2016, four Indian soldiers of the Ladakh Scouts, were killed in an avalanche on the Southern Glacier while on patrol duty in Nobra Valley.[80]
On the morning of 3 February 2016, ten Indian soldiers including one Junior commissioned officer of the 6th Madras battalion were buried under the snow when a massive avalanche struck their post in the Northern Glacier at a height of 19,600 feet, on the Actual Ground Position Line.[81] Pakistani officials offered their help in search and rescue operations 30 hours after the incident, although it was declined by Indian military authorities.[82] During the rescue operations, the Indian army found Lance Naik Hanumanthappa alive, though in a critical condition, after being buried under 25 feet snow for 6 days. He was taken to Army Research and Referral Hospital in Delhi. His condition became critical later on due to multiple organ failure and lack of oxygen to brain and he died 11 February 2016.[83]
On 27 February, a civilian porter working with the Indian army in the Northern Glacier, fell to his death in a 130-foot crevasse.[84]
On 17 March, two Indian soldiers from the Chennai-21 regiment were killed, and bodies recovered in 12-feet deep ice.[85]
On 25 March, two Indian jawans died after they were buried in an avalanche in the Turtuk sector while on patrol.[86]
On 1 April, Indian General Dalbir Singh and General D. S. Hooda of the Northern Command visited the Siachen glacier in order to boost morale after 17 of its soldiers died in 2016.[87]
See also [ edit ]
References [ edit ]
Citations [ edit ]
Bibliography [ edit ]
Lavoy, Peter R., ed. (2009). Asymmetric Warfare in South Asia: The Causes and Consequences of the Kargil Conflict. Cambridge University Press. ISBN 9781139482820.
Malik, V. P. (2006). Kargil from Surprise to Victory. HarperCollins Publishers India. ISBN 9788172236359. Gokhale, Nitin A (2015). Beyond NJ 9842: The SIACHEN Saga. Bloomsbury Publishing. ISBN 9789384052263.0
This Tuesday has been renamed “Release Date Tuesday” since release dates for Hercules: The Legend Begins, the Fantastic Four reboot, the Assassin’s Creed adaptation, Matthew Vaughn’s The Secret Service, Susan Cooper and an untitled Vince Vaughn movie were all announced today. Add another big one to the list as 20th Century Fox pushed back Roland Emmerich’s Independence Day sequel from July 3, 2015 to to July 1, 2016. For those of you who are old enough to remember the original, that’s almost 20 years to the day from its July 3, 1996 release. Coincidentally (or perhaps not), the sequel’s plot also takes place two decades after the events of the first film. Hit the jump for more.
Variety reported on the date delay for the Independence Day sequel. We’re not exactly sure whether or not star Will Smith will be returning to the sequel, but Emmerich apparently has a script to handle either scenario. Either way, the film may star Michael B. Jordan in a story that centers on the children of the original characters. There’s still a lot up in the air as far as the sequels are concerned, but now there is plenty of time to get them all sussed out, as the filmmakers will have two-and-a-half years to bring the picture to the screen. Check back in a year to see how far along the movie(s) is/are coming along. In the meantime, take a gander at the original trailer for Independence Day:The Post’s Marc Fisher explains how some of President-elect Donald Trump’s traits could inform his leadership style when he takes office. (Bastien Inzaurralde/The Washington Post)
The Post’s Marc Fisher explains how some of President-elect Donald Trump’s traits could inform his leadership style when he takes office. (Bastien Inzaurralde/The Washington Post)
President-elect Donald Trump is set to take office under immense pressure to quickly deliver on a list of audacious campaign promises that served as the cornerstone of his bid to disrupt Washington and undo pieces of President Obama’s agenda.
Some of Trump’s most dramatic undertakings — such as canceling Obama’s “illegal” executive actions — can be done in his first hours as president. Other priorities, such as repealing and replacing the Affordable Care Act or building a wall on the U.S.-Mexico border, will require the approval of Congress, which will be controlled by Republicans but could still squabble over details. Others still could run into political or legal obstacles that may be difficult to overcome.
For Trump, the transition from proposing severe changes on the campaign trail to trying to navigate the complex gears of government to implement them will serve as a jarring early test of his tenure in the White House.
Two of Trump’s ideas could probably be realized as early as his first day in office: scrapping executive orders issued by Obama — including those that shielded from deportation some immigrants who are here illegally — and appointing a special prosecutor to investigate vanquished Democratic opponent Hillary Clinton.
[GOP sweep imperils Obama’s signature health-care law]
The former is a common tactic for new presidents whose predecessors belong to the opposing political party. Obama signed an executive order ending a ban on federal funding for embryonic stem cell research imposed by George W. Bush early in his first term.
The latter would be a political risk. By going after the opponent he just defeated, Trump could imperil his chances of broadening his appeal to the millions of Americans who did not vote for him.
“He certainly could do it, but it could have a major, devastating impact on her and would create a very bad precedent like we see in Third World countries” where election winners often imprison their rivals, said John F. Banzhaf III, professor of public interest law at George Washington University and a scholar on administration law.
Repealing the ACA would take an act of Congress, as would levying some types of tariffs on corporations that move operations overseas, ending regulations that limit pollution and coal production, getting rid of gun-free school zones, and renegotiating the Iran nuclear deal. He would have the authority to renegotiate trade deals such as the North American Free Trade Agreement that he has long railed against — and to withdraw with six months’ notice if he wished — but such a move could be catastrophic for stock markets and the economy.
For years, Republicans on Capitol Hill have tried to shred Obama’s signature health-care law, only to be stopped by the president. But after holding their majorities, they are finally in position to make it happen in conjunction with the new Republican president.
[Iran nuclear deal could collapse under Trump]
While Trump spent countless hours on the campaign trail assailing the law, he has yet to fully articulate what he would offer as an alternative. Trump said that he would encourage health savings accounts, allow insurers to sell policies across state lines and convert Medicaid from an entitlement program to a block grant to states — ideas long favored by GOP conservatives. As for the rest of Trump’s plan, he has assured supporters that it will be something “terrific” that is “so much better, so much better, so much better.”
1 of 75 Full Screen Autoplay Close Skip Ad × Protests swell across U.S. in wake of Trump victory View Photos Vigils and protests flared up across the country Wednesday evening as opponents of President-elect Donald Trump expressed dismay with the election results, underscoring the difficult task he faces in uniting a fractured country. Caption Vigils and protests flare up among opponents of the president-elect. Nov. 20. 2016 People participate in an anti-hate rally at a Brooklyn park named in memory of Beastie Boys band member Adam Yauch after it was defaced with swastikas. Spencer Platt/Getty Images Buy Photo Wait 1 second to continue.
Building a wall on the southern border would require Congress to commit hundreds of billions of dollars to make it happen. Trump also has no power to force Mexico to pay for it, as he has repeatedly promised to do, although he could pressure the Mexican government with threats to limit trade or drug-related law enforcement activities.
History shows it can be hard to fulfill vows that sounded easier to make in front of cheering crowds on the campaign trail. For example, Obama immediately issued an executive order closing the military prison for suspected terrorists at Guantanamo Bay in Cuba, but members of both parties in Congress voted to block its closure. In the final months of Obama’s presidency, the prison remains open.
Heavily surveilling mosques in the United States in the way Trump has advocated would require courts to reinterpret constitutional protections and rights. And if he wants to follow through with his proposal to ban most Muslims from entering the country — which he stopped talking about in the final months of the race even as it remained on his campaign website — would immediately be challenged in court as either unconstitutional or against current law, legal experts said.
But Trump would probably have the ability to ban a narrower group of Muslims living in certain parts of some countries controlled by Islamic State terrorists because the immigration statutes afford some discretion on national security grounds.
[Donald Trump will have the power to move swiftly on trade promises]
Another category of Trump’s promises amounts to changing the priorities of agencies. That would require getting Congress to allocate more money for programs already underway, such as deporting illegal immigrants with criminal records and broader promises to “fix the Veterans Administration” and “start taking care of our military.”
In the area of national security, where presidents traditionally have more leeway, Trump could order his top military chiefs to come up with a plan within 30 days to stop the Islamic State, as he has promised. But if the plan would require the deployment of troops to Iraq and possibly an invasion of Syria, a war-weary Congress eventually would need to sign off and agree to fund a large and open-ended increase in military spending.
Even if the plan were to rely on the CIA’s covert action authority and be carried out in secret, Trump would face limits on what he could do and what the professionals at the CIA, the National Security Agency and other intelligence agencies might be willing to do.
For example, if he tried to order the use of torture against terrorists, as he has pledged, Trump would immediately run into legal impediments and a buzz-saw of resistance from CIA lawyers and operators still smarting from a decade of revelations and public criticism over waterboarding and secret prisons, intelligence officials said.
Trump would have to persuade Congress to overturn the ban on waterboarding instituted by George W. Bush in 2006 and the congressional ban on any interrogations that go beyond the restrictive ones outlined in the Army Field Manual.
He could ask the intelligence community and White House lawyers to come up with a new set of harsh interrogation methods that they believe do not violate U.S. law and do not amount to torture, which is prohibited under U.S. and international law, said John Rizzo, longtime acting general counsel at the CIA.
But, Rizzo and half a dozen former intelligence officers warned, “There would be such pushback” from many at the CIA, given the damage that revelations over extreme measures did to the agency’s reputation.
At his final campaign rally, in Grand Rapids, Mich., on Monday, Trump said he would put in place “the largest tax cut since Ronald Reagan” and offered less specific ideas such as eliminating “every unnecessary, job-killing regulation,” protecting religious liberty and rebuilding the military and law enforcement.
“Just think about what we can accomplish in the first 100 days of a Trump administration,” he told the crowd.
Priest reported from Washington. Jenna Johnson in Washington contributed to this report.As the war in Syria dies down and the dust starts to settle, the enormity of Israel's strategic mistake during the long years of conflict is becoming all the more apparent. The first person to point this out publicly was Maj. Gen. Amos Yadlin, the Israel Defense Forces’ (IDF) chief of Military Intelligence from 2006 to 2010.
Yadlin is now the executive director of Tel Aviv University’s Institute for National Security Studies, the country's most important research institution. On Nov. 23, he declared resolutely, "Israel made a mistake when it adopted a position of neutrality during the Syrian war. It should have done everything it could to bring down President Bashar al-Assad's regime as early as 2012." According to Yadlin, the weakness shown by the United States and Israel is what led to a situation in which the new Syria is being shaped by "the Czar [Russian President Vladimir Putin], the Sultan [Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan] and the Supreme Leader [Iran's Ayatollah Ali Khamenei].” At an attempt in Geneva to resolve the crisis several years ago, the United States dictated the list of participants. Now the United States has all but disappeared from the arena, while Israel is being excluded by Putin and Erdogan.
As revealed in an earlier Al-Monitor article, behind closed doors, Israel is bemoaning having missed a historic opportunity to be done with Assad, and with him, the Shiite axis along the Golan Heights and its border with Lebanon, since this axis is only getting stronger. As one very senior Israeli military official told Al-Monitor on condition of anonymity, "There was a full year during the civil war in Syria in which anyone who wanted to could have taken down Assad without any effort and without anyone signing off on it, without it being attributed to some operation or other. Car bombs were going off outside his presidential palace during that year, and mortars were landing just a few dozen meters away from the struggling Syrian president. All anyone had to do was give it another little nudge."
Now Israel finds itself faced with dire strategic circumstances. While Defense Minister Avigdor Liberman said this week, "Right now there is no Iranian military force on Syrian soil," no one in the Israeli defense establishment plans to relax. No one has stopped worrying that Syria could become a protectorate of Shiite Iran or that Iran could establish itself in Syria and Lebanon, turning them into a military arm of the ayatollahs' regime, under its direct control.
Foreign news sources say that Israel used the last few years to launch a lengthy series of aerial attacks against Syrian targets. Most of these were directed at concentrations and convoys of arms intended for Hezbollah. Now Israel is considering the possibility of reconfiguring and strengthening its unwritten red lines, which have set the ground for its military activity in the region over the past few years. It is even investigating the possibility of launching a far-reaching preventive strike to interfere with future Iranian efforts to establish factories for the manufacture of precision rockets and missiles in Syria or Lebanon, as well as to prevent Iranian military bases from popping up there.
As always, these concerns and the overall alarmism originates with the political leadership and decision-makers, chief among them Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, and less from the military brass. "There's no need to exaggerate," one senior military source told Al-Monitor two weeks ago on condition of anonymity. "The Iranians aren't sitting on the border fence. Even if some Shiite militia or other establishes a base in Syrian territory, it would not be a real strategic threat."
It is believed that Iran is planning to keep the Shiite militias, which fought during the civil war in Syria, under Iranian commanders drawn from officers and experts in its Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps. "Even if that does happen, it is not the kind of tiebreaker that would necessitate going to war," the source added.
What disturbs the Israeli officers more is the Iranian "Precision [Missile] Project," intended to provide Assad and Hezbollah Secretary-General Hassan Nasrallah with the capability to manufacture their own rockets and missiles, which could strike within dozens of meters of strategic targets. As one top Israeli minister told Al-Monitor on condition of anonymity, "For that, we would need to consider going to war. That should be a red line flashing brightly at us. All the regional decision-makers must then take into consideration that Israel will not blink, and that it will do everything it can to prevent its enemies from obtaining the capacity to harm it, its economy, its air force bases and other sites with precision strikes. Period."
There are those in Israel who compare the current situation on the Syrian front with what the Egyptians did on the eve of the 1973 Yom Kippur War. Back then, Egypt repositioned its Soviet anti-aircraft missiles so that they would be in range of the front lines during any future war. This is what enabled the Egyptian army to cross the Suez Canal and establish a bridgehead on its eastern bank, despite Israeli preventive efforts. This resulted in the loss of dozens of Israeli fighter jets.
Today, Israel is stretching its intelligence capacities in an enormous effort to locate factories that are part of the "Precision Project," like the one on the outskirts of Damascus, which was bombed a few months ago (the Syrian SARS project). At the same time, Assad is getting stronger by the day, and his regime is successfully re-establishing itself. Jerusalem is aware that at some point, Syrian restraint will diminish. Assad will no longer be satisfied with sporadic anti-aircraft fire in the general direction of Israeli aircraft. He will strive to exact a steeper price.
Sources in Israel are saying that over the next few months, every decision to launch an aerial attack against Syria, like the relatively frequent decisions over the last year, will have to take into consideration the growing risk of a war breaking out between Israel and the forces on the Syrian front (Hezbollah and Assad, backed by Iran). Both are getting stronger steadily. "What we mustn't forget," said one senior Israeli source on condition of anonymity, "is that the more time passes, the harder such a war will be for us. It is directly proportional to how strong Assad gets. Right now, Israeli military superiority is decisive, while Assad is still fragile and vulnerable. That is why we mustn’t wink. We must make it clear to all the relevant parties that there are certain lines that Israel has no intention of abandoning."
As usual, the mood in the IDF is much calmer. "Assad is still intimidated by Israel, as is Nasrallah," a senior Israeli military source told Al-Monitor on condition of anonymity. ''We have to keep doing what we've been doing until now in order to stop 'Project Precision' and to keep Iran from constructing an airport or naval port in Syria. What is true," he added, ''is that we must do it quietly, without making a big show of it. Just do it, instead of talking about it."Advertisement
We spent all of last weekend at RoboGames, and have emerged battered, bruised, and sporting several shiny new robot-related minor injuries. I spent most of yesterday going through robot withdrawal, not so much from an excess of weekend robotitude (although there definitely was that), but mostly due to the accidental inhalation of copious amounts of whatever is that comes out of burning battery packs and fried speed controllers. But, being a professional journalist and all that (!), I'm managed to pull myself together enough for this little teaser gallery of the 2012 Mech Warfare competition, featuring a brand new arena that many of you helped make possible.
Mech Warfare's new arena might not have happened without the generous donations of many Spectrum readers, and here's the result:
Of course, none of the Mech Warfare competitors got to enjoy this arena firsthand, because they were all parked behind computer monitors, using telepresence to control their mechs:
And here's some of the denizens of this fancy new arena:
We'd tell you more, but then this wouldn't be much of a teaser post, would it?
This year, we were able to bring along one of those nifty little GoPro cameras, which let us get some fairly spectacular "street level" video footage of the Mech Warfare matches. We also risked life and limb in the arena during matches themselves, and we'll be putting all of this together over the next few days as soon as somebody (me) can make it happen. Meanwhile, we'll be getting back to your regularly scheduled robotics news at the same time.
[ Mech Warfare ]
[ RoboGames ]SWEDEN Foreign PhD graduates denied citizenship Tweet
Under legislation on “circular migration” enacted last July, it was made easier for doctoral students from outside Europe to seek permanent residency in Sweden and settle in Sweden upon graduation.
“A person who during the last seven years has had a visa for studies at doctorate level for at least four years can receive permanent residency,” the law stipulates. But, in an odd twist, those who want to become Swedish citizens might experience delays, depending on what they wrote on the application form when applying for a visa to study in Sweden.
Whether the Migration Agency will take into account in an application all of the time a PhD student has spent in Sweden depends on what type of residence permit the student has and what they originally stated was the intention of their stay.
The agency has decided that time spent with a temporary residence permit on the basis of doing doctoral studies may be included, but only if it was stated by the student when applying for a visa that their intention was to stay in Sweden after completing their studies.
This has created a catch-22 situation because many doctoral students from outside Europe, notably those admitted before the new legislation, in 2006-14, had to mention in their application that they intended to leave Sweden after graduation as this was a requirement to be granted a visa for studies.
Campaign group objects
A campaign group which goes by the name of “Equality for foreign PhDs in Sweden” told University World News that this was an issue of “discrimination against one minority group while privileging others”.
The group cited the example of an unnamed student who received permanent residency based on the 2014 law. He had already been in the country for nine years and paid taxes for seven years. But his application for citizenship was rejected because when he applied for a PhD student visa he hadn’t shown his intention to stay.
The group says that on 18 November 2014, the Migration Agency posted on its website that the PhD period can be counted as the time of residence only if the student mentioned in his application that he would like to settle in Sweden after studies.
“However, for the PhD student group between 2006 and 2014, this requirement is unfair since this group of students had to mention in their applications that they intended to leave Sweden after studies in order to be granted a residence permit for PhD studies.”
An expert on citizenship in the Swedish Migration Agency, or MV, Helena Cidh told University World News: “A doctoral candidate is always evaluated [for citizenship] from the date of application for permanent residence. If the person shall have the time before receiving permanent residence included, this has to be examined using criteria that includes 'whether he or she stated that they are planning to return home after the stay’.”
“If the student has crossed for the option of returning home after graduation and there is no other good reasons that the plan of the student originally was to stay in Sweden, then the application will be rejected.”
The “Equality for foreign PhDs in Sweden” group said the Migration Agency’s approach did not take into account, in some recently rejected cases, the fact that since graduation people have taken on permanent jobs, bought apartments and have started families in Sweden.
Doctoral student trends
There is a growing trend for doctoral students to become employees at universities, not living on student grants. On average 61% of doctoral students today are employees at Swedish universities, and most institutions are changing the status of doctoral candidates from'student’ to 'employee’.
Of 19,000 active doctoral students, almost 5,000 are foreign citizens today. Some 40% of the 3,700 new entrants each year are foreign born. About 50% of foreign doctoral students stay on in Sweden after graduation.
They are six years younger on average than Swedish doctoral students and only 18% are living at home with a child compared with 47% of their Swedish peers.
Receive UWN's free weekly e-newsletters Numerous foreign PhD students who apply for Swedish citizenship face years of delay or rejection, because they originally said on their application form when applying for a study visa that they did not intend to stay in Sweden.Under legislation on “circular migration” enacted last July, it was made easier for doctoral students from outside Europe to seek permanent residency in Sweden and settle in Sweden upon graduation.“A person who during the last seven years has had a visa for studies at doctorate level for at least four years can receive permanent residency,” the law stipulates. But, in an odd twist, those who want to become Swedish citizens might experience delays, depending on what they wrote on the application form when applying for a visa to study in Sweden.Whether the Migration Agency will take into account in an application all of the time a PhD student has spent in Sweden depends on what type of residence permit the student has and what they originally stated was the intention of their stay.The agency has decided that time spent with a temporary residence permit on the basis of doing doctoral studies may be included, but only if it was stated by the student when applying for a visa that their intention was to stay in Sweden after completing their studies.This has created a catch-22 situation because many doctoral students from outside Europe, notably those admitted before the new legislation, in 2006-14, had to mention in their application that they intended to leave Sweden after graduation as this was a requirement to be granted a visa for studies.A campaign group which goes by the name of “Equality for foreign PhDs in Sweden” toldthat this was an issue of “discrimination against one minority group while privileging others”.The group cited the example of an unnamed student who received permanent residency based on the 2014 law. He had already been in the country for nine years and paid taxes for seven years. But his application for citizenship was rejected because when he applied for a PhD student visa he hadn’t shown his intention to stay.The group says that on 18 November 2014, the Migration Agency posted on its website that the PhD period can be counted as the time of residence only if the student mentioned in his application that he would like to settle in Sweden after studies.“However, for the PhD student group between 2006 and 2014, this requirement is unfair since this group of students had to mention in their applications that they intended to leave Sweden after studies in order to be granted a residence permit for PhD studies.”An expert on citizenship in the Swedish Migration Agency, or MV, Helena Cidh told: “A doctoral candidate is always evaluated [for citizenship] from the date of application for permanent residence. If the person shall have the time before receiving permanent residence included, this has to be examined using criteria that includes 'whether he or she stated that they are planning to return home after the stay’.”“If the student has crossed for the option of returning home after graduation and there is no other good reasons that the plan of the student originally was to stay in Sweden, then the application will be rejected.”The “Equality for foreign PhDs in Sweden” group said the Migration Agency’s approach did not take into account, in some recently rejected cases, the fact that since graduation people have taken on permanent jobs, bought apartments and have started families in Sweden.There is a growing trend for doctoral students to become employees at universities, not living on student grants. On average 61% of doctoral students today are employees at Swedish universities, and most institutions are changing the status of doctoral candidates from'student’ to 'employee’.Of 19,000 active doctoral students, almost 5,000 are foreign citizens today. Some 40% of the 3,700 new entrants each year are foreign born. About 50% of foreign doctoral students stay on in Sweden after graduation.They are six years younger on average than Swedish doctoral students and only 18% are living at home with a child compared with 47% of their Swedish peers.The pilot scheme is said to have proved popular
Shoppers at an Asda store in the West Midlands are now able to get a hospital blood test taken as they shop.
The West Bromwich supermarket has teamed up with Birmingham City Hospital and nearby Sandwell Hospital under an NHS pilot scheme.
The blood tests are taken by a qualified phlebotomist, in a location removed from where any food is sold.
Rob Ashley, pathology manager at the hospital, said: "It's really good for the patients, it's about convenience."
The blood samples taken in-store are then sent to the hospitals to be analysed.
The pilot scheme, which began in September, has been funded by Sandwell Primary Care Trust and is being trialled until April.
Any patient within the catchment area, who has a referral letter from their GP, is given the choice to have their sample taken at the supermarket rather than at hospital.
Mr Ashley said the scheme has already proved "popular" with patients.
"Rather than going all the way to the hospital, where they have to pay to park and wait with all the other patients, they can get it done at local sites - like Asda," he said.There it is. It’s been sitting there, waiting, for well nigh on two years.
It’s a collector of spines. It sits on its perch and licks the gristle and flesh left on the vertebrae it’s been hoarding and wears on a string, gnawing and cracking the bones, sucking the marrow.
I’ve left it too long, the taming may not work. It’s a beast. A bouganvillea glabra, thorny, wild.
First, I have to move it. Perhaps another few vertebrae will be added to its collection today.
But I worked smart, I used a wagon to move it.
But for that, I still got yelled at by the wife….she who must be obeyed. She told me not to pick it up by myself. I’m stubborn.
I warned her that I’d put this pic on the blog. I may never sleep in my bed again, but it’s still funny. The last time I worked on the tree (the full story and more, such as the smuggling of a nubile |
going 1-2 and being eliminated. So coming into Season 3 and failing in the ro32… Makes sense now?
He enters this group with a very difficult task to advance, playing against Duckdeok in his first game of the evening, a player who won his championship in WCS on PvP games pretty much. Though Duckdeok has since became a little bit predictable in his play style, Naniwa was able to finally understand how to beat him and showed that in the Season 2 finals. Has Titan prepared in a similar manner? Has Duckdeok changed up since the last time we saw him?
Titan vs MMA is going to be very difficult of course, I am not sure about his game against Starbuck if they were to meet, Starbuck is a terror against Protoss but I question his performance due to lack of experience playing offline. Good luck Comrade.
Duckdeok
If history was to repeat itself, the reigning champion is meant to lose tonight, as our first champion Mvp was eliminated by my co-caster this evening, Grubby, in the ro16.
We haven’t seen any activity from Duckdeok outside of the WCS, his last offline games were in the Season 2 Finals over a month ago. He did however beat up on TLO in the ro32, once again only just advancing out of his group to make it to where he shined last season.
His first game tonight will be against Titan, I feel this game can go anyway, even though Duckdeok probably is the stronger player, he has been more exposed than Titan, lots of information on how duckdeok likes to play PvP will give Titan help and even up the series. Lets say Duckdeok loses vs Titan and has to play MMA or Starbuck and if Starbuck can perform and deliver with his very strong ZvP… there is a chance that we do lose our reigning champion, what a scary thought.
As a champion there is no room to bath in ones glory as you are the one wearing the target.
Starbuck
Well well well, congratulations Starbuck on making it into the Premier league. Fantastic performances in the ro32 beating Grubby and winning the rematch vs Lucifron, he gained a lot of fans over the last few weeks and is in a position to win even more tonight if the Slovenian dream comes true.
I have to mention it again, coming into this tournament at only 16 years old, he will go FACE TO FACE with a StarCraft legend, MMA. I hope he approaches this group like StarTale Life would, not give a $£%!. Most of us reading this have all been 16 years old, at this point in your life you simply don’t need to worry about things an older person would, making a living, finding a girlfriend, work etc.etc. Hopefully all that is going through Starbucks head is pink unicorns, rainbows and how to play SC2.
He will face up first tonight against MMA, a player who will try to make Starbuck dizzy with drops, move him out of position and simply out play him. I think we are all expecting something crazy coming out from Starbuck, but what is it? Roach baneling allin? Speed roach, speed baneling? Normal games? What is it?? That’s the big question coming in tonight’s game against MMA.
Against Protoss, he said he is confident to face anybody and is eager to play that matchup, so lets hope he delivers!
A difficult night for the youngster but this is where heroes and legends begin, this could be your time.The Curious Iguana bookstore owner Marlene England, left, helps out customer Kasey Smith, 23, Saturday December 14, 2013 in Frederick, Md. Recently there's been a surprising resurgence of independent bookstores like the Curious Iguana that opened in Frederick in September. (Katherine Frey/The Washington Post)
Bookstores are terminally ill. Borders? Dead. Barnes & Noble? Life support. Amazon is king. E-books are the present and the future. Have tablet, will read.
But in downtown Frederick, Md., Marlene and Tom England are defying the future: They recently opened the Curious Iguana bookstore. It carries books printed on paper. Nonfiction. Poetry. Short stories. That seems insane, right? Some people strolling by certainly think so.
“I’ve heard them say: ‘A bookstore? Who would open up a bookstore these days?’ ” Marlene said. “I mean really, the door is open. I can heeaaaaaaaar you.”
Marlene has not ventured outside to offer the doomsayers a retort, but if she did, it would be this: Independent bookstores are not dead. In fact, in some of the country’s most urbane and educated communities, they are making a comeback.
In an e-tailing world, their resurgence is driven by e-book growth that has leveled off, dyed-in-the-wool print lovers who won’t (or can’t) abandon page flipping, a new category of hybrid reader (the latest mystery, digital; the latest John Irving, print) and savvy retailers such as the Englands, positioning their stores squarely in the buy-local movement and as a respite from screens.
The American Booksellers Association, which represents independent bookstores, says its membership — it hit a low of 1,600 in 2008 — has grown 6.4 percent in 2013, to 2,022. Sales were up 8 percent in 2012, and those gains have held this year. In the District, sales at Politics and Prose, where President Obama and his daughters went Christmas shopping last month, have grown each of the past few years. Its owners pondered an additional outlet in Georgetown, but the original idea for a location fell through.
Nationally, while there are still indie bookstores shutting their doors, unable to hold on against the tough head winds, there are more stores opening than closing. Word, the popular Brooklyn indie, just opened a new branch at an old Burger King in Jersey City. Bookbug, in Kalamazoo, Mich., has doubled its size. Novelist Ann Patchett opened a store in Nashville. There are new openings in St. Louis, in Durham, N.C., and beyond.
“We just never bought into the sky-is-falling mentality,” Marlene England said. “You see the headlines, but you have to dig deep to see what’s really happening.”
The indie resurgence became publishing’s central narrative this year. Publishers Weekly, the industry’s trade bible, last month named Oren Teicher, chief executive of the American Booksellers Association, and his group’s board as its person of the year, an honor previously given to “Fifty Shades of Grey ” author E.L. James and Jeffrey P. Bezos, the founder of Amazon.com, the owner of The Washington Post and a villain to indie booksellers.
“We are a lot like Mark Twain: The rumors of our death are a little bit exaggerated,” Teicher said. “We have been counted out for a very long time.”
Twenty-five years ago, independents were supposed to vanish when Waldenbooks showed up in malls. They were supposed to vanish when Borders and Barnes & Noble came along with endless selection and comfy chairs. They were supposed to vanish when Costco started selling the latest Doris Kearns Goodwin. They were supposed to vanish when Amazon perfected low prices and fast shipments — not just for books but even for rowboats, meaning nobody would ever have to leave the house again to shop.
“I think what we’re seeing is that the inevitable death of any kind of physical retailing was a gross exaggeration,” said Laura J. Miller, a Brandeis sociology professor and author of “Reluctant Capitalists: Bookselling and the Culture of Consumption.” “There are a lot of reasons people like going to bricks-and-mortar stores, especially to bookstores that are offering something more than just a convenient shopping experience.”
The Englands’ objective when they opened the Curious Iguana was to offer something more. They are experienced in the art of throwback retailing. They own Dancing Bear Toys and Gifts, a popular downtown Frederick toy store specializing in toys without batteries. Even in the face of Xboxes, flying toys and children snatching their parents’ iPhones to play games, the Dancing Bear’s sales have increased every year.
“We think there’s a desire by many to go back to a very simple time,” Tom England said. “Kids are starting to play Risk again. People want to touch things. They want to be a little low-tech.”
The Englands were pondering opening another toy store in a different downtown, but they love Frederick and realized something special was happening there — a rebirth fueled by upscale food, high-end antiques and cute cafes. Their toy store’s book section was booming, so they thought of opening a kids bookstore.
But people around town pushed them to open a bookstore for general interest. They visited Politics and Prose one morning. It was packed. They saw statistics showing that indie stores’ sales were growing again. And so they took a huge gamble: They moved their toy store off the main street and around the corner, putting the Curious Iguana in its spot.
The walls are a warm purple. Edison lights hang from the ceiling. The hardwood floor creaks. And they gave the store a larger mission, too — sharing a portion of the proceeds with international nonprofit organizations. Sales, the Englands say, are higher than they expected. One recent Saturday afternoon the store was packed with about two dozen customers.
“We need intimate, small places like this that care about the books they pick,” said Lisa Solomon, a Frederick resident holding several children’s books. “This isn’t just a bookstore. It’s more than that.”
Ryan Young, 38, dropped $130 on cookbooks, kids titles and some other hardcovers. She said something that many book buyers would be afraid to utter in an indie store: “I’m an Amazon Prime member.” She also admitted to owning and enjoying a Kindle. Lightning did not strike her. That’s because she also said this: “Having a book in my hands — nothing stacks up to that.”
Young is an emerging positive for indie bookstores: a hybrid reader. About 64 percent of U.S. book buyers prefer reading in both print and digital, according to the Codex Group, which regularly surveys readers. Young reads series mysteries on her Kindle, but literary titles come home in print. Industry statistics show that e-book sales are largely tilted toward genre reading, a trend playing out in Young’s life.
“There has to be a value in both,” she said. “There are books on my bookshelves that are like my friends. You can go back to them over and over again.”
Marlene England is not offended about the Amazon.com remark. “It doesn’t have to be an either-or,” she said. “You don’t have to feel guilty for buying e-books. We all do it — for convenience, for travel, whatever.”
E-books, however, have not come to overwhelm bookselling as many experts predicted five years ago. Statistics from earlier this year showed that e-book sales were up 5 percent in the first quarter, compared with 28 percent in 2012 and 159 percent in 2011.
“The growth curve really has flattened, so that’s good for us,” said Bradley Graham, a former Washington Post reporter who owns Politics and Prose with his wife, Lissa Muscatine.
But many independent bookstore owners, including Graham, concede that e-books are a big part of the industry’s future, so they are embracing the technology. In partnership with Kobo, an Amazon competitor, Politics and Prose and other independent bookstores are selling the company’s e-readers and e-books in exchange for a small cut of sales.
Graham says the partnership hasn’t yielded meaningful revenue. More promising, he said, are the store’s other ancillary offerings — daily author readings, dozens of paid classes, and book-oriented trips. The store recently added beer and wine sales for in-store events.
Still, publishing experts say that independents might be fighting for their lives again five or 10 years down the road. College students today — the book buyers of tomorrow — are finding a heavy emphasis on digital textbooks in the classroom, and there is a risk they won’t ever become hybrid book buyers.
Also, Amazon shows no sign of giving indies any relief on what store owners consider predatory pricing, especially on key titles they need to push. Donna Tartt’s new novel, “The Goldfinch,” is selling for $30 at Curious Iguana. Amazon is selling it for $15.41.
And then there’s Barnes & Noble. While the Borders demise was good for indie sales, a Barnes & Noble collapse would be catastrophic for the publishing industry, which depends heavily on the company’s enormous bookselling footprint to move huge inventories, including bestsellers that help finance the more literary offerings that indies typically stock.
“I think the independents have been given a break for now,” said Al Greco, who studies publishing at Fordham University.
The Englands know the risks. “We knew exactly what we’re getting into,” Tom said.
And besides, Marlene said, “if it all fails, Curious Iguana is a great name for a bar.”Did I Do the Right Thing?
Ryan McKnight Blocked Unblock Follow Following Oct 8, 2017
There has been so much unnecessary drama surrounding my Facebook post and the subsequent six month ban handed down to me by the r/exmormon mods. I want this to finally come to a conclusion, at least on my end. This blog will hopefully be the last time I address the situation.
I am grateful that the moderates made an attempt to clarify the confusion they started by making a comment letting everyone know that I did not dox anyone on r/exmormon. They promised a formal statement as to why I was actually banned, but that has yet to happen (as of the time of the publishing of this blog)
What I Did
I saw a post on Reddit of a redacted screen shot showing somebody saying that if the Las Vegas concert goers had been keeping the Sabbath day holy they would have survived. The post concluded with a call for the people of Las Vegas to repent. It was clear from the screen shot that the post was made with the Facebook privacy settings set so that only his friends would see it.
I posted the redacted screen shot on my Facebook page.
I shared the redacted screen shot with a prominent blogger and asked him if he has seen it. He expressed interest in writing a blog post about it but he said was hesitant without some additional proof that the screen shot was real. I messaged the person who posted the screen shot on Reddit and asked her if she would send me the unreacted image to assist in helping this blogger verify the post. I specified that the blogger was not going to publish the unredacted screen shot. She said no.
Through means outside of Reddit, I was able to find the profile of the Facebook user who made the original comment. I went to his profile and say two public posts on his Facebook wall of the unredacted screen shot. One was a Facebook friend of his who was calling him out for his horrible post. The other was made by someone claiming to be his cousin who was defending his comment.
Seeing the unredacted image and all of the rest of this Facebook user’s other public posts really set me off. I felt that he deserved to be called out. I posted the unredacted screen shot on Facebook as well as tagging his name in the post.
The blogger I had contacted did write a post about the screen shot and he redacted all of the Facebook user’s information. I posted a link to that blog on r/exmormon and r/mormon. On the r/mormon post someone commented and called into question the legitimacy of the story. I replied to the comment with something like this: If you look me up on Facebook you can find out more about it. Not only did I regret that comment fairly quickly, at least one person called me out on it. I deleted the comment and apologized within minutes.
To me, there are two issues at hand. Did I dox the Facebook user and was posting the unredacted screen shot to Facebook the right/ethical thing to do?
Did I Dox Someone?
To me, doxxing on Reddit is not the same as doxxing on the rest of the internet. Reddit is designed for total anonymity. Simply tying a username to a real name without that person’s permission is doxxing. On Facebook I don’t see the standard as being the same. Your image and your wall are not cloaked in anonymity. There is no expectation of privacy. Simply linking to or pointing out content that is on a person’s Facebook wall is not doxxing in my book. I am not even sure that the two people who posted the unredacted screen shot on his wall doxxed him. They were his friends who were simply broadcasting what their friend said to them. Maybe I am wrong. I am open to other angles on this issue of having doxxed a Facebook user, but right now I remain unconvinced that I doxxed someone. Had I found out where he worked, or his address or his phone number and published that information, that clearly would have been doxxing.
Was it Right/Ethical
I think the answer to this question is complicated. Obviously I thought it was the right thing to do as did many other people. But a lot of people also felt I crossed a line. Who is right? I don’t think the answer is as black and white as many would have you believe.
We all have a line in the sand where we would say it is ok to share something like this with the public. Maybe that line is an off-duty cop bragging to his friends about how much he loves arresting black people. Maybe it is a secret recording of a private conversation where a person is berating a disabled person. Maybe the line is something else.
These two examples are magnitudes worse than what was said in the post that I shared. My point is that there is a line where people would be ok with sharing conversations or statements that were meant to be kept among friends.
The post that I saw crossed my line when considering the content and the context. My post was not an indictment of the entire life of that Facebook user. I never said, not do I want him to lose his job over it. It was a horrible and disgusting thing to say and I felt he deserved to be called out.
I am not saying that everyone has to agree with me. In fact, if someone thinks I crossed the line, they should say so. I accept the criticism. I accept that it was controversial move to make. The only thing I ask is that the facts of what happened be accurate. I am a big boy and will take whatever negative fallout comes from that.We go through times where we don’t have that much variety in our meals, it’s really easy to have a few favourites that can be made through the whole year and always have the ingredients around to make them. Lately I’ve been trying to plan our meals and weekly shopping a bit more so that I can try out new recipes.
I recently got Bryanna Clark Grogan’s book ‘World Vegan Feast’ and dog-eared around half the pages, there are so many recipes that look really good (and the ones that I’ve tried so far have been great). There was one for shawarma wraps that involved yoghurt, so rather than following a faster recipe I decided to use my meal planning skills to make a fermented vegan yoghurt instead.
Ingredients:
1 cup cashews
water, for soaking
1 cup water, for blending
Method:
Soak the cashews in the water for at least half an hour (preferably overnight). Drain and place in a blender with a cup of water and blend until smooth. Using a nut milk bag or a very fine sieve, strain the mixture into a wide-necked jar or bowl. Leave it to sit at room temperature until it tastes fermented. It takes around 24 hours in my fairly cold kitchen, if your kitchen is warmer you might want to check after 8 hours or so.
Compared to shop-bought soy yoghurt this is much creamier, richer, and has a slight cashew taste. Great for any recipe that calls for plain yoghurt, or just served plain with some fruit.
Bryanna Clark Grogan’s recipe consisted of some homemade seitan – slowly baked in broth then thinly sliced and marinated in an incredibly delicious sour and spicy marinade. The seitan is then grilled (broiled) and served in a wrap with salad greens, tomatoes, red onion and vegan yoghurt and sumac. It was very tasty, I will definitely make this again.
This recipe has been a part of the Pennywise Platter, March the 14th
AdvertisementsIt’s been a while now since 9,420 kHz–a former Voice of Greece frequency–should have gone off the air. Fortunately, it has not.
The station is no longer referred to as the Voice of Greece; it’s now a relay of ERT Open, otherwise known as the Helliniki Radiophonia (you’ll hear this name in the station ID).
Friday evening, I recorded nearly four hours of Helliniki Radiophonia because I love the music programming they air during weekends, yet I rarely stay up late enough to listen live. With this recording, I’ll enjoy Greek music most of my working day today–and you can, too!
Simply click here to download an MP3 of the full recording, or simply listen via the embedded player below.
The music begins, in earnest, a little after 17:00–enjoy:
RelatedInch-for-inch and ounce-for-ounce, the bluegill and other members of the true sunfish family are said by some anglers to be the most exciting fish Hoosier waters have to offer... We will go them one better by adding "best eating, too." However, there are some waters where these frisky little denizens don't seem to get big enough to eat. So what do you do when you are catching bluegills and other panfish that are too small to eat? Easy question, Coach! You eat 'em! Oh! I know! If you try to filet them, there is nothing left to eat But that is not the way you eat 'em. Keeping those little bluegills and eating them will do two important things for you. First, it will get those little critters out of your favorite pond and give the remaining fish more food which will, in turn, make them bigger. Secondly, if you eat 'em, with good crackers as snacks or in numerous other dishes, you will sate your appetite. But how you gonna eat those little critters with all of those bones? Another easy question, Coach. You simply scale them, leave the skin on, cut off the head (fins optional), remove the entrails, wash the body cavity good with cold, running water, and drain them. [See photo # 1 below.] When the fish are well drained, you stuff them in pint canning jars (with canning tops), add salt (maybe some other seasonings like powdered mustard), but no water, and cook them in a pressure cooker for 90 minutes, 10 pounds of pressure. This will make even the spinal bones edible and crunchy, like canned salmon. [See photo # 2 below.] Tighten the jar lids (hands only) when the cooking process is done and the jars are cool enough to handle. Store the jars in a cool, dark place. [See photo # 3 below.] But, by all means, know how to use a pressure cooker safely before you do anything. Steam creates a powerful force and it can be dangerous. Canned bluegills will eat well on any crackers, or as a sandwich with mayonnaise and mustard on the bread of your choice. A fish loaf is right up their alley, but they also will give a fresh salad extra zip, and slide right into a fish a la king atmosphere. Canning bluegills is as easy as 1-2-3:
[Click on photo to see larger image.] A Tip or Two : Use a teaspoon to scale your fish and perform this task close to cold, running water to clear the scales occasionally... This process will work with larger fish, like suckers, but may require a little more cooking time... Use just enough water in the pressure cooker to have a good supply of steam, but as little water as possible... a little vinegar in the cooker will help avoid stains to the cooker... Do not allow heads and entrails of fish to go down the sink drain.The dose makes the poison.
One of the very useful memes that has come out of the gender discourse in the last few years is a discussion of “toxic masculinity,” or the traditional masculinity that teaches little boys to make themselves disposable for the sake of women (I know what the inventors of the term meant, and even though they didn’t mean that, that’s what they meant. Male disposability is what all the “man up”, “what about the menz?” and all their other sleazy little rhetorical tricks amount to, as well as all their earlier standard demonization of “macho pigs” and masculinity in general. I’m correcting their superficiality of analysis.)
Toxic femininity is not a personal trait of individuals. It is an aspect of a gender role, and since gender roles are a matrix of customs, expectations, and policing, they are social rather than individual. That is what it means to say gender is constructed, if always on a pretty fixed base of biological sex for the huge majority of us, and this is where the construction takes place. (Gender identities are different; they inhere in individuals.)
I have drawn up a preliminary list of types and aspects of toxic femininity. They come from things I have picked up in the femmisphere in posts and comments, from things I have seen in the men’s side of the gendersphere, and some come from personal experience. I wanted to list and name them so that people can use this in their own discussions and would have something to refer back to. The list is preliminary and suggestions on additions are gratefully accepted.
The list falls into two sections: Damseling and Gynonormativity. These roughly correspond to femininity seen as childlike, in a dependent position; and femininity seen as the moral standard, in a dominant position. This sounds like a contradiction, but in fact it is just a description. The switch from dominant Moral Guardian to trembling Damsel can be instantaneous because at bottom there is not much distance between them. The dominant matron battle-ax can very easily stand over a man and lecture him about defending and protecting poor, helpless women.
As we go through the sections below—and this is only a first cut at listing these aspects of toxic femininity, not claiming to be exhaustive—we’ll see exactly how much this stuff is socially constructed, how much it can’t even exist without a lot of cooperation from all parties involved. I’ve watched that happen.
And in each example notice what the healthy, non-toxic, decent version of each of these dysfunctions is. Again, the dose makes the poison.
DAMSELING
Damseling is the female end of White Knighting—one cannot exist without the other. It is a celebration of helplessness and dependence on someone else’s protection. This is really nothing other than a feudal relationship. Depending on someone else for protection is a form of vassalage.
Examples include:
Victim Cred: For the most part, we have a moral structure that stigmatizes victimizers and tries to validate victims. It doesn’t always play out that way in practice, but even in practice if a victim brings a complaint against the person who victimized him—oops, there’s counter-example right there—but anyway, for the most part the reaction from the rest of us will not be to stigmatize the crime victim as a loser but rather the perpetrator. This feature of our moral code works against the operation of the law of the jungle, and it makes our type of society possible. So far so good. But of course it has a down side. It grants victims a moral claim, a form of moral superiority over those they identify as having wronged them, and this can incentivize victimology, the weaponization of victimhood.
Strategic Resource: Victim cred is a strategic resource and has to be shepherded. This includes not only maintaining what victim cred you already have, but increasing it. This involves making the validity of your victim cred unassailable, controlling access to victim cred by restricting the number of people who can claim victim status, adding to your victim cred by casting as much as possible of what happens to you as some kind of victimization and appropriating.
The “It’s Worse When It Happens to Women” meme: This not restricted to rape either. This was a big part of the FGM/MGM discussion until mostly feminists shouted it down—others had been calling BS on privileging FGM all along, but it was feminist voices that settled the matter. It pops up all over though. Boys being raped? It’s worse for girls, and they get silenced and victim-blamed more, and the rapists get off scot-free! You see how the claims don’t have to be any reaction to any facts, they just have to sound horrific enough to get the desired reaction.
An extension on Women and Children First (WCF) (see below) is to make it all about women even when there is no direct connection. This is how Hillary Clinton can say that women are the primary victims of war—war is worse when it happens to women—because they SURVIVE to deal with the grief. This is why every discussion of MGM inevitably ends up centering around the evils of FGM as a caution that of course it is immeasurably worse… This is why when male suicide is discussed, female suicide attempts are considered relevant (It’s very important, just not relevant to the topic of actual suicide. So why is it brought up?)
Appropriation of Others’ Suffering: This is why homophobia has to, has to be a form of femmephobia. This is how legislative attacks on women’s health services get hyperventilated into a “War on Women.” War is war; how many women are coming back from the War on Women with legs blown off? This is how people think it’s appropriate to say that women “fought” for the vote, as opposed the very actual wars men had to fight to get the vote.
Women and Minorities: This is an application of Appropriation of Others’ Suffering like the others above, but this one stands out, so it gets its own entry. This one was devised in the 1970s when the initial and limited successes of the civil rights movement made the public relations, and therefore the political advantages, of victim cred apparent. White feminists knew a good thing when they saw it and pitched themselves as the natural allies of Black people and POCs in general. (The rise of Womanism represents some of the reaction to this appropriation.) I really have seen White feminists insist that Black men are privileged by having male privilege—this in a society where they and White men have spent the last 300 years destroying Black men’s manhood.
The Princess and the Pea: Daintiness is generally a good thing, but it can be weaponized. For instance, if it is used to extort special considerations out of someone or society as a whole. We all have food sensitivities and that’s fine, and some things are just disgusting it must be admitted, but rejecting food because it’s “gross” is taking daintiness too far. Nobody much likes getting their hands dirty, but if you think a girl shouldn’t have to do this or that dirty job and besides that’s what boys are for, that’s taking daintiness too far.
“Sugar and spice and everything nice …” How liberating would it be for little girls to hear “Spiders and lice and every vice, that’s what girls are made of” so you don’t have to spend your life trying to be nice-nice, you don’t have to worry if some crudity you let slip out is going to shock people.
Bambi-ing: This is a tendency for society to conflate women and children, to assign women a claim to the same kind of care, protection, and leniency afforded children. Obviously it is misogynist, but its effects are misandrist as well, both since men get the job of babying women and also since getting this kind of care gets typed as non-masculine, so they are cut out of care when they need it. The name is chosen specifically because it both refers to that baby dear character in the Disney film and is also a stereotypical (and obnoxious) nickname of grown women, thus capturing the conflation.
The Women and Children First (WCF) meme: This is not only an expression of male disposability, it is also an infantilization of women. It is a case of expecting men to sacrifice their lives for women’s lives as if those women’s lives were as valuable as children’s and thus more valuable than men’s.
The Female Sentencing Discount: This is an institutional and systemic form of female privilege in which female perpetrators either receive lighter punishments or even are not prosecuted at all for the same or convicted crimes as men. It is quite well documented.
Sex-negativism: This is the source of demonizing male sexuality that is such a strong feature of our laws and social policy. This also the source of “rape privilege”—the idea that rape is somehow the most heinous crime EVAH, that it is worse than murder or having your children taken from you or anything else. It is basically a desire to cling to a pre-adolescent state.
Fat-shaming: A lot of what we call fat is not fat. Yes, we have obesity problems in our societies, but a lot of women get called or think of themselves as fat when in fact they just have the bodies of grown women. And hate it. I bet if you gathered a group of a hundred women and asked them each to draw up lists of the five biggest examples of misogyny they observe, fat-shaming would be high on a lot of those lists. it’s about holding to a pre-adolescent body ideal well into middle age. Arrested development.
Daddy’s Little Girl: This is so well understood that it probably does not need much explanation, either what it is or of how toxic it is. As obnoxious as a Daddy’s Little Girl is, she’s not the source of the problem. Her daddy is. Chances are very good that Mom tried everything under heaven and earth to raise her daughter to be decent, but Daddy undermined her every step of the way for his own selfish reasons.
The Princess Culture: This is not just the Princess-Industrial Complex, as cannibalistic and noxious as that is. It reaches much further into the culture. It includes a lot of romantic tropes—expecting the man to get down on one knee to propose marriage, expecting a ring or some kind of gift for giving birth to one’s own child. Feminists have denounced the engagement ring from the angle of it being a possession-taking ritual—so far so good—but so far they have not exploited the female-entitlement angle of the ritual for criticism. That is probably a job for MRAs anyway.
Of course it’s wonderful to dote on someone you love and wonderful to receive that kind of attention. Where it crosses the line probably comes when one person comes to expect as her due rather than appreciating it as a gift. But the Princess Culture is all about fostering an attitude of dependence. “Someday my prince will come …” really is a clear example of misogyny in a velvet glove.
GYNONORMATIVITY
Gynonormativity is not in of itself a bad thing. There are situations where what is generally considered a female way of doing something is the appropriate way, regardless of who is doing it. Teaching young children—primary grades surely, but even the older elementary grades sometimes—is one obvious example. Some kinds of anthropological fieldwork obviously call for gynonormative approaches. In other areas, it’s neutral. In some, it’s not suitable.
These are examples of bad gynonormativity:
The Golden Uterus: GU is a distortion of the motherhood role into a tool for subjugating others to the mother’s will. It can even be used as a form of power to use in a rape. James Landrith recounts how his (pregnant!) rapist used her unborn child as a human shield against him to keep him from defending himself against her while she raped him.
The Moral Guardian: The Moral Guardian is now almost exclusively a female role (although until recently you saw men doing it to. It still exists in communities of the religious right.)
Ninni Tokan recounts a story over at Pelle Billing’s blog of being regulated on by a Moral Guardian:
It is October 2008, I am on the train to Stockholm. I will finally meet my wonderful friends from an online forum. Then I will go directly to this weekend’s conference; I have already gotten myself together for that. I’m all dressed in black slacks and a black blouse, with thin white lines. I’ve made myself up and fixed my hair. After a while on the train I need to use the bathroom, and I’m not alone, so I get into a queue of 3-4 people ahead of me. The man at the front of the queue throws a glance backward, finds me in line, halts with his eyes and smiles. I respond to his smile and he disappears into the bathroom. When he comes back, he stops for a moment and we talk. Before he goes, he asks me to come back to his place to talk more later. The man goes and I take a step forward when the queue shortens. On my left is a lady who stands up, about to get into line. She casts a quick glance, which lands on me, and looks down at what she has in her hands again. The fraction of a second later, the reaction, the death gaze. In slow motion, she lifts her eyes and the eyes meet mine. Then as she scans her eyes, slow down along my body, my shoes, flip and go as slowly up and look into my eyes again. Her eyes are razor grass, her facial expression clearly says “improper”, but the entire procedure lasts just a second. After bobbing her lightly on the neck and looks conspicuously obliquely upwards, before she returns to what she was doing. What exactly happened? What was the social game that took place? Why did the man and woman act like this when they saw me on the train? What we call gender roles can be likened to a flexible picture frame of standards, within which we “should” find ourselves. The frame will vary depending on social context, but also factors such as age. That both men and women reacted to was |
at such a perfect time.
My little one absolutely adores his Totoro wash cloth. He has been teething and this little wash cloth has been perfect for chewing and carrying around!
To top it all of we also received My Neighbor Totoro on DVD! I had not seen the new Disney dub version as my copy is a super old VHS, but we had a blast watching it! My little one loved seeing Totoro’s big face and watching him growling and the cat bus running scene had him laughing all over the place!
Thank you so much my secret Reddit friend!In some campaign settings, great armies meet in battle. Unfortunately, the Dungeons and Dragons rules do not cater for a battle on a large scale. Therefore, rules are needed to adapt the D&D rules to this exact situation. This article presents variant rules for battles on a larger scale than the small skirmishes the D&D rules are built for.
The D&D war rules work on various wargaming principals in order to allow battles in the D&D game. The rules that follow are, most likely, too detailed for playing without miniatures, so it is recommended that models are used when playing D&D war. You will also need a ruler or other measuring instrument that can measure in inches (a tape measure is best), movement trays to make moving large numbers of models around easier, a wide open space to play on, and, crucially, lots and lots of dice.
Rules [ edit ]
Units [ edit ]
To allow large battles to be fought in a reasonable space of time, large groups of minions (lead by a few more powerful creatures and characters) are grouped together into "units".
Companies [ edit ]
A diagram showing the flank arcs of a company. These are derived by drawing a line at a 45° angle from the corners.
A unit usually consists of one or more "companies". A company is a group of minions (no larger than large size) grouped into one space. No matter how many casualties a company suffers, it still fills the same space.
All models in a company are arranged facing one of the long edges; this defines the front of the company. The models in the company continue to face this direction for the duration of a battle—they cannot turn on the spot to face the side or rear. This is important as large blocks of warriors, unlike skirmishers and individuals, can be charged in the flank or rear. Each company therefore has a front arc, two flank arcs and a rear arc, as shown in the image below.
The direction the models in a company are facing in is deemed to be the direction in which the company is facing and can thus see. A company can only see things that are in its front arc. This is a 90° arc projected in the front of the unit, derived by drawing a line at a 45° angle from the corners of the company.
Units [ edit ]
Rarely will a company be found alone on the battlefield. A number of companies of the same type are grouped together to form a "unit". A unit can consist of any number of companies; from a single company to many. The number of companies in a unit is determined by the unit's characteristic profile. Companies in a unit are placed together and must remain together for the entire battle. Companies in the same unit are arranged in a straight line as shown in the diagram. Each company must be placed corner-to-corner with the next company in the unit. All companies in a unit must face in the same direction.
Companies must be arranged corner to corner to make a straight line, and must be facing in the same direction.
Companies can also be placed in multiple "ranks" to make the formation deeper. Units can be arranged with as many ranks as you want, but ranks must be completed before the next rank can be placed. A company behind another must also be placed corner-to-corner, as shown in the diagram below.
A company ranked behind another must be placed corner-to-corner, and each rank must be filled before another can be started.
Different units are not allowed to touch unless they are engaged in close combat. Therefore, if two units come into contact with each other, they should be moved at least 1" (1 square) apart. A unit is not allowed to move within 1" of an enemy unit, except by charging.
In close combat, units are moved into "base-to-base" contact, which means that their bases or movement trays touch. This contact, unlike that of companies in the same formation, does not have to be corner to corner, as shown in the diagram below.
When opposing units clash, they are placed in base-to-base contact, but they do not need to align corner-top-corner.
Measuring [ edit ]
The distance between the elf warriors and the drow warriors is 2". The drow and the elves are said to be within 2" of each other. The distance between the elf warriors and the monstrous spider is 4". The giant spider and the elves are said to be within 4" of each other.The distance between the elf warriors and the drow warriors is 2". The drow and the elves are said to be within 2" of each other.
In a game of D&D war, a battle-grid is not used, as playing on a squared grid would reduce the realism of the maneuver of massed formations and reduce the tactics of the game somewhat. Instead, for the purposes of movement, shooting, measuring reach, and so on, distances are measured in inches (with a ruler, tape measure or some other suitable instrument). When measuring, an inch is equivalent to 1 square on a battle-grid, so a model with a speed of 6 that uses a move action can move up to 6", and a power with a range of 20 has a range of 20".
When measuring the distance between two units (for the purposes of charging, shooting and similar), use the closest points between their movement trays as reference points (or bases, if they do not have movement trays), as shown in the diagram.
This convention is applied in a variety of different ways depending on the situation. This will be discussed in greater detail throughout the rules.
Bursts and Blasts [ edit ]
Bursts are measured from a central point outwards. This central point is always a base—for close bursts, the area of the burst is a number of inches outwards from the edge of the base equal to the creature that used the burst. In the case of area bursts, place a 1" circular base at the point at which you want the area burst to be centered, and measure a number of inches outwards from the base, as above. You can (and probably should, for simplicity) use the base of a medium-sized creature as the center of the burst.
Blasts are always measured from a single point on the edge of the user's base. Simply measure a 90° arc from a single point of the users base that is a number of inches in diameter equal to the blast's area.
Some bursts and blasts create areas of effect. To mark the locations of these, simply place a base in the center of the burst or blast and measure outwards (half the range in the case of blasts). If an area of effect attacks or damages a unit that enters the burst or blast, calculate the number of models in the unit that are covered by the area once in their move so that as many models are covered by the area as possible.
Characteristics [ edit ]
In the game of D&D war, a model's characteristics are used to show the effectiveness of the model. The stat line used is a condensed form of the stat blocks used in normal games of D&D, with redundant stats (such as skill checks) removed.
Size: A creature's size determines the size of base used for lone creatures and characters, or the size of movement tray used to represent the creatures space.
Origin and Type: These are defined in the D&D core rulebooks.
Speed (S): This shows how far a creature can move with a single move action, in inches.
Initiative (I): Initiative is used to determine the order in which creatures fight in close combat. It is also used to determine which model acts first when opposing heroic actions are called.
Hit Points (Hp): This shows how much damage a creature can take before it is slain. A score of 1/- shows that the creature is a minion (even if it also has action points).
Resilience (R): This indicates how many hits a minion model can suffer in a round before it is removed as a casualty. Non-minion models never have a resilience higher than 1.
Attacks (A): This shows the number of attacks a model can make against minions when it takes a multiple attack action. Models with an attack score of 1 cannot take a multiple attack action.
Armor Class, Fortitude, Reflex and Will (AC/F/R/W): This shows the model's defenses.
Action Points (AP): This shows the number of action points the model can use throughout the battle. A creature with action points is said to be a "character", even if that creature is also a minion (a category that includes unit captains.
Unit Size: This tells you the maximum and minimum size of a unit.
Wargear: This is a term that covers all equipment that a model might carry. This tells you the equipment that a model carries.
Command: Some units have command options that represent the unit's leaders&mdashsuch as captains, musicians and banners. These are all covered in greater detail later.
Special rules: Some model also have special rules. These are shown here.
Powers: Every model has powers that it can use in battle, from simple sword strikes to complex spells. These are shown here.
The Turn [ edit ]
Just like in the standard D&D rules, a battle is separated into rounds. However, the D&D war rules change the round sequence into a more structured format. Rounds are also referred to as "turns", as creatures do not take turns of their own.
The Turn Sequence [ edit ]
During each turn, both sides move and fight in the order given below. This is called the “turn sequence” or “round sequence”. Each part of the turn sequence is called a “phase”.
PHASE [ edit ]
Initiative: Both sides roll a d20 to determine which side has the initiative that turn. Movement: Both sides move their units, creatures and characters. Once the side with the initiative has moved, the other side moves. Shooting: Both sides use ranged, area and burst powers. The side with the initiative uses their powers first, and then the other side uses their powers. Charge: Both sides can charge. The side with the initiative charges first, and then the other side charges. Close Combat: Close combat is resolved. The side with the initiative chooses the order combats are resolved. End of Turn: The turn is over. Begin another turn with the initiative phase.
The Initiative Phase [ edit ]
Roll Offs [ edit ] If the rules require both sides to roll off, that means each side rolls a d20, adds any modifiers stated, and compares results. The side that has the highest result wins the roll off, and usually gains some favorable benefit. If the result is a draw, the roll of is repeated with the same modifiers.
In the initiative phase, both sides make an opposed d20 roll to determine which side has the initiative that turn. Usually, no modifiers are added to these rolls, though if a power provides a power bonus or penalty to initiative checks to the army's general, that bonus or penalty is also added to this d20 roll. If the result is a draw, both sides roll off until one side wins (with the same modifiers).
Whichever side wins the opposed d20 roll can choose which side has the initiative that turn. Having the initiative can be really important to an army’s strategy, as it allows them to move and shoot first, though sometimes it is advantageous to be able to react to your foe’s moves.
The Movement Phase [ edit ]
After the initiative phase is the move phase. In the movement phase, both sides maneuver their units. The movement phase is the most important phase, as the events of the movement phase generally dictate which side wins.
In the movement phase, the side with the initiative moves all of its units first, and then the other side moves all of its units. After both sides have moved, the game moves on to the shooting phase.
The Movement Phase [ edit ]
The side with the initiative goes first. Rally Fleeing Units: If any units are fleeing, you can attempt to rally them. Compulsory Moves: Move units subject to compulsory movement (such as fleeing units). Remaining Moves: Move the rest of your units. The other side moves its units, using the same procedure as above.
1. Rally Fleeing Units [ edit ]
Fall Back! Moves [ edit ] Double Move Action: A fall back! move uses two move action, like a double move. A unit that has made a fall back! move is treated as running.
A fall back! move uses two move action, like a double move. A unit that has made a fall back! move is treated as running. The Enemy is Upon Us!: A fall back! move is not affected by enemies within 6", like a double move usually is.
A fall back! move is not affected by enemies within 6", like a double move usually is. Random Flee Distance: A unit making a fall back action moves a number of inches equal to 2d6 plus double its speed minus 12. This moves is affected by terrain as normal.
A unit making a fall back action moves a number of inches equal to 2d6 plus double its speed minus 12. This moves is affected by terrain as normal. Flee Direction: A unit making a fall back! action flees towards the nearest board edge, regardless of nearby foes. A unit that moves off the board edge in this way is removed as a casualty.
A unit making a fall back! action flees towards the nearest board edge, regardless of nearby foes. A unit that moves off the board edge in this way is removed as a casualty. You Cannot Pass!: A unit that flees into an enemy unit is destroyed.
A unit that flees into an enemy unit is destroyed. Panic: A fleeing unit can move through allies—but if it does so, the allied unit must pass a courage test of DC 13 or make a fall back! move in the same direction.
A fleeing unit can move through allies—but if it does so, the allied unit must pass a courage test of DC 13 or make a fall back! move in the same direction. Rally: A fleeing unit continues to flee until it rallies.
If any of your units are fleeing, you can attempt to rally them. Rallying a unit does not use any actions.
To rally a unit, take a courage test of DC 13 (see courage tests, below). If the test is passed, the unit must immediately take a reform action (see below). If the test is failed, the unit continues to flee. It must make a fall back! action as a compulsory move.
Compulsory Moves [ edit ]
After fleeing units have been rallied (or have failed to rally), units suffering from compulsory moves must be moved. Compulsory movements are special movements that force a unit to move—such as fall back! moves.
Compulsory movement should not be confused with forced movement, which is resolved immediately. Compulsory moves do not include pulls, pushes and slides, and are treated as normal movement for all intents and purposes. Compulsory moves only cover fall back! moves and other movements like frenzy.
Fleeing units that failed to rally earlier in the move phase must make fall back! moves in this part of the move phase, whether you want them to or not!
Compulsory moves can be moved in any order you wish&mdsh; though fall back! moves must be made in such an order so that fleeing units do not get in each other's way.
Remaining Moves [ edit ]
Each side can move any and all of its units in any order. A unit can walk as a move action, moving a number of inches equal to its speed. The unit uses the slowest speed of all of the members of the unit for this purpose. A unit does not have to move the maximum distance allowed, but they cannot move further than their speed in this way, except by using a double move, or (in the case of skirmishers and lone models) by running. The companies in a unit must stick together at all times.
In the case of units made up of companies, maneuvers are limited. Such a unit can only move directly forwards or diagonally at up to a 45°, so long as the unit begins and ends the move in the same direction. If a unit wishes to turn, it must wheel, pivot or reform.
To wheel, one corner of the unit is moved forward, leaving the opposite corner stationary to act as a pivot. The unit swings round the pivot and ends the wheel facing a different direction.
A unit can turn by pivoting around one of the front two corners of its unit, like a spoke swinging round a wheel (see diagram). When a unit wheels, it counts as moving as far as the outermost corner of unit moved during the wheel. The unit can only wheel forwards.
Moving multiple companies at once by wheeling is quite difficult. You can, however, simply move the company that moves furthest the maximum distance you intend to move it, and move the other companies in the unit into place next to (and behind) it.
An entire formation can also turn through 90° or 180° by giving up some of it's movement distance- a unit can spend one quarter of its move speed (rounding up) to pivot up to 90° round the center of the unit. It can instead spend half of its move (rounding up) to pivot up to 180° around the center of the unit. The unit cannot do this if it runs or takes a double move action.
Finally, a unit can completely reform by taking a'reform action'. This uses a move action, the unit cannot move. Instead, it can completely rearrange the position of all it's companies and turn to face in any direction. A unit making a reform cannot act in the shooting phase, though characters that have joined a unit may still act in the shooting phase.
As a unit moves forwards, you can rearrange it's companies as you wish, so long as the arrangement is legal. This is different from a reform action because the unit cannot turn while it rearranges—the unit must end facing the same direction when it reforms in this way. A unit may, however, wheel and turn before or after it reforms in this way, as normal.
Double Move [ edit ]
A unit can expend take a double move action; this uses two move actions. When a unit uses a double move, it doubles its speed, as normal. The same movement rules apply to double moves as for normal movement. However, if there are enemies within 6" of a unit, that unit cannot take a double move action; the warriors in the unit are too busily preparing for the imminent battle to move faster.
Run [ edit ]
A unit made up of companies cannot take a run action. This represents the fact that the tight formation of warriors prevents freedom of movement. This rule does not, however, apply to other units—characters, monsters and skirmishers can run.
Crawl [ edit ]
If a member of a unit is prone, the unit will only be able to move at the speed of the crawling warrior until that warrior stands up. A warrior in a company may, however, stand up as a minor action. This represents one of the warrior's fellows giving the warrior a hand up. This rule does not apply if the unit is engaged in close combat—the nearby warriors are too busy fighting to help a fallen comrade.
Difficult Terrain [ edit ]
All distances moved over difficult terrain count as double the distance actually moved. A model that has a speed of 6 therefore moves only 3" over difficult terrain. If a unit has an odd number of inches left to move into, or through, difficult terrain, it may move half an inch. For example, a unit with a speed of 6 that moves 3" to reach an area of difficult terrain can move up to 1 1/2" into difficult terrain.
The Shooting Phase [ edit ]
After the movement phase is the shooting phase. In the shooting phase, all ranged and area attacks are resolved. This includes powers such as a wizard's spells that attack a foe at range. Close attacks are not resolved until the close combat phase.
As in the movement phase, the side with the initiative goes first, and the other side resolves its shooting second.
The Shooting Phase [ edit ]
The side with the initiative shoots first. Choose unit to shoot. Choose target. Roll to hit. Remove Casualties Repeat steps 1-4 with every other formation you wish to fire. The other side makes any panic tests required. The other side shoots with its units, using the same procedure as above.
1. Choose Unit to Shoot [ edit ]
First, you must choose a unit with ranged or area attacks to resolve. A unit must spend the action required by the power they use to shoot, even if only some members of the unit are firing. You must then choose the power that is used—all members of the unit must use the same power and expend the action required. For example, if a unit of goblin archers fires their shortbows, they must all spend a standard action, even if only four of them actually shoot.
This rule does not apply to characters that have joined a unit. See the section on characters for details.
2. Choose Target [ edit ]
A unit can shoot at any enemy unit within range, so long as at least part of the unit lies within it's arc of sight (see diagram) and can be seen by the unit. All members of the unit must target the same unit. If the target is in the arc of sight of at least one company in the unit, all companies in the unit can fire.
The elf archers can see the drow warriors on the left, and thus shoot them. They cannot, however see the drow warriors on the right and therefore cannot shoot them.
The unit must have line of sight to the target. To see if a company has line of sight to the target, draw an imaginary line from any point in the company to any company in the target unit or any individual model in the unit in the case of skirmishers. If anything blocks the line, the company cannot see the target unit, and thus cannot fire.
3. Roll to Hit [ edit ]
Multiattack: Standard Action [ edit ] Part of an Attack: A model can make a multiattack action instead of attacking normally. This is an exception to the rule that models in a unit must all take the same attack action.
A model can make a multiattack action instead of attacking normally. This is an exception to the rule that models in a unit must all take the same attack action. Melee or Ranged Attack: A multiattack action can be used to make a single at-will melee or ranged attack power multiple times. The power chosen must not have any areas of effect or create any zones.
A multiattack action can be used to make a single at-will melee or ranged attack power multiple times. The power chosen must not have any areas of effect or create any zones. Multiple Attacks: The model may use the power a number of times equal to the number of attacks (A) on its profile.
The model may use the power a number of times equal to the number of attacks (A) on its profile. Power Effects: If the power has any special effects (such as Cleave and Priest's Shield), these only occur on the first attack made. If the power grants multiple attacks (such as Twin Strike and Amalgamated Assault, these extra attacks occur only on the first attack made.
Firstly, you must calculate the number of dice the unit rolls to hit. Only companies that have line of sight can shoot. Those that cannot see cannot contribute any dice to the shooting. Only models in the front row (not the front company) can shoot—unless the power you use states otherwise, or they have multiple attacks on their profile, each creature in the front row of the companies that can see contributes a single dice. If the unit is on a higher elevation than the target, the front two rows can contribute dice in this way. Models with more than 1 attack (A) on their profile can take a multiattack action to shoot multiple times.
For example: A unit of elf archers (armed with longbows) is shooting at a unit of drow skirmishers. The elf archer unit consists of one full company and one at half strength, and is on a hill. The unit has a captain (2 attacks). Each ordinary elf makes 1 attack, so the front row makes 7 attacks. The unit is on a higher elevation than the drow (a hill), so the second row can also shoot. The four elves in the second row make 4 attacks, making a total of 11. The captain makes a multiattack action, and contributes 2 dice for a total of 13.
Next, the dice score needed to hit to be calculated. First, you must check to see if the target unit has cover concealment against the shooting unit. Draw an imaginary line from the center of each company to the center of each company. If the majority of the lines pass through an object or area that grants cover or concealment, the target gains the benefit of that cover or concealment. In the case of multiple covers and concealment, calculate whether the target benefits from them as a whole, then grant the highest bonus. Once cover and concealment have been checked, you must subtract the attack bonus of the attack from the target's AC. In the case of multiple attack bonuses, the dice roll needed must be calculated separately. In the case of different AC's, the majority AC is used, but only targets with an AC equal to or lower than the majority AC can be hit. The to hit chart shown can be used to quickly calculate the scores to hit required.
To Hit Chart [ edit ] Target's AC 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 +1 10+ 11+ 12+ 13+ 14+ 15+ 16+ 17+ 18+ 19+ 20+ 20+ 20+ 20+ 20+ 20+ 20+ 20+ 20+ 20+ +2 9+ 10+ 11+ 12+ 13+ 14+ 15+ 16+ 17+ 18+ 19+ 20+ 20+ 20+ 20+ 20+ 20+ 20+ 20+ 20+ +3 8+ 9+ 10+ 11+ 12+ 13+ 14+ 15+ 16+ 17+ 18+ 19+ 20+ 20+ 20+ 20+ 20+ 20+ 20+ 20+ +4 8+ 8+ 9+ 10+ 11+ 12+ 13+ 14+ 15+ 16+ 17+ 18+ 19+ 20+ 20+ 20+ 20+ 20+ 20+ 20+ +5 8+ 8+ 8+ 9+ 10+ 11+ 12+ 13+ 14+ 15+ 16+ 17+ 18+ 19+ 20+ 20+ 20+ 20+ 20+ 20+ +6 8+ 8+ 8+ 8+ 9+ 10+ 11+ 12+ 13+ 14+ 15+ 16+ 17+ 18+ 19+ 20+ 20+ 20+ 20+ 20+ +7 8+ 8+ 8+ 8+ 8+ 9+ 10+ 11+ 12+ 13+ 14+ 15+ 16+ 17+ 18+ 19+ 20+ 20+ 20+ 20+ +8 8+ 8+ 8+ 8+ 8+ 8+ 9+ 10+ 11+ 12+ 13+ 14+ 15+ 16+ 17+ 18+ 19+ 20+ 20+ 20+ +9 8+ 8+ 8+ 8+ 8+ 8+ 8+ 9+ 10+ 11+ 12+ 13+ 14+ 15+ 16+ 17+ 18+ 19+ 20+ 20+ +10 8+ 8+ 8+ 8+ 8+ 8+ 8+ 8+ 9+ 10+ 11+ 12+ 13+ 14+ 15+ 16+ 17+ 18+ 19+ 20+ +11 8+ 8+ 8+ 8+ 8+ 8+ 8+ 8+ 8+ 9+ 10+ 11+ 12+ 13+ 14+ 15+ 16+ 17+ 18+ 19+ +12 8+ 8+ 8+ 8+ 8+ 8+ 8+ 8+ 8+ 8+ 9+ 10+ 11+ 12+ 13+ 14+ 15+ 16+ 17+ 18+ +13 8+ 8+ 8+ 8+ 8+ 8+ 8+ 8+ 8+ 8+ 8+ 9+ 10+ 11+ 12+ 13+ 14+ 15+ 16+ 17+ +14 8+ 8+ 8+ 8+ 8+ 8+ 8+ 8+ 8+ 8+ 8+ 8+ 9+ 10+ 11+ 12+ 13+ 14+ 15+ 16+ +15 8+ 8+ 8+ 8+ 8+ 8+ 8+ 8+ 8+ 8+ 8+ 8+ 8+ 9+ 10+ 11+ 12+ 13+ 14+ 15+ +16 8+ 8+ 8+ 8+ 8+ 8+ 8+ 8+ 8+ 8+ 8+ 8+ 8+ 8+ 9+ 10+ 11+ 12+ 13+ 14+ +17 8+ 8+ 8+ 8+ 8+ 8+ 8+ 8+ 8+ 8+ 8+ 8+ 8+ 8+ 8+ 9+ 10+ 11+ 12+ 13+ +18 8+ 8+ 8+ 8+ 8+ 8+ 8+ 8+ 8+ 8+ 8+ 8+ 8+ 8+ 8+ 8+ 9+ 10+ 11+ 12+ +19 8+ 8+ 8+ 8+ 8+ 8+ 8+ 8+ 8+ 8+ 8+ 8+ 8+ 8+ 8+ 8+ 8+ 9+ 10+ 11+ +20 8+ 8+ 8+ 8+ 8+ 8+ 8+ 8+ 8+ 8+ 8+ 8+ 8+ 8+ 8+ 8+ 8+ 8+ 9+ 10+
Roll a number of d20's equal to the number of attacks made by the unit. Every dice that rolls equal to or more than the target score to hit causes a hit on the unit. Rolls of less than 8 automatically miss, regardless of the actual score required to hit.
Continuing the example, the elves must now roll to hit. The target unit is not found to have cover or concealment, so the units base AC is used. It's AC is 25, and the elves' attack bonus is +16. 25-16 is 9, so the elves need to roll higher than 9 to hit. The elves roll 3, 6, 8, 8, 9, 9, 9, 10, 11, 11, 13, 15, 19, and so hit 9 times.
4. Remove Casualties [ edit ]
Hope is Lost! [ edit ] When the final company in a unit (usually the command company) is reduced to half strength or below, the company is removed as a casualty— these count towards combat resolution in close combat. This represents the final members of the unit fleeing in terror as their allies are destroyed.
If the unit has a resilience score of 1, one minion in the unit is removed as a casualty for every hit caused. If the majority of the unit has a resilience score of 2 or higher, the number of hits must be distributed. The hits must be distributed in such a way as to remove as many minions as possible—excess hits are discounted. A minion must suffer hits equal to its resilience score to be slain.
Continuing the example, the elves hit 9 times, so 9 minions are removed from the unit.
For example: If a unit of giant spiders (resilience 2) is hit 7 times, 3 minions are removed from the unit. The last hit is discounted.
Casualties must be removed from companies in the following order: First, casualties must be removed from the depleted company. Then the casualties must be removed from the rearmost company. Casualties are never removed from the command company, unless it is the last company remaining.
If any models in the unit suffer from any conditions (such as slowed), the entire unit is assumed to suffer from the conditions. In the case of effects that last until a save is made, make a single saving throw for the entire unit, using the highest possible saving throw bonus. In the case of ongoing damage, only a single model in the unit takes the damage. The damage must be applied to a single rank-and file model in the unit if possible. The ongoing damage causes a single hit (in the case of minions with a resilience of 2 or more, instead reduce the resilience of the chosen minion by 1 point until the end of the turn—the chonen minion must take damage before all other members of the unit if possible until the end of the turn).
6. Panic Tests [ edit ]
Every company that suffered a number of casualties equal to or more than the number of models in a full company (for that particular unit) must make a courage test or flee (see below). In the case of skirmishing units, the number of models in a full company is assumed to be 4 (representing the smaller size of skirmishing units).
The Charge Phase [ edit ]
The Charge Phase [ edit ]
The side with the initiative charges first. Declare Charges: Declare the units that will charge and what they will charge. Roll Charge Distance: Roll 1d6 and add the relevant modifier to determine how far the unit charges. Choose Spearhead: Chose one company or model in the unit that will spearhead the charge. Move Spearhead: Move the spearhead into contact with the target unit. Move Unit: Move the rest of the unit with the spearhead. Resolve Attacks: Resolve the attacks made as part of the charge. The other side charges with its units, using the same procedure as above.
1. Declare Charges [ edit ]
Before your units can charge, you must declare the units that will charge and the targets that they will charge. You can measure before you declare the charges that you intend to make, but if the target unit is too far away to charge, the charge will not be made, leaving the unit vulnerable to a countercharge. It is also worth bearing in mind that charges from further than 2" away are more effective. A unit can only declare a charge against a unit it can see.
2. Roll Charge Distance [ edit ]
The distance which each unit charges is randomized. This prevents charges from being a foregone conclusion and brings in an element of uncertainty. For each unit that has declared a charge, you must roll 1d6. A roll of a 1 indicates a failed charge—a unit that rolls a 1 cannot charge, even if the target unit is only 1" away. A roll of a 6 indicates an "unstoppable charge". This is dealt with later, though it is best to leave a marker as a reminder. To see if the charge was successful, number determined by the table below is added to the d6 roll. The result is how far the unit can charge.
Unit's Speed Charge Distance 3 1d6 + 0 4 1d6 + 1 5 1d6 + 2 6 1d6 + 3 7 1d6 + 4 8 1d6 + 5 +1 +1
3. Choose Spearhead [ edit ]
You must choose a single company in each unit that rolled a 2 or higher to spearhead the charge. In the case of skirmishers, a single model must be chosen. The spearhead is the first part of the unit to charge, and if it is out of range, the charge fails. You can measure before you choose your spearhead, so you don't need to worry about choosing a spearhead that is out of range.
4. Move Spearhead [ edit ]
You must now move each spearhead you chose into contact with the target unit. First, check to see if it is in range. The spearhead can move up to the distance you rolled for the unit's charge distance to charge—if the target unit is too far away, the spearhead cannot charge and the charge is failed—this does not expend any actions. If the spearhead is in range, move the spearhead into base-to-base contact with the target, even if the charging unit has a reach of 2 or greater.
You must move the spearhead into contact with the flank arc that faces it. To see which arc faces it, draw imaginary lines from the corners of the target unit at a 45° angle, as shown on the diagram. The flank arc that the majority of the spearhead is in is the one that it must charge.
5. Move Unit [ edit ]
Now you must move the rest of the unit to form up around the spearhead. You may change the arrangement of the companies in the unit if you wish, so long as no company moves more than the distance you rolled |
eyesight. I was given Risperdal next, but it was akin to swallowing tic tacs. I begged my psychiatrist to put me back on Latuda, with a new medication to deal with the side effects. I am still on the Latuda as I write this, and am hoping for the best.
That’s all I have to go on at the moment: hope.
When I was a baby, I had a tiny shopping cart I used for balance as I toddled around the house. Every couple of minutes I would wedge myself into a corner, scream bloody murder, and bang the cart against the wall. The wall was in my way, and I wasn’t going to stand for it. To hell with turning, I was going to create a baby-sized hole in the wall and continue on my merry way. My parents would run up and turn the cart around to avoid too much damage to the walls, and three seconds later I was stomping down my new path with single-minded determination.
At twenty-one, I have so many things I want to accomplish in life and I hope I can conquer even just a quarter of them. I want to travel and see the world. I want to go back to school, but perhaps pursue a degree in psychology or neuroscience this time around. I want to hike the Appalachian Trail, and see Crivelli’s Annunciation with St. Emidius in person. I want to live, not just survive, and I want to help others do the same. It’s hard to imagine a future when I’m never sure if tomorrow will be a good day or a bad one. It’s hard to see progress when simply leaving the house is a major accomplishment. But I’m me: new directions and seemingly immoveable walls have never been too intimidating. I just need to get my cart out of the corner.(Newser) – Newser Note: For maximum impact, please listen to this song while reading the following story. KREM reports an argument about garbage escalated—as they are wont to do—until one neighbor was threatening another with a weapon straight out of Star Trek. Carlo Cerutti, 50, has been charged with assault after allegedly swinging a Klingon bat'leth—or "a large sword-like weapon with multiple blades" for our non-Trekkie readers—at the victim, according to the Spokesman-Review.
Apparently Cerutti's wife had gotten tired of the victim putting his garbage in their garbage can and told him to knock it off, KREM reports. That's when she says the victim hit her with a bag of trash. Cerutti allegedly ran out of the house to defend his wife while swinging his bat'leth around. The victim was able to disarm Cerutti but fell off his porch in the process. Cerutti's wife claims he only unsheathed the bat'leth when the victim entered their house. There is one witness who can illuminate exactly what happened, unfortunately… (Read more weird crimes stories.)Mitt Romney Friend's Ex-Wife Claims Romney LIED to Screw Her in Divorce
Mitt Romney -- Friend's Ex-Wife Claims Romney LIED to Screw Her in Divorce
EXCLUSIVE
We haven't heard back from the Romney campaign office -- however Mitt's attorney was quoted about the Stemberg divorce in Time magazine, saying...A rep foralso released a statement... saying, "Over the past several years, the judge in this case has made it very clear that the gag order imposed should not be violated. We have never violated this order and will continue to adhere to the court’s ruling on this case.LIED under oath when he testified in the divorce of his good friend and screwed the friend's wife out of a lot of money in the process... so claims the ex-wife of Staples' founderMultiple sources connected with the divorce tell TMZ... during Tom's uber nasty divorce case with ex-wife, Mitt Romney gave a deposition and testified during the trial that Staples was worth virtually nothing. Romney testified that the company was worth very little and Tom was a dreamer and "the dream continues."Romney characterized the Staples stock as "overvalued," adding, "I didn't place a great deal of credibility in the forecast of the company's future."Partly as a result of Romney's testimony, Maureen got relatively little in the divorce, but we're told just weeks after the divorce ended, Romney and Tom went toand cashed in THEIR stock for a fortune. Short story -- Romney allegedly lied to help his friend and screw the friend's wife over.And there's more... Our sources say years later, Maureen, who suffered from MS and had multiple bouts with cancer, got a visit from one of Tom's guys, who gave her papers informing her that Tom was cancelling her health insurance. Our sources say the irony here is that we're told Tom was working as one of then Governor Mitt Romney's chief health care advisers.Sources tell us... Tom also got custody of the couple's one child, making allegations of abuse against Maureen. And get this... in the mid-90s, after the divorce, Tom sent the boy a letter saying, although he loved him, because of issues related to the divorce "it will not be possible for you to be a part of our family for the foreseeable future."Maureen lost her home in the process and struggled financially.Approximately 104,460 asylum seekers arrived in Germany during the month of August, setting a new record. That makes 413,535 registered refugees and migrants coming to Germany in 2015 so far. The country expects a total of around 800,000 people to seek asylum in Germany this year. And that’s just Germany. The entire continent of Europe is being inundated with refugees at a rate unprecedented in world history. This is no longer just a “refugee crisis.” This is a hijrah.
Hijrah, or jihad by emigration, is, according to Islamic tradition, the migration or journey of Muhammad and his followers from Mecca to Yathrib, later renamed by him to Medina, in the year 622 CE. It was after the hijrah that Muhammad for the first time became not just a preacher of religious ideas, but a political and military leader. That was what occasioned his new “revelations” exhorting his followers to commit violence against unbelievers. Significantly, the Islamic calendar counts the hijrah, not Muhammad’s birth or the occasion of his first “revelation,” as the beginning of Islam, implying that Islam is not fully itself without a political and military component.
To emigrate in the cause of Allah – that is, to move to a new land in order to bring Islam there, is considered in Islam to be a highly meritorious act. “And whoever emigrates for the cause of Allah will find on the earth many locations and abundance,” says the Qur’an. “And whoever leaves his home as an emigrant to Allah and His Messenger and then death overtakes him, his reward has already become incumbent upon Allah. And Allah is ever Forgiving and Merciful.” (4:100) The exalted status of such emigrants led a British jihad group that won notoriety (and a shutdown by the government) a few years ago for celebrating 9/11 to call itself Al-Muhajiroun: The Emigrants.
And now a hijrah of a much greater magnitude is upon us. Evidence that this is a hijrah, not simply a humanitarian crisis, came last February, but was little noted at the time and almost immediately forgotten. The Islamic State published a document entitled, “Libya: The Strategic Gateway for the Islamic State.” Gateway into Europe, that is: the document exhorted Muslims to go to Libya and cross from there as refugees into Europe. This document tells would-be jihadis that weapons from Gaddafi’s arsenal are plentiful and easy to obtain in Libya – and that the country “has a long coast and looks upon the southern Crusader states, which can be reached with ease by even a rudimentary boat.”
The Islamic State did not have in mind just a few jihadis crossing from Libya: it also emerged last February that the jihadis planned to flood Europe with as many as 500,000 refugees. Now the number is shooting well beyond that in Germany alone. Of course, not all of these refugees are Islamic jihadis. Not all are even Muslims, although most are. However, no effort whatsoever is being made to determine the refugees’ adherence to Sharia and desire to bring it to their new land. Any such effort would be “Islamophobic.” Yet there are already hints that the Islamic State is putting its plan into effect: jihadis have already been found among the refugees trying to enter Europe. There will be many more such discoveries.
Eight hundred thousand Muslim refugees in one year alone. This will transform Germany, and Europe, forever, overtaxing the welfare economies of its wealthiest nations and altering the cultural landscape beyond recognition. Yet the serious public discussion that needs to be had about this crisis is shouted down by the usual nonsense: the Washington Post Wednesday published an inflammatory and irresponsible piece likening those concerned about this massive Muslim influx into Europe to 1930s Nazis ready to incinerate Jews by the millions. Hollywood star Emma Thompson accused British authorities of racism for not taking in more refugees – as if British authorities haven’t already done enough to destroy their nation.
And so it goes. If you don’t accept the brave new world that is sure to bring more jihad and more Sharia to Europe, you’re a Nazi and a racist. Meanwhile, no one is bothering even to ask, much less answer, one central question: why is it incumbent upon Europe have to absorb all these refugees? Why not Saudi Arabia or the other Muslim countries that are oil-rich and have plenty of space? The answer is unspoken because non-Muslim authorities refuse to believe it and Muslims don’t want it stated or known: these refugees have to go to Europe because this is a hijrah.
This is also Europe’s death knell.A British police and crime commissioner has come under fire for suggesting gun-owning citizens could help in the fight against terror.
During a BBC Radio interview on Monday, Devon and Cornwall Police and Crime Commissioner Alison Hernandez responded to a caller’s question about gun owners trying to defend themselves with their own firearms during a terrorist attack, the Guardian reported.
“If there should ever be a terrorist attack, what happens if I and other people try to defend themselves using those guns?” asked the caller, a gun owner and former firearms dealer. “What would be the repercussions?”
Hernandez replied that it was a “good question” and asked the caller to write the question down so that she could formally speak to the constable about it.
“Because this might be some of our solution to our issues,” Hernandez added.
When pressed by the interviewer if she was condoning “vigilantism,” Hernandez said: “I’m just saying, let’s officially have a look at that and see what would be the implications of it. Let’s unpick it a little bit.”
“We work with businesses to keep our communities safe,” she continued. “I’d really be interested to explore that with the chief constable.”
The caller then added that she was “spot on with a pistol” and would be willing to defend herself against terrorists if necessary.
The official response from the Devon and Cornwall Police Deputy Chief Constable was swift and succinct, condemning Hernandez’s suggestion that lawful gun owners could use their own firearms to defend themselves during an attack.
“Quite obviously, a marauding terrorist is the most challenging of circumstances,” said DCC Paul Netherton. “The police response requires significant professionalism and training as well as firearms capability. During these incidents, highly trained police firearms officers and special forces will be deployed to protect our communities.
“Under no circumstances would we want members of the public to arm themselves with firearms, not least because officers responding would not know who the offenders were, and quite obviously they would not have the time to ask. Our message to the public is a simple one: to run, to hide and to tell.”
Other police officers also said it was not a good idea for citizens to use their guns during an attack, arguing that was a job for specially trained firearms officers.TMZ Story Forces Bank to Return $1.6 Billion!!!!
TMZ Story Forces Bank to Return $1.6 Billion!!!!
How's this for action.-- the bankexposed this week for throwing a series of lavish parties and concerts in L.A. -- is giving back the $1.6 billion in federal bailout money!We had our cameras out as the bank hosted fancy dinners for hundreds of clients and employees. We had video of the, as well as Earth, Wind & Fire... and the Tiffany gift bags for the ladies.The story triggered a furor in D.C.... Congressman Barney Frank demanded that Northern Trust repay the money it blew.Outrageously, the bank didn't even ask for the bailout money in the first place. But now, under pressure, Northern Trust CEO Frederick Waddell sent a letter to members of the House Financial Services Committee, saying his bank will repay the government funds "as quickly as prudently possible."Investigators say Deangelo Adams forced his way into the woman's home on Eads St. around 5:20 this morning.
New Orleans woman scares off burglar by picking up knife first, then gun
A woman twice scared off a burglar by pulling out a knife and then a gun, but New Orleans police say eventually the suspect, Deangelo Adams, came back with his own gun. Investigators say Adams forced his way into the woman's home on Eads Street around 5:20 a.m. Police say he and the victim got into a fight. The woman pulled out a knife and officials say Adams ran away. Police say Adams returned and this time the woman pulled out a gun and shot two rounds, sending him fleeing a second time. He returned a third time with a gun, police say. This time, he was arrested when police arrived at the scene.
A woman twice scared off a burglar by pulling out a knife and then a gun, but New Orleans police say eventually the suspect, Deangelo Adams, came back with his own gun.
Investigators say Adams forced his way into the woman's home on Eads Street around 5:20 a.m. Police say he and the victim got into a fight.
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The woman pulled out a knife and officials say Adams ran away. Police say Adams returned and this time the woman pulled out a gun and shot two rounds, sending him fleeing a second time.
He returned a third time with a gun, police say. This time, he was arrested when police arrived at the scene.
AlertMeIn C++03 there was no standard way of converting numbers to strings. The best way to do that was using a std::stringstream :
int n = 42; std::stringstream ss; ss << n; std::string s = ss.str(); 1 2 3 4 int n = 42 ; std :: stringstream ss ; ss << n ; std :: string s = ss. str ( ) ;
One could put that into a more generic function that looks like this:
template <typename T> std::string to_string(T const & value) { std::stringstream ss; ss << value; return ss.str(); } 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 template < typename T > std :: string to_string ( T const & value ) { std :: stringstream ss ; ss << value ; return ss. str ( ) ; }
The opposite of converting a text to a number could look like this:
template <typename T> T my_to_number(std::string const & text) { T value; std::stringstream ss(text); ss >> value; return value; } 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 template < typename T > T my_to_number ( std :: string const & text ) { T value ; std :: stringstream ss ( text ) ; ss >> value ; return value ; }
Of course, there was also the option of using C functions such as itoa, sprintf or atoi (or their Microsoft secure version _itoa_s, sprintf_s ).
C++11 provides several standard functions for converting numbers to strings and strings to numbers, all of them available in the <string> header.
For converting numbers to strings there are two new overloaded functions: to_string() and to_wstring(). They take one argument of various numeric types ( int, long, long long, double, long double, etc.) and return either a std::string or a std::wstring with the number converted to text.
auto as = std::to_string(42); auto ws = std::to_wstring(3.14); 1 2 auto as = std :: to_string ( 42 ) ; auto ws = std :: to_wstring ( 3.14 ) ;
These functions are actually just wrappers over sprintf and swprintf. According to the standard (section 21.5):
Each function returns a string object holding the character representation of the value of its argument that would be generated by calling sprintf(buf, fmt, val) with a format specifier of “%d”, “%u”, “%ld”, “%lu”, “%lld”, “%llu”, “%f”, “%f”, or “%Lf”, respectively, where buf designates an internal character buffer of sufficient size.
For the other way around of converting strings to numbers there are several overloaded methods (taking either a std::string or a std::wstring ):
stoi : converts a string to a signed integer
: converts a string to a signed stol : converts a string to a signed long
: converts a string to a signed stoll : converts a string to a signed long long
: converts a string to a signed stoul : converts a string to an unsigned long
: converts a string to an stoull : converts a string to an unsigned long long
: converts a string to an stof : converts a string to a float
: converts a string to a stod : converts a string to a double
: converts a string to a stold : converts a string to a long double
std::string as = "42"; std::wstring ws = "3.14" auto n2 = std::stoi("42"); auto n3 = std::stoul(as); auto n4 = std::stod(ws); 1 2 3 4 5 6 std :: string as = "42" ; std :: wstring ws = "3.14" auto n2 = std :: stoi ( "42" ) ; auto n3 = std :: stoul ( as ) ; auto n4 = std :: stod ( ws ) ;
Functions stof, stod and stold are also just wrappers over strtod and strtold :
the first two functions call strtod(str.c_str(), ptr) and the third function calls strtold(str.c_str(), ptr). Each function returns the converted result, if any. The argument ptr designates a pointer to an object internal to the function that is used to determine what to store at *idx. If the function does not throw an exception and idx!= 0, the function stores in *idx the index of the first unconverted element of str.
atoi() and atol() that convert a null-terminated byte-string (i.e. char* ) to an integer or long were already available in header <cstdlib>. There is a new function available in this header called atoll() that converts a null-terminated byte string to a long long value.
auto n = std::atoll("42"); 1 auto n = std :: atoll ( "42" ) ;
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PrintUpdated 5:12 p.m.
BRUSSELS, Belgium – Officially speaking, NATO won't deviate – yet – from its plan to end combat in Afghanistan by 2014. But as defense ministers prepare to meet here on Thursday, some NATO bureaucrats are whispering that it wouldn't be so difficult to wrap the fighting up ahead of schedule.
In a background briefing for reporters, a NATO official I'm not allowed to name pointed to mid-2013 as the beginning of the final phase for its "transition" to Afghanistan control. By then, the "lead responsibility for the planning and conduct of operations" against the Taliban will fall to the Afghan soldiers and police (and militiamen) that NATO trains, the official said. In other words, the heavy lifting on the transition will basically be done by 2013, not 2014.
That may not seem like much of a difference, at first glance. But NATO is likely to reopen the inter-alliance debate about how fast to hand over Afghanistan to the Afghans when defense chiefs begin a mini-summit on Thursday. That's because Afghan President Hamid Karzai and French President Nicolas Sarkozy abruptly decided last week to ask NATO to end combat a year earlier, in 2013.
If that isn't enough to get wavering European allies, whose economically crunched populaces generally don't support the war anyway, to rush to the exits, NATO flacks fended off question after question on Wednesday about a leaked U.S. military report assessing that the Taliban – even after the surge – considers its victory "inevitable." Now at least some in NATO headquarters believe that if the alliance really wanted to leave early, it would be doable.
NATO's public position is that it's not budging on 2014. "That is the goal we stick to," Oana Lungescu, the alliance's press director told reporters on Wednesday. (She refused to comment on the leaked report.)
In any case, 2014 won't bring the end of the war. Several NATO officials here are talking about an "enduring partnership" for some kind of "train, advise and assist" mission for the Afghan security forces "after 2014." The details haven't been worked out – those residual troops will probably live on joint bases with Afghans, U.S. officials have said – and NATO is unlikely to unveil any specific plan until its May summit in Chicago at the earliest. But it's been clear for over a year that foreign military forces aren't all leaving Afghanistan in 2014.
But even if the end of NATO combat isn't the same as an end to the Afghanistan war, some in the alliance think it's technically possible to move up the end of that combat. And the 2014 date arose after Karzai asked for it. If he's now pressing for 2013 instead, it might provide cover for NATO to accelerate its timetable by a year. And to be cynical, that would give President Obama something dramatic to announce at the Chicago summit – where NATO leaders already plan to explain with some specificity how and when they'll hand over the war to the Afghans – right as his reelection bid heats up.
Afghanistan is going to dominate the defense ministerial parley on Thursday and Friday, Lungescu said. There won't be any announcement of a faster timetable. But now that one is considered feasible, the talks might represent an opening salvo of a decision that would bring NATO troops home faster.
Update, 5:12 p.m.: That was fast. Ahead of Thursday's NATO defense ministerial, Defense Secretary Leon Panetta has flat-out embraced the accelerated timetable for wrapping up combat in Afghanistan, telling reporters on his plane heading to Brussels that the U.S. and NATO will indeed turn the war over to Afghan control a year-plus early. 2013 is now the new 2014. But as Craig Whitlock of the Washington Post reports, that doesn't necessarily mean substantial numbers of U.S. troops will leave Afghanistan earlier, since the Afghan forces remain "dependent on the United States military for airpower, troop movement, supplies and medical aid." Still, never mind what I wrote above about how there "won't be any announcement of a faster timetable," as the faster timetable arrived faster than expected.
Photo: DVIDSNASHVILLE, Tenn. — Fresh from beating back the administration's bullet ban, the NRA's top executives said Saturday that the group is bracing for further anti-gun moves by the lame duck president and warned that Hillary Clinton's gun control efforts as president would make President Obama "look like an amateur."
Chris Cox, executive director of the National Rifle Association's Institute for Legislative Action, told the group's annual meeting, said, "Obama says he's not going anywhere for the next 650 days. Well, we have news for the president, neither are we."
NRA Executive Vice President Wayne LaPierre added that "the next 650 days are the most dangerous" and that there is "no telling how far President Obama will go to dismantle our freedoms."
At the 144th NRA Annual Meeting here, Obama and Clinton were under fire from the group's officials and some 11 Republicans eyeing a presidential bid. But while much of the focus was on Clinton's second presidential try, Cox warned that the remaining months of Obama's term must be watched closely.
"He says he's got a phone and a pen and he'll just go around Congress and do whatever he damn well pleases. We saw it just last month when he tried to ban rifle ammunition," he said, in a reference to the ATF's effort to ban AR-15 "green tip" ammo.
"We know what he really wanted to do," said Cox. "He wanted to ban our guns."
Cox also indicated that the Second Amendment group plans to challenge Obama and Senate Democrats in pushing for a national law to let those allowed to carry concealed weapons in one state to carry in another — the National Right to Carry Reciprocity legislation.
Armed with the largest membership and bank account ever, the group is expected to run an aggressive campaign against Clinton, whose husband Bill Clinton won approval of the so-called "assault weapon ban."
In turning to Clinton, Cox said, "she's back," adding, "When it comes to attacking our Second Amendment freedoms, you can bet she'll make Barack Obama look like an amateur. Obama won't admit that he wants to register guns, but Hillary's proud to support it."
He also warned that if elected in 2016, Clinton could keep the job until 2025, two full terms during which she would push for "more gun bans, more ammo bans, and more anti-gun Supreme Court justices."
Paul Bedard, the Washington Examiner's "Washington Secrets" columnist, can be contacted at pbedard@washingtonexaminer.com.Review Nokia's first Windows RT tablet – the 10.1in 2520 – was unveiled today, showing how wise the company was to bide its time.
The Finnish firm has watched while first-generation Surface RT tablets and convertible laptop-slabs crashed and burned, and today's offering shows what it learned.
The Lumia 2520 stands out on both price and performance and its practicality makes for a contrast with Microsoft's "look at me" Surface RT flop. Nokia is really forcing itself into contention here: we understand that pricing in the UK will be around £399 without keyboard and around £498 with a keyboard (official pricing for US has already been announced – $499 without and $648 with keyboard). It's one to take seriously.
But there are things only apparent in a hands-on, so read on for some occasionally surprising discoveries.
Bare nekkid, without its keyboard, the Lumia 2520 is a pretty slimline and robust tablet, as these things go, which means that while it's larger than the iPad 4, it's actually lighter. Considering battery life is 11 hours (plus four from the keyboard's battery), this is quite competitive. The robust polycarb shell has been scaled up. Slightly surprisingly, the 2520 uses its own proprietary charging port rather than USB - presumably to achieve the very rapid charging time (50 per cent of the monster battery gets filled in 45 minutes).
And yes, it's the Windows desktop – but the Windows 8.1 RT version of Windows Desktop. The pros and cons of RT are very relevant here: Microsoft made an ARM version of Windows with a subset of the full Intel Windows, arguing the subset can go further and cheaper and on new kinds of devices. So RT means you can't run x86-64 Windows binaries. But unlike on the iPad, or on a Windows Phone, you do get a full file manager.
The processor at the heart of the 2520 is an ARM-compatible Qualcomm Snapdragon 800 quad-core system-on-chip running at 2.2GHz and coupled to 2GB of RAM.
The screen is outstanding, a full HD 1920x 1080 panel with the polarizers Nokia uses on mid-range and high-end Lumias to improve readability in the sun. It’s very bright already – at 665 nits – and does a good job of reducing reflections.
The keyboard clips into the slab using firm plastic fasteners. Here's a detail of that stand: the keyboard's position is maintained by magnets. It all feels very solid – the disadvantage being you're stuck with the viewing angle. The other disadvantage is that you really have to wriggle the device to detach it from the keyboard jacket. With the Surface, which only uses magnets to bind the two laptop "halves", you just yank them apart.
Click to enlarge
Nokia has eschewed gimmicks here. It looks very professional, and PC-era anachronisms are ported over. Including – yes – that's a PrtSc key. No sign of AltGr, though....
One thing not apparent from the publicity material or marketing renders is that the flap containing the touchpad is on another, hinged portion of the cover. Here you can see it flopping over the edge of a table:
So. What have we really got here? And with £500 buying you a pretty decent laptop, what does a Lumia 2520 get you?
LTE and battery life are what's really new here. They transform RT from an industry joke to something seriously worth considering. The keyboard combo in the 2520 gives you 15 hours.
A year ago RT was truly a basket case: with awful performance and immature software. Now the software is maturing it begins to fulfill Microsoft's goal for the ARM caper – which is to provide a rich subset of Windows in new devices, with better battery performance. An office worker who mostly uses (say) Office and Skype or Twitter should seriously consider this, as the flexible form factor adds a great deal of potential convenience. You couldn't say that a year ago. If you have so far considered RT to be a deal-breaker – and many readers do, quite rationally, based on the devices launched to date – then the 2520 obliges a rethink.
Two things are worth considering.
There are several lacunae with RT, starting with the fact that quite a few useful applications don't run on RT as they're not ARM-compatible, but "Modern" RT-native equivalents haven't shown up yet. Secondly, Adobe won't port Photoshop to RT, and instead provides Photoshop Touch. (Really, it's a noddy photo editor). We'll probably never see Visual Studio or the full Photoshop ported to RT - that's not why it exists.
But there will be vertical or specialist apps that are vital to a business that needs to be on the RT platform. A year ago Salesforce's CEO was mocking Windows RT – his firm currently shuns Microsoft platforms. But if Salesforce customers start to support it, how long can he maintain the boycott?
Secondly, there's some devil in the detail which Microsoft needs to fix. Some functionality in full Office is missing in Office RT (see here), including macros, Lync integration, and support for Sharepoint site mailboxes. In addition, unless you have a volume licence, you can only use Office RT in a non-profit business environment. Redmond is expected to detail a roadmap for Office, including Office RT, in the next few days.
In the 2520, Nokia has actually developed a grown-up computer that makes RT viable in business for the first time – but Microsoft still appears to think RT is a consumer platform, an "iPad killer". Stuff that. ®Hull is the latest city to launch its own currency, using the same technology found in digital cryptocurrency Bitcoin. But this version aims to reward volunteers, not currency speculators. Stephen Walsh gets an exclusive trial
Once upon a time, English teachers who couldn’t think of anything else to do with their classes always had “the life story of a penny” to fall back on. Roald Dahl remembers having to do it once for “prep”. In his version, a lump of copper is excavated from a South American mine, shipped to England, melted down and cruelly stamped with the king’s head before passing through the hands of bankers, a housewife, a fishmonger and several clumsy boys.
Take a walk down my local high street in Hull and you’ll see the story of money alright – the lack of it, anyway: potholes in the road that stay unfixed for years, the homeless and rootless huddled in the doorways of takeaways and vacant shop units, the well-stocked pawn shops and bargain supermarkets with cardboard cut-out coppers in their windows to deter shoplifters.
This is what economic “recovery” looks like in the post-industrial north, where despite the promises of City of Culture and the Siemens investment, a minimum-wage, zero-hours contract in a shop or factory is still the norm for many. Household debt is among the highest in the country in this low-wage, high welfare economy.
Hull lacks resilience. When economic hard times hit, household incomes plummet with predictable knock-on effects for local businesses; austerity creates yet more unemployment in an area heavily reliant on public sector jobs and, at the same time, cuts vital services when people need them most.
In 2014, Lisa Bovill, a public servant specialising in welfare rights, and colleague Dave Shepherdson, decided to do something about it. If people could no longer afford the essentials of life – with catastrophic effects on individuals and communities – then what was needed was a new way of paying.
Their big idea was to use the same blockchain technology found in the digital cryptocurrency Bitcoin to generate a new kind of quantitative easing for the 99%. The difference was, their version, called HullCoin, would reward volunteers, not currency speculators.
Local currencies are nothing new. They were used during the 19th and 20th centuries to fill the void when national currencies or welfare systems failed. Recent initiatives such as the Brixton and Bristol Pound have succeeded in linking greater circulation of a community’s wealth with environmental goals. At the same time, a global mutual credit movement of Local Exchange Trading Systems (LETS) and Time Banks is generating value from community resources other than cash. Members exchange their skills for time instead of money, receiving credits for each hour they give and “spending” them on services offered by another member.
Facebook Twitter Pinterest Walsh helps mop the stage at the Freedom Centre to earn more HullCoin credits. Photograph: Christopher Thomond for the Guardian
HullCoin’s innovation has been to digitise these two well-established concepts, combining the value generation mechanism of mutual credit with the local spending power of community currencies.
But will it work? The technology has never been tested outside of the HullCoin office, let alone used to buy anything. Beyond that, will the currency’s high-minded aim of creating social credit from “good deeds” cut it in the real world? In this most hard-pressed of cities, can HullCoin provide an alternative to the depressing narrative of payday loans and benefit sanctions?
Well, I’m about to find out. I’ve been invited to take part in the first real world trial of the new currency. I’ll be the first person ever to earn and spend a HullCoin.
My story of a penny doesn’t get off to the best of starts. It’s chucking it down as I drive across town to the Freedom Centre, a community hub in east Hull where the trial is taking place. I’m supposed to be doing some gardening for a token to spend in the centre’s cafe. But, looking at the weather, I’m thinking there must be easier ways to earn a cup of tea.
“No one can accuse you of blue sky thinking,” I say to Dave Shepherdson when I arrive. But Dave, who’s now director of the not-for-profit company developing HullCoin, is one step ahead. He’s getting software developers, Matty and Pete, to change the offer. I’ll be able to mop up indoors for my moola.
I familiarise myself with the coffee machine while the techies make their tweaks. Finally it’s time to sign up for a HullCoin account. It’s a simple enough process and I use my phone to log on to my virtual wallet and register for the task.
Facebook Twitter Pinterest Scott Bates, right, signs up to use an early test version of the new virtual currency. Photograph: Christopher Thomond for the Guardian
As I wait for the next stage, I get talking to Geoff Groom and Tony Forrester. The Freedom Centre’s chief executive and operations manager are full of ideas on how HullCoin could incentivise beneficial behaviour in the local community – from persuading more school children to use the centre’s library to encouraging people to set up child-minding groups, or help with the clear-up after Christmas shows.
Working out how to charge using the new denomination is trickier. “We could offer money off a healthy sandwich in the cafe,” suggests Geoff. “Or a cut-price gym membership,” adds Tony but then asks: “How many HullCoin do you think we should charge for a plate of chips?” I doubt this ever came up during the Euro negotiations but it gets to the heart of what HullCoin stands for – value.
What really sets HullCoin apart from other community currencies is the creation of spending power from ‘good deeds'
Forget blockchain. What really sets HullCoin apart from other community currencies is the creation of spending power from “good deeds”. The Bristol and Brixton Pounds, for example, ultimately have to be paid for in sterling – even if those pounds stick around in the local economy for longer. There are no such limits with HullCoin. You don’t need money to earn tokens. And by putting issuing power in the hands of community organisations, the project has a good chance of reaching the people who really need it.
The concept of linking value creation to social credit also offers a timely critique of the conventional money system. Whereas fiat currency relies for its existence on commercial banks ramping up debts and interest – destabilising the economy and leading to disastrous crashes – HullCoin is generated solely as a reward for meeting social need. Little wonder it’s becoming one of the good news stories of the alternative currency movement.
Back in east Hull, the task is more down-to-earth: to sweep away the glitter left on the stage in the Freedom Centre’s theatre after a weekend dance show. It’s surprisingly sticky stuff so it helps that there are two of us doing it. I’m working with Scott, a regular at the centre and a dab hand with a mop bucket.
Half an hour later and I’ve got a proper thirst. In the cafe, I log back into my HullCoin wallet: ‘30 minutes cleaning the Freedom Centre – 3HC’. My half price tea and biscuit only costs one coin. Quids in! More significantly, the social act that triggered my coin’s release will stay linked to it. If I wanted, |
at 11:52 a.m. on June 9, 2011.Berlin was until recently ready to offer Warsaw a deal under which Germany would abandon plans for a contested gas pipeline in exchange for Poland giving up demands for war reparations from Germany, according to a report.
Such a deal was until recently considered in Berlin, but may no longer be an option with a possible return to government in Germany of the Social Democrats, who strongly support the controversial Nord Stream 2 project, Poland’s wiadomosci.onet.pl news website reported, quoting an article by Matthew Karnitschnig from the Politico news service.
Under pressure from the Social Democrats, German Chancellor Angela Merkel, who is thought to be less enthusiastic about Nord Stream 2, may not be able to offer Warsaw a deal based on Germany giving up the planned project in exchange for a softer Polish position on potential war reparations from Germany, wiadomosci.onet.pl said, quoting Karnitschnig, who cited German diplomatic sources.
Massive damage in WWII
Poland’s conservative leader Jarosław Kaczyński said in October that a potential Polish initiative to seek reparations from Germany for World War II was “being analysed very intensively."
A recent analysis by parliamentary experts concluded that the Polish government is entitled to demand that Germany pay reparations for the massive damage it inflicted on Poland in World War II.
German officials rejected claims voiced in Poland that Berlin should pay Warsaw reparations for WW II, according to media reports in September.
A British MP of Polish descent has sent an open letter to German Chancellor Angela Merkel urging her government to pay reparations to Poland for World War II.
Protests over Nord Stream 2
In the face of protests and regulatory doubts over Nord Stream 2, Berlin hoped to use the expected fiasco of the EUR 9.5 billion project as a bargaining chip in its talks with Poland about the reparations issue, wiadomosci.onet.pl said.
It quoted Politico as reporting that European Council President Donald Tusk, a former prime minister of Poland, has protested against the pipeline project by sending sharply worded letters to the European Commission, the EU’s executive arm.
In early November, the European Commission unveiled proposals for changes to the bloc’s Gas Directive which reports suggested could scupper plans for the Nord Stream 2 pipeline from Russia to Germany.
Under the amendment proposed by the European Commission, the entire Nord Stream 2 pipeline, including the part that would run under the Baltic Sea, would explicitly be subject to EU law, according to Polish Radio.
The new regulations could hit and possibly derail the controversial pipeline, which would carry gas from Russia to Germany while bypassing Poland and other countries in its region, the Polish public broadcaster has said.
Poland has vocally opposed the controversial Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline, which is designed to supply Germany with gas from Russia via a pipeline under the Baltic Sea and to run parallel to the existing Nord Stream pipeline, circumventing Central and Eastern Europe.
Tool of political pressure, not a business project?
Officials in Warsaw have long argued that Nord Stream 2 is not a business project, but a tool of political pressure, Karnitschnig wrote in his article, according to the wiadomosci.onet.pl report.
Many countries in Central and Eastern Europe are against the project, because they fear it would deprive them of income from gas transit fees that they are currently charging from Russia, wiadomosci.onet.pl said, quoting the Politico report.
There is also a deeper fear that the pipeline could leave Europe at the mercy of Moscow in terms of energy, according to Karnitschnig as quoted by wiadomosci.onet.pl.
If built, the Nord Stream 2 pipeline would supply around 55 billion cubic metres of natural gas a year from Russia to Germany.
(gs/pk)
Source: wiadomosci.onet.plYou will be amazed at how rich and creamy and chocolatey this 4 Ingredient Vegan Chocolate Ice cream is AND how simple it is! Tastes JUST like dairy milk chocolate ice cream. NO bananas!
Today I make your dreams come true. Vegan Chocolate Ice Cream that is only 4 ingredients, ridiculously creamy, chocolatey, rich and requires no ice cream maker. Did I mention it’s only 4 ingredients?! And NO. This is not the banana ice cream that is all over the internet that turns into a rock hard block of ice in the freezer. That is not true ice cream folks, I’m talking rich, creamy ice cream that will fool dairy lovers and that tastes just like dairy chocolate ice cream, yet it is dairy-free. YUP.
By the way…thank you so much for the overwhelming response to the above photo I shared on both this Facebookpost and Instagram as the teaser of the upcoming recipe!
VEGAN CHOCOLATE ICE CREAM
We are having a major chocolate party here. Chocolate ice cream made with sweet potatoes is where it’s at, folks.
I am quite the ice cream creator here on this blog. I have 11 ice cream recipes already!! So, this makes 12. Several of them involve chocolate. But you know what? Most of them are 8 ingredients and contain nuts or more specific ingredients that may require an extra trip to the store. The CRAZY thing about this 4 ingredient vegan chocolate ice cream is that it is now my go-to. I’ve made it countless times now because it’s just soooo darn easy and so chocolatey. It’s mind-blowing how simple it is.
It tastes like TRUE ICE CREAM and only takes a few minutes prep. So, do you want to know the secret to making rich, chocolatey, creamy ice cream without expensive ingredients?
All you will need to make this 4 Ingredient Vegan Chocolate Ice Cream (+salt) is:
Chocolate chips
sweet potato
coconut milk
vanilla
How to Make Vegan Chocolate Ice Cream
You will start out by melting your chocolate chips and then adding them to the blender like everything else. Then freeze the mixture or add to your ice cream maker. That’s it.
Can you taste the sweet potato?? Not at all. In fact, my hubby who hates sweet potato had no clue (and still doesn’t!) that it was in there. It honestly just tastes like milk chocolate ice cream.
This vegan chocolate ice cream is dairy-free, oil-free and nut-free. I used light coconut milk instead of full-fat and that way, there is no coconut flavor whatsoever. There is enough fat in it from the cocoa butter from the chocolate chips, so it is plenty creamy.
I use Enjoy Life Chocolate Chips because they are dairy-free and I love the ingredients. The ingredients are so simple and have the best flavor. It is just sugar, chocolate liquor and cocoa butter.
It’s been a long time since I used sweet potatoes in my ice cream, so I used one of my oldest recipes as the inspiration, my Chocolate Peppermint Sweet Potato Ice Cream.
I cannot WAIT to hear what you all think about this ice cream, so pretty please leave me feedback below after you make it!
5 from 12 votes Print 4 Ingredient Vegan Chocolate Ice Cream The absolute most delicious Vegan Chocolate Ice Cream that you will make that rivals dairy ice cream. The combo of sweet potatoes, coconut milk and chocolate chips gives a rich, creamy, chocolatey ice cream that is reminiscent of milk chocolate ice cream we all grew up on...but so much healthier. Prep Time 10 minutes Total Time 10 minutes Servings 4 cups Author Brandi Doming Ingredients PLEASE READ THE INSTRUCTIONS! 3/4 cup 170g cooked mashed and packed orange sweet potato
2 cups room temp lite canned coconut milk 480g, shake the cans well
1 1/2 cups 283 g mini dairy-free semi-sweet Enjoy Life chocolate chips (or use 1 whole 10 oz bag, there is no substitution, the chocolate chips have fat in them that makes the ice cream creamy)
1/2 tablespoon vanilla extract
1/4 teaspoon fine sea salt NOTE: I have only tested this ice cream using the Enjoy Life mini chocolate chips so if you use another brand or different chocolate, it may alter the taste/texture. Make sure you are using a semi-sweet chip that contains cocoa butter. you use the correct weight (grams) amount to ensure accurate results. The lite coconut milk is key to this ice cream as it has the right amount of fat and creaminess for excellent texture, as well as NOT leaving any coconut taste, since it is the light. Do not use full-fat, as that will make it too creamy since the chocolate chips contain so much cocoa butter. NOTE: regarding the glass ice cream cones: I've had many people ask about the ice cream cones I used in the photos. I purchased them at the store Anthropologie when I created this recipe, which they no longer sell them. I found some similar ones on Amazon though HERE! The white ones from the video I purchased at Target. Instructions Cook your sweet potato your preferred method. I chose to just microwave it for time purposes but you can bake it if you like. Bake it at 400 degrees with skin still on until very soft. Do not steam or boil it, as too much water will get into the potato. Let it cool a few minutes. Once your potato is cooked and cooled a bit, peel the skin off and completely mash it really well with a fork. You don't want any chunks or skins. Pack it in the measuring cup (3/4 cup) really well and level off. Add it to a blender. Add the coconut milk, vanilla and salt. Don't blend yet. Melt your chocolate chips your preferred method. I used the microwave and added them to a cereal bowl and microwaved in 15 second intervals, stirring in between, until about 90% melted. Then I stirred it until completely melted and smooth. You have to be careful about overheating chocolate or it will burn and be useless. Add the melted chocolate to the blender and be sure to scrape all that chocolate goodness out of the bowl. Blend the ingredients on high for a minute or so until completely smooth. You don't want any bits remaining from the potato. Taste and if you want it sweeter, add sugar, I did not. I found it to be perfectly chocolatey. Now, if you have an ice cream maker, then by all means use it, it will help make it creamier. But I tested 3 batches withOUT an ice cream maker and they were all delicious. You simply need to follow this method. Add your blended ice cream base to an ice cream storage container and place in the freezer. Set your timer for 30 minutes and stir the ice cream around really well, as the edges will start to firm up first. Add back to the freezer and do this every 30 minutes until it is solid or at your desired consistency. About 2 hours should do it, depending on your freezer temp. After that, if you let it freeze overnight, you may need to let it sit out at room temperature for about 15 minutes or so to soften a bit before eating. Again, this will depend on how cold you keep your freezer. I can control my temp so mine only needed a few minutes at room temp before eating. You can also pop it in the microwave for 15 seconds too if you like. If you want an extra chocolate syrup dose, just melt some extra chocolate chips and drizzle on top and it will freeze immediately like a magic shell. YUM. Now, after you eat this ice cream, come back and leave me feedback telling me how much it rocked your world like it did ours! Tip on freezing: Each time you let ice cream sit out and thaw, you encourage ice crystals to form. So, you can freeze the ice cream base in individual servings and just take out your serving each time you want some ice cream. Or, when removing the ice cream to thaw, the condensation that forms underneath the lid, make sure to wipe that each time so it doesn't refreeze and drop ice crystals into your ice cream. Recipe Notes Nutrition per 1/2 cup: 244 calories, 14.8g fat, 3.5g protein, 28g carbs, 3.1g fiber, 18g sugar, 81mg sodiumThe Twyman-Stokes Teammate of the Year Award will be given annually to the NBA's "ideal teammate." The Twyman-Stokes Teammate of the Year Award will be given annually to the NBA's "ideal teammate."
The NBA has unveiled a new annual honor, the Twyman-Stokes Teammate of the Year Award, and will announce the first winner at 7 p.m. before Game 2 of the NBA Finals on Sunday.
THOMSEN: Miami Heat look to turn up aggression, recapture identity against Spurs
The 12 nominees for the award -- six from each conference -- were selected by a panel of NBA legends "according to selfless play, on- and off-court leadership as a mentor and role model to other NBA players and his commitment and dedication to his team."
Current players voted on the winner -- they were not allowed to vote for a player on their own team -- which was chosen based on a points system of 10 points for a first-place vote, seven for second, five for third, three for fourth and one for fifth.
This year's finalists include: Jerry Stackhouse (Brooklyn Nets), Luke Walton (Cleveland Cavaliers), Andre Iguodala (Denver Nuggets), Jarrett Jack (Golden State Warriors), Roy Hibbert (Indiana Pacers), Chauncey Billups (Los Angeles Clippers), Shane Battier (Miami Heat), Roger Mason, Jr. (New Orleans Hornets), Jason Kidd (New York Knicks), Serge Ibaka (Oklahoma City Thunder), Manu Ginobili (San Antonio Spurs) and Emeka Okafor (Washington Wizards).
The award was named after Jack Twyman and Maurice Stokes, teammates on the 1955-56 Cincinnati Royals.
From NBA.com's Steve Aschburner:More unwarranted optimism about Afghanistan
Over at FP‘s new National Security Channel, reporter Gordon Lubold has a lengthy interview with U.S. Afghan commander John Allen. Allen offers a pretty upbeat assessment: He says the Afghan National Security Force "is really taking over much more of the fighting than it has done in the past," adding that our Security Force Assistance Teams are "really accelerating that." He doesn’t actually come out and say we’re going to win (or even try to define what "victory" would look like), but his bottom line is simple: "the campaign is on track."
But to where? I thought Obama made a bad mistake when he decided to escalate in Afghanistan, but this is another one of those issues where I’d love to be proven wrong. Unfortunately, I’ve heard nothing but upbeat assessments from U.S. commanders ever since Obama took office, which makes me more than a little skeptical about Allen’s testimony now. Back in January 2010, for example, former U.S. commander Stanley McChrystal told ABC’s Diane Sawyer that he "believed we had turned the tide." His successor, General David Petraeus, issued a similarly optimistic assessment a year later, though it was at odds with U.S. intelligence assessments and followed by a major increase in the overall level of violence.
Well, it’s déjà vu all over again: Today, despite a dramatic increase in "green on blue" attacks (i.e., attacks by Afghan security forces on U.S. or ISAF personnel) and the announced departure of other U.S. allies, the latest American commander continues to portray our efforts in a positive light, especially with respect to the progress made by Afghan security forces. But you might have missed the fact that the DoD quietly lowered the bar for the latter, by eliminating the category of "independent" (meaning that a unit that can operate on its own) from the ratings system used to assess Afghan forces. Now the top ranking is "independent with advisors," which allows us to describe more Afghan units as "top rated." And even with these lower standards, less than ten percent of Afghan units are rated as capable of being able to operate semi-independently.
In one sense, Allen’s optimism is neither surprising nor objectionable. You’re not going to hear the U.S. commander tell a reporter that things aren’t going well, because that is hardly the best way to inspire your troops to greater effort. Plus, the "surge" in Afghanistan was not designed to fix all of that unfortunate country’s problems; it was intended either to 1) provide a fig leaf for a U.S. withdrawal, 2) inflict enough pain on the Taliban so that they’d cut a deal, or 3) buy a bit of time to build up Afghan security forces, at which point we’d get the hell out. Notice that these various goals aren’t mutually exclusive, but none of them constitutes "victory."
And that’s been the problem in Afghanistan all along. The original rationale for being there disappeared once Al Qaeda fled the country and metastasized to other areas. It never made much sense to spend $100 billion plus per year on a country whose entire GDP was less than 20 percent of that figure, especially once it became clear that the Karzai government was irredeemably corrupt and mostly incompetent and equally clear that we had no idea how to "nation-build" there ourselves. Plus, our main adversaries could always avoid us by slipping over the border into Pakistan or melting back into the local population. They knew we’d eventually go home, at which point Afghanistan’s future will be determined by the Afghans themselves. As it should be.
In short, General Allen’s testimony is precisely what you’d expect him to say, and thus doesn’t really doesn’t tell you much of anything at all. But his optimism stands in sharp contrast to the assessment you’ll find in a book like Rajiv Chandraksekaran’s Little America, which I’ve just been reading. I hope Allen is right, that the ANSF really is making headlong progress, and that it will be up to the task of providing security once we are gone. But I wouldn’t bet on it.The only consolation — if you’re not Afghan, that is — is that it won’t matter much to us one way or the other.When women start doing what men have traditionally done, yours is a civilization of the setting sun. This is brought to mind when pondering a recent Pew Research Center study showing that women are now the primary or sole breadwinners in 40 percent of American households. You may have heard the story -- it created quite a stir on Fox News, with Greta Van Susteren and Megyn Kelly (who became quite hysterical) taking exception to male colleagues' warnings about the development's sociological implications. But if these two ladies, and the other critics, had reacted rationally and not emotionally, they would realize what is obvious:
The rise in female breadwinners is a sign of a civilization in decline.
Let's start by first examining the study. While the term "breadwinner" conjures up images of pleasingly plump paychecks, the real story here is the rise of poor single mothers. Among the 40 percent of women in the breadwinner group, 63 percent are single mothers. This isn't surprising, since the rate of single motherhood has risen from about 4 percent in the 1940s to 41 percent today (72 percent in the black community). So what kind of "bread" are we talking about? Writes Amy Langfield of CNBC, "The median income for a single mother who has never been married was $17,400 as of 2011." And, obviously, having large numbers of single mothers, with essentially fatherless children, struggling to make ends meet isn't good for the women, the children, or the society as a whole.
The picture looks better for the married 37 percent of the breadwinner group, but only by comparison. Twenty-nine percent of these women's husbands are unemployed. Moreover, Pew describes these women as older, college-educated, and white. Translation: they're the one-child wonders. These are often women who postpone childbirth in deference to careerism and then, perhaps after dropping a tidy sum at a fertility clinic, have their sole son or daughter. Why does this warrant mention? Because as the documentary Demographic Winter points out, this phenomenon is a significant contributing factor to the plummeting birth rates among Western peoples. Outside New Zealand, there isn't one major European-descent group with a replacement-level birth rate. And for all you secular-feminist chauvinists so proud of your cultural hegemony, what do you think happens to values that cause people to erase themselves?
So why can't the Megyn Kellys of the world perceive the rise in female breadwinners as the warning sign it is? Because their feminist dogma teaches that any female "gain" relative to men is positive, and any criticism of it is blind male chauvinism. These are the people who cheer girls' "better" performance in schools even though this is largely attributable to boys' worsening performance (and improved female test scores aren't relevant, because the exams, like the boys, have been dumbed down). It's a mindset that would consider it a good thing if women won every future marathon because men either lost their legs or stopped running.
And that is the point. If a warring nation must move a few divisions from the southern front to shore up the northern, it isn't a victory for those divisions; it means the war effort is waning. And if the divisions' generals view it as a personal victory because they'll have the opportunity to distinguish themselves, they're self-centered and ignorant.
Likewise, it was a sign of crisis when women had to assume men's roles in the factories during WWII, but the idea was that the crisis would end and normalcy resume. But today we are in perpetual war -- culture war -- in a never-ending crisis in which we fight ourselves and confuse losses with gains. No, the intersex wage gap isn't a bad thing, and it isn't good when it starts to close. The size of that gap correlates with the health of the nuclear family; the larger it is, the greater men's ability to support their families and women's opportunity to stay at home with the children. No, it isn't good when girls outshine boys in school, as this reflects a society of undisciplined lads and a hostile yet permissive, feminist-oriented academia.
And, no, it isn't good when you destroy patriarchy. Why? G.K. Chesterton put it best when he wrote, "What is called matriarchy is simply moral anarchy, in which the mother alone remains fixed because all the fathers are fugitive and irresponsible." If you want matriarchy, just go into the black community. Women rule the roost there, but they reign in a hell born of degraded morals and family breakdown. There has never been a successful matriarchy -- the notion of a matriarchal prehistory is a myth -- and there never will be.
This is why, ultimately, the feminist model is destined for the dustbin of history. The only system that ensures the perpetuation of civilization (replacement-level birth rates) is patriarchy; the only system that compels women and men to fulfill their responsibilities to hearth and home is patriarchy. And this is why, barring the end of man or a dystopian future in which children are lab-created assembly-line style to be the collective's drones, patriarchy is inevitable.
There is no substitute for tradition. The Soviets learned this the hard way, for after undermining the family, sex roles, and religion, mass murderer Joseph Stalin actually outlawed abortion in a vain attempt to combat a bottomed-out birth rate. But today Russia's population is still declining by 700,000 per year -- the wages of their statist sin.
When a people would be invaded or conquered years ago, the men and boys above a certain age would sometimes be killed. Emasculate a society, and it's no longer a force to be reckoned with. But we have emasculated ourselves, killing off manhood by neutering men emotionally, intellectually, and spiritually. This won't end well, but for sure it will end. Because the feminist band can play on, but the rising water will soon drown out their music -- for good.
Contact Selwyn Duke, follow him on Twitter or log on to SelwynDuke.com.Charity walk on Overland Track a success for father who carried son with cerebral palsy for a week
Updated
A Tasmanian man says his son's happy nature inspired him to carry the boy who has a disability for a week-long bushwalk on the Overland Track.
Eight-year-old Jack Duffy has cerebral palsy and cannot walk, talk or eat on his own.
Most people who walk the Overland Track take a backpack that weighs between 13 and 20 kilograms.
But Jack's father Chris Duffy's backpack was specially designed to carry his son Jack, who weighs 37 kilograms.
I was sitting there looking at Jack and sort of got a little emotional thinking that he was probably the first non-abled body, little boy or person maybe to be in that spot. Chris Duffy
Mr Duffy said the highlight of the walk was a rest stop at one of the mountain passes.
"I was sitting there looking at Jack and sort of got a little emotional thinking that he was probably the first non-abled body, little boy or person maybe to be in that spot," he said.
The gruelling bushwalk would not have been possible without the support of 13 friends who carried extra gear like nappies and specialised feeding equipment for Jack.
Lauren Atkinson, a real estate agent in Launceston, decided to volunteer as one of Mr Duffys' support crew.
"I don't think anyone can really appreciate how difficult it is to carry 37 kilos of wriggling child on your back, but Chris is a gun, Chris is amazing," she said.
"He just did it. There were some quite treacherous parts of the walk and he just did it and Jack loved it, every second."
Mr Duffy said he knew his son was having a good time.
"He's got amazing expression, he doesn't miss a thing, he's a cheeky little rat, really," he said.
"His smile, it sucks people in, just his attitude to life."
Jack's mother Erin was also on the trip, putting extra layers on her son at times to make sure he stayed warm when it started snowing.
She said it was obvious how much Jack enjoyed the six-day walk.
"Being out in the wilderness with his dad and just having fun, it was just so much fun and it was just really rewarding to see him so happy," she said.
It is not the first time Mr Duffy has been on an adventure with his son in Tasmania.
In 2009 he kayaked with Jack from Launceston around the East Coast to Hobart, raising $70,000 for a local disability support centre St Giles.
This time the Duffys have raised $20,000 for the disability support provider Life Without Barriers.
"We got the inspiration through Jack because he's such an inspirational little man," he said.
"He's got so many reasons not to be happy, content with his own life, because of challenges he faces, but he's so happy and loving and inspires us every day to do these things."
Ms Duffy said there were children who did not have the same support as her son and he wanted to raise money to help them.
"We'd like to do something that involves more people and lets more kids like Jack get involved," she said.
"And we're considering trying to get a bunch of kids to do a triathlon together, with support crews for each of those individual children."
Topics: health, disabilities, charities, tas
First postedThe revelation came from ex-footballer and Antonio Percassi, who is working with Starbucks bosses to bring the love-it-or-hate-it brand to Italy.
"We are aiming to open 200 to 300 sales points across Italy, we think that there's a place for it in the market," Percassi said at a Milan press conference, finance daily Il Sole 24 Ore reported. The Bergamo entrepreneur has previously brought global giants including Zara, the Lego Store and Victoria's Secret to Italy, so he would appear to be the right man for the job.
The first stores will be opened in Milan and Rome, though the opening date of the Italian flagship store has been pushed back. Initially scheduled to launch in Milan this year, Percassi said the country's first Starbucks would come "in 2018 after June, because we are doing a big thing here."
After that though, they'll be going at full throttle, with a further four shops expected to open that same week, spread between Rome and Milan.
And by 2023, Percassi says he hopes that there will be hundreds of Starbucks shops across the entire peninsula, "if the market responds well".
The venture was first announced in July last year, with Starbucks CEO Howard Shultz paying homage to Italy's cafe culture, which first inspired him to build his coffee empire.
During his trip to Milan and Verona in the early 1980s, Shultz said he was "inspired by the craftsmanship of the Milanese barista, the spirit of the Italian people, their passion for community, their friendliness and taste for quality".
He acknowledged the "unique challenge" of bringing the chain to Italy, and promised that the first branch would be designed "with painstaking detail and great respect for the Italian people and coffee culture”.
But when the rumours of Starbucks in Italy first began in 2015, local coffee experts and cafe-owners were aghast at the prospect.
One restaurant-owner told Italian the idea of a Starbucks in Italy was "disgusting", but said he was confident the chain wouldn't succeed here because Italians are "too protective" of their coffee.
Indeed, the country's rich café culture and love of coffee is well known – and usually at a fraction of the cost than the flavoured lattes and Frappuccinos served up at Starbucks, thanks to regulations which mean you'll rarely be charged over €1 for an espresso or €1.40 for a cappuccino.
Luigi Ordello, the president of the Italy-based Institute of International Coffee Tasters, which works to promote the appreciation of Italian coffee around the world, was pragmatic about the prospect.
“It wouldn't threaten Italian coffee if it does arrive, as Starbucks today represents an international standard of coffee and not an Italian one,” he told The Local at the time.
And one student and coffee-lover, Alice, said she didn't care if the coffee tasted good or not, “I will never choose an American coffee over an Italian one."
READ ALSO: Why coffee in Italy is a culture you must taste to understandAdvisory
LIBRARY
Open from 1 pm to 830 pm Thursday.
FITNESS CENTER
Open Thursday from noon to 8 pm.
CAMPUS SERVICES
The MarketPlace Residential Dining Hall will be open from 9:00 a.m to 8:00 p.m. Thursday.
9-11 Continental Breakfast
11-2 Brunch
2-5 Late Lunch
5-8 Dinner
The Campus Center will be open from 10:00 a.m-Midnight
The Student Lounge and Auditorium will be open from 10:00 a.m.-10:00 p.m.
There will be movies showing in the auditorium all day.
If you need to borrow a shovel, you can do so at the Student Lounge with a valid UMass ID
TRANSPORTATION
On campus transportation shuttle services to the Library, Campus Center and Fitness Center will be in service provided the road conditions are safe.
The Retail Services is cancelled.
Off campus transportation services of NB Harbor commission LOOP, DATTCO and SRTA will be in service as weather allows.
Changes to scheduling and services will be communicated through the main UMass Dartmouth webpage.The folks at the Vienna Restaurant in downtown Guelph, Ont., were too to busy to talk to me when I phoned around brunch time yesterday to get some information about the diner, asking me nicely to call back later.
I could tell from the background noise alone.
But that told me a lot about what I already suspected were the good times in this small city about an hour away from Toronto, depending on how fast you drive.
It’s a cute city, crime is low and there are a lot of university kids. And, notably, it leads the country on the jobs front.
Guelph has generally had lower unemployment. But a rejigged ranking of Canadian cities by BMO Nesbitt Burns puts it in top spot, with jobs growth of more than 9 per cent in December compared with a year earlier, an employment rate of 72 per cent that’s the best in the country, and a jobless level that is among the lowest and now down almost a full percentage point from late 2014.
“Guelph tops the list with robust job growth, population inflows, a puny 4.2-per-cent jobless rate and the highest share of the population that is working,” BMO senior economist Robert Kavcic noted as he released the rankings after Statistics Canada’s latest labour market report on Friday.
As The Globe and Mail’s Rachelle Younglai reports, that national report showed Canada churned out almost 23,000 new jobs last month, though unemployment held firm at an uncomfortably high 7.1 per cent.
Ontario gained about 35,000 jobs, and its unemployment rate eased to 6.7 per cent.
Which brings us back to Guelph, pop. 121,688 at the last official census count a few years ago.
Mr. Kavcic believes Guelph is benefiting from “broadening growth” outside the Greater Toronto Area, as are other nearby communities.
“Plus, they have a more stable and diverse job base (university, health care, etc.) than some others further south/west.”
Guelph’s economy is dependent on no one thing, unlike Oshawa and Windsor where the auto industry rules, though manufacturing has a dominant presence.
The city is also big in life sciences, biotechnology and agriculture-related industries, with a big university presence, boosted by the Guelph-Wellington Business Enterprise Centre and Innovation Guelph.
“I really want to embrace the entrepreneurial spirit,” Mayor Cam Guthrie said in an interview.
The young mayor, who has been in the position since 2014, sells his city well, citing not just the business opportunities, the land available, the five-year transformation of downtown, but also what new businesses are looking for in terms of the feel, from arts festivals to cafés to music “spilling onto the streets.”
Mr. Guthrie – you can call him “Mayor Cam” but please not “Your Worship” – said he sells businesses not only on the amenities you’d find in big cities, but also on “that small-town community feel and community spirit that is just difficult to find anywhere else.”
Major private employers in the city include auto-parts maker Linamar, The Co-operators insurance group and RWDI, a wind and environmental engineering firm headquartered in Guelph that Mr. Guthrie said is looking to double its work force.
The mayor and his council are juggling a lot: Among other things, there’s a 200-acre business park under development, with the first phase already serviced.
And along with the efforts of the Guelph economic development department, there’s a business retention team aimed at helping existing employers expand.
They sell diversification, and there’s a new tourism strategy to focus on just a couple of areas that the stakeholders believe they’re good at.
Guelph’s official plan projects 45,000 to 50,000 more people by 2031, and there’s now construction under way to house an estimated 9,000 in the downtown core, where it’s important to work and live.
From the banker to the butcher, as Mr. Guthrie put it.
And the folks at the quaint Vienna, which has been around in various forms for about a century, offers bottomless coffee, buys locally and is home to “the famous Vienna breakfast.” And the mayor dined there just last Friday.
You’d know the type of place as soon as you saw it.efoxsolomon / Flickr
After the death of a child on the Scajaquada, or New York Route 198, Buffalo locals are demanding changes.
“A walk in the park.” It’s a cliché of peacefulness and ease. But for the family of 3-year-old Maksym Sugorovskiy, a walk in Delaware Park in Buffalo turned into a nightmare that will never end. On a pleasant spring day, a driver traveling on the Scajaquada Expressway—a high-speed four-lane thoroughfare that slices through this majestic and popular green haven at the heart of the city—veered off the road. He smashed into Maksym, his mother, and his 5-year-old sister as they walked away from the little girl’s soccer game. Maksym was killed. His sister was critically injured. The driver told police he had fallen asleep at the wheel. The crash is still under investigation. In response to the tragedy, New York Governor Andrew Cuomo ordered the speed limit on the Scajaquada lowered from 50 to 30 mph. Guardrails are being erected to protect people on foot from drivers. But members of the community are asking why it took the death of a child to make the changes, and calling for a comprehensive redesign of the road that would reunite the divided park, one of Frederick Law Olmsted’s most beautiful. “I couldn’t not mobilize. I’m like the angry mom of Buffalo now.” “For years we have, as a community, fought this road,” says Michael DeLuca, a member of the Parkside Community Association, which has been among many groups advocating for a complete redesign since the 1990s. “The speed limit is 50 miles per hour, but people go 60. It’s been laden with accidents through the years. All around the park, there is not one safe pedestrian entrance.” Maksym’s death has mobilized a whole new group of activists on the issue, including Kerri Markovich. She’s a Buffalo native who lives near the park and often takes her two young children, aged 22 months and 5 months, to the Buffalo Zoo, which is near the crash site. “It was so traumatic, to think it could have happened to me,” says Markovich. “I couldn’t not mobilize. I’m like the angry mom of Buffalo now.”
Markovich started a Facebook page called Parents for a Safe Delaware Park, which has gathered nearly 2,500 supporters, and started a petition demanding that the expressway be turned into a parkway, with a speed limit of 30 mph and ample accommodations for people on foot. Because the Scajaquada is a state road, any changes have to go through the New York State Department of Transportation. Prioritizing cars over people The Scajaquada Expressway, named for a nearby stream, is by no means an original feature of Delaware Park, which was designed in the 1870s by Olmsted and his partner Calvert Vaux, the acknowledged geniuses of American urban green space. Olmsted came to Buffalo—then a thriving city, grooming itself |
undit Gym owner P' Dit worsened during her three-fight losing streak. Other Giatbundit families wondered aloud if those hard fights that Joy had lost to TKOs were a ploy to get Joy and Comb out of the gym. Rumors started spreading that Dit had purposely set up fights he knew Joy wouldn't win.
Joy and her father ended their relationship with Giatbundit more or less permanently. After her final year of school, she left for Bangkok. She had dreamed of going to university to be a nurse. Last I heard, she was following in her older brother and sister's footsteps, working menial labor in Bangkok and not attending school.
SENRAK
At the time of the Maha Sarakham fight, 16-year-old Senrak had been living and training full-time at Giatbundit Gym. One of the gym's top fighters, Senrak was already a veteran of Lumpinee Stadium in Bangkok, and had competed for multiple Isaan titles around his home region.
A year later, he is now managed by his father. Senrak’s father had had a falling out with Giatbundit owner P' Dit over money, accusing Dit of skimming too much off the purses. Senrak quietly left Giatbundit for Jitmuangnong Gym in Bangkok, but didn't sign as a contracted fighter and thus wasn't given much attention there. He has since returned to his home in Isaan.
In his years of fighting, Senrak has bounced around a few different gyms in Isaan. Local gym owners or promoters find him fights, he trains at their gyms, and they put up the side bet for his fight. He doesn't stay with any one gym for very long, though, as he is something of a free agent. He spends most of his time training at home and competing in the local circuit. Now 17, he is out of school, having left to focus on fighting after completing his last compulsory year, Grade 10. Senrak is a fairly promising fighter, but his age, 17, his future is very uncertain, a story similar to thousands of other teenage fighters around Isaan.
JAMESAK
It was 3:30 in the morning when I watched Jamesak finally enter the ring at the Maha Sarakham show last year. Despite being awake nearly 24 hours at that point, he won by K.O. in Round Three.
Strong yet inexperienced, Jamesak was an interesting case. He'd begun his fight career when he was 17 years old and 52kg, unlike the average Isaan fighter who starts around 10 years old and 25kg. At his age, he should have had dozens of fights. The one I had watched was only his second.
Abandoned by his parents at a young age, Jamesak had been living with his adoptive family in a tiny home at Wat Hong Temple in a village in Buriram Province at the time I met him. He doesn't know who his biological father is, and his mother is away working in Pattaya. He was raised by his grandmother, then left her village to live with another family nearby, partially to escape the rampant gang and drug problems in his grandmother's hometown. He is fluent in Khmer, a mark of being from one of the poorest and most marginalized areas of Thailand.
On the warm December day I found him, nearly six months after his Maha Sarakham fight, he was working as a laborer in construction and maintenance at Wat Hong temple, where he and his adoptive family had been living. When I asked how his life had been going, he sheepishly smiled his half-smile, face partially paralyzed from a motorbike accident when he was 13, and wordlessly lifted his shirt to reveal scars from knife wounds he'd sustained only a few months before.
Jamesak had been visiting his grandmother in her village at the time of the attack. Local gang members had jumped him from behind, stabbing him nine times as revenge for a feud with his uncle. Jamesak had not been personally involved in the feud. He likely would have died in the attack had his friends not rushed to his rescue to break up the fight and bring him to the hospital. One of the stab wounds was just inches from his lung. He was intubated to assist with breathing during his hospital stay.
I saw him again a few months later. He'd recovered more or less fully, and was living and training full-time at Sor. Dungchang Gym in Buriram, slowly easing his way back into fighting, and finding success in the ring. I told him the same thing I’d told the others, that I’d come see him again next year to check in.
Language interpretation by Frances Watthanaya.
Check out these related stories:
The All-Nighter Fights in Isaan, Thailand
Daughter of Muay Thai
Just Three Hours a Day: Isaan Girls and the Importance of Muay ThaiRepublican presidential candidate Newt Gingrich may not appear on the ballot for the June 26 Utah primary, after a $500 check - the required filing fee - bounced, an official said.
State election director Mark Thomas told ABC News that a $500 check given by the Gingrich campaign to secure his place on the Utah ballot bounced on March 27.
"Our office immediately attempted to contact the campaign and the designated agent but no phone calls were returned," Thomas said. "We also asked the state Republican Party to assist us, but they also could not get into communication with them, although I do not know how they attempted to contact them."
One source close to the campaign told ABC News that the Gingrich campaign recently changed finance and accounting staff. The designated agent who filed the paperwork for the campaign was Wallace Woodruff "Woody" Hales, though Hales still works for the Gingrich campaign.
If the fee is not paid by April 20, Gingrich will be disqualified from the ballot.
"Our office certifies the candidates to the county clerks on April 24," Thomas said.
The check bounce comes as no surprise as Gingrich confirmed a debt of almost $4.5 million to ABC News on Tuesday. The last Federal Election Commission report from February showed a debt of less than $2 million.
Gingrich told ABC News today that the debt increase was because the campaign got "very excited in Florida" after his South Carolina win.
"Romney spent $20 million in Florida in three weeks and I think some of our guys decided to try to match him and we didn't have Wall Street," Gingrich said. "I am going to spend some time paying it off. It is something I have done several times in my career."
Gingrich said his campaign did "exactly what a conservative should do" who is in debt.
"We cut our expenses, we cut our staff, we are now in the process of paying it off but I think what happened is, they got really involved in the fight in Florida and didn't stop and just say to themselves, 'Wait a second.' I can beat Mitt Romney in ideas, I can't possibly compete with him in money," Gingrich said.
On the day Rick Santorum suspended his campaign, Gingrich sent an email to supporters saying he was "the last conservative standing." The campaign emailed to voters that the goal was to achieve 12,000 donations by midnight.This article is about the cruise ship. For the princess, see Princess Victoria Louise of Prussia
Prinzessin Victoria Luise
Scientific American cover) Interior and exterior views of the ship (1901cover)
Prinzessin Victoria Luise was a German passenger ship of the Hamburg-America Line (HAPAG) of some 4,409 gross register tons (GRT). She is credited with having been the first purpose-built cruise ship. Launched on 29 June 1900, she served with HAPAG until 16 December 1906 after being accidentally grounded off Jamaica.
History [ edit ]
In 1886, Albert Ballin joined HAPAG (Hamburg-Amerikanische-Packetfahrt-Actien-Gesellschaft) as manager of its passage department. Thirteen years later, in 1899, he became managing director. It was during this term that he realized his company’s largest and flagship vessel, Augusta Victoria, lay largely unused during the winter season. Due to inclement weather, travelers largely stayed away from the North Atlantic route. It was then that Ballin, despite criticism from his fellow directors at HAPAG and other steamship companies, planned to send Augusta Victoria on a 58-day “pleasure voyage” from Cuxhaven, Germany to the Mediterranean and Orient. This extended cruise would include well-planned excursions ashore to ports-of-call along the route and Ballin would be a passenger himself. The voyage was a success, and similar ones were planned.
Despite their increasing success, these early cruises, called "excursions", were difficult to plan with existing ships. Constructed as ocean liners, they did not meet the requirements of the pleasure-seeking market. They offered few amenities aboard. This became apparent during long stretches at sea. Furthermore, their construction as multi-class vessels also proved a hindrance as such vessels provided restricted access to deck space. Whatever deck space there was, was mostly sheltered, and designed to accommodate the rigors of the North Atlantic instead of the seas of more southern climes. Ballin believed that only a vessel specifically designed for cruising would be appropriate. Furthermore, such a vessel could spend the entire year doing so.
A few months after Ballin became managing director, he commissioned – in 1900 – Blohm & Voss to construct such a ship, to be named after Kaiser Wilhelm II's daughter. The ship was launched on 29 June 1900 and christened Prinzessin Victoria Luise.
A revolutionary ship [ edit ]
With cruises targeted toward wealthy travelers, Prinzessin Victoria Luise was designed to look more like a private yacht than any of her commercial counterparts. She had a trim hull 52.2 feet (15.9 m) wide by 407.5 feet (124.2 m) long. She was painted all white and had two masts (one fore and aft) and two tall, slim funnels amidships. She had a rounded stern and a richly decorated clipper bow, with bowsprit, ending in a figurehead of the German princess.
On board, she also did not look like other commercial vessels of the time. She contained 120 cabins, all first class. All staterooms were luxuriously appointed. Reportedly, Ballin instituted some interior modifications recommended by the emperor. There was also a library, a gymnasium, and a darkroom for the development of film by amateur photographers. Pushing all this at a steady 15 knots (28 km/h) were quadruple expansion steam engines. After fitting out, the kaiser formally inspected the vessel and was unhappy that it was slightly longer than the royal yacht Hohenzollern.
Short career [ edit ]
Prinzessin Victoria Luise left on her maiden voyage on 5 January 1901 from Hamburg, stopping at Boulogne, Plymouth, and finally reaching New York on 17 January. She would depart New York on 26 January to the West Indies for her first cruise. Her second cruise, to the Mediterranean and the Black Sea, commenced from New York on 9 March. Other cruises would take the ship to the Baltic. She would be used almost exclusively for cruising, as she had limited cargo or mail capacity. Yet, she would be diverted from cruising on six occasions to make complete transatlantic crossings.
Almost five years after her debut, her career came to an end while on a West Indian cruise. On the night of 16 December, the ship had tried to enter the harbor of Kingston, but later her commander Captain Brunswig decided to anchor at Port Royal when he mistook the lighthouse at Plumb Point for that at the westernmost point of Port Royal.[1] Heading north at 14 knots (26 km/h; 16 mph), the ship hit and climbed onto the rocks bow first at about 21:30.[1] In an attempt to dislodge the ship, the engines were put full astern to no avail.
Although the passengers were rescued without loss the following morning, Captain Brunswig retreated to his cabin and committed suicide with a gunshot to the head.[1] A German admiralty court found the captain negligent in May of the following year.
Salvage operations commenced immediately after the grounding. The German cruiser Bremen and the French training ship Duguay-Trouin came to the aid of the stranded ship, with Bremen attempting to tow the steamer off the rocks. Within days, continued buffeting by waves and a storm pushed the ship broadside of the shore with a sharp list to port. Inspection revealed major structural damage to her frame and keel plates. Her engines had been displaced during impact and her port side was filled with 16 feet (4.9 m) of water. She was declared a total loss on 19 December.
References [ edit ]
The American Marine Engineer (1908). "Tourist Ship Prinzessin Luise a Wreck". The American Marine Engineer. New York/Chicago: National Marine Engineer's Beneficial Association. 2 (January, 1907).
Coordinates:While Xi Jinping may want to build a stronger, more advanced military force to “safeguard national sovereignty, security and development interests,” there are some concerns that China’s incoming crops of recruit won’t be up to the task — being too busy playing on their phone, eating and masturbating to solider properly
According to an article posted on the WeChat account of the People’s Liberation Army Daily, 56.9% of armed services candidates at one unnamed town were rejected for failing to meet physical fitness standards.
One-fifth of these candidates were rejected for being too fat, others because excessive smartphone use had damaged their eyesight or because they had consumed too much snack foods or soda pop, resulting in poor liver and gallbladder function.
Meanwhile, 8% were rejected because of “abnormal enlargement of small testicular veins,” caused by too much masturbation.
The report follows numerous studies done in recent years which have found that the physical fitness level of Chinese youths is deteriorating at a worrying rate. Earlier this year, one study found that China was home to more obese children than any other country on earth.
However, after reports of excessively pudgy and overly frustrated Chinese teens hit international media, China’s military was quick to dismiss speculation about the poor quality of its new recruits, arguing that a higher number of rejected applicants does not mean a decrease in troop quality.
“China’s recruitment process has strict rules and procedures,” the Defense Ministry office said. “The quality of our recruits is guaranteed, and the headwaters of our military will flow long and strong.”
Back in 2014, the PLA did relax recruitment standards a bit, allowing for slightly shorter and slightly rounder men and women to apply, not to mention those with “less than ideal eyesight” and those with tattoos.
This all comes after a report in the PLA Daily earlier this month which warned of the havoc that the extremely popular mobile game “Honor of Kings” was wreaking on its ranks, worrying that the highly-addictive smartphone smash hit could slow down soldiers in real-life combat scenarios
“There is certainly a security risk that can’t be overlooked,” the People’s Liberation Army Daily newspaper warned gravely. “The game requires constant attention but a soldier’s job is full of uncertainty. Once a soldier is cut off from the game for an urgent mission, he could be absent-minded during the operation if his mind remains on the game.”
Hey, at least when they’re playing that game, they aren’t busy enlarging their small testicular veins.Experts say lifestyle changes can cut emissions and diseases globally as a major study shows climate change is undermining five decades of progress in health
Eat less red meat and cycle more for your and the planet's health
High-carbon lifestyles are desperately unhealthy, according to Hugh Montgomery, director of the UCL Institute for human health and performance and co-chair of the Lancet commission.
Cutting red meat and dairy consumption would lead to a big saving in methane, which is 23 times as potent a greenhouse gas as carbon dioxide “from essentially belching cows. That saves a lot of strokes, heart disease, bowel cancer and so forth,” he said.
Big savings are possible from “active transport” – more cycling and walking. Reductions in vehicle particulates improves respiratory health and reduces cardiovascular disease, as well as making people healthier and happier.
There are very big savings from people using more calories to move around, reducing obesity, diabetes and cardiovascular risks. The European commission says savings of well over €30-35bn (£22-£25bn) per year in healthcare costs could be made from quite modest reductions in greenhouse gases.
Many cities in North America and Europe have started to go green. “All the surveys show that 80% of people want this. Let’s accelerate that. Let politicians catch up with the appetite of their citizens and mayors,” said Anthony Costello, director of the UCL Institute for global health and co-chair of the commission.
He cited Melbourne which has set itself to become zero carbon, San Francisco, Chicago, Seattle, Minneapolis, Zermatt and Vancouver. “Bogota has set itself very aggressive targets for becoming low emission and investing hugely in buses and electric transport,” he said.
In the UK, Newcastle, Leicester, Brighton, Bristol, Edinburgh and even London, which has introduced a lot more cycle pathways, are moving in the same direction. It’s not just about cycling, but also green infrastructure for flood mitigation and fresh water control, and having more parks for recreation with direct benefits on people’s health. There are also indirect benefits – trees buffer, wind and noise.
The cost of air travel might have to rise, but one proposal is that one cheap family package holiday per year would be allowed.
“The growth in air transport is short hop, short term leisure travel,” said Paul Ekin, professor of resources and environmental policy at UCL. “Stag parties in Barcelona over the weekend – that sort of thing might become quite a bit more expensive so people might think twice about doing that. But at the kind of carbon prices we’re looking at – $200 per ton perhaps by 2050 – that would not translate even to a doubling of current airfares. One mustn’t exaggerate, but it would become more expensive.”But that has started to change. While some regard the so-called upcycling of old gadgets into picture frames or planters as an ecological gesture, others see it as a celebration of shared technological heritage.
Jake Harms, 31, who lives in Hildreth, Neb., started a business recycling old iMacs into aquariums and desk lamps in 2007 after a boss directed him to toss an outmoded iMac G3.
The candy-colored, egg-shaped desktop computer, introduced in 1998 as one of Steve Jobs’s first iconic pieces during Apple’s late-’90s comeback, seemed too lovely to toss, Mr. Harms reasoned. So after some online research, he decided to turn it into a computer fish tank (a longstanding hobby for some techies), and has since sold more than 1,000, he said.
To Mr. Harms, the iMac is functional art, like a classic car. And just as a 1960s Ford Mustang may not make an ideal daily drive but is great for a weekend cruises, “an old computer may not run current software, but make some modifications and it makes a pretty sweet aquarium or lamp,” he said.
Apple products created early in the reign of Jonathan Ive, the company’s design guru since 1996, are a natural for reuse as household objects since many were hailed as classics from the outset. For example, Lonnie Mimms, a Georgia real estate executive who owns a collection of vintage computers he values at more than $1 million, recently staged an Apple Pop Up Museum in a former CompUSA store near Atlanta.Now that we're well into the cycle of regular Android 9 Pie updates, Pixel owners are clamoring to get the latest updates to Android 9 as soon as possible. But Google doesn't always push these over-the-air updates as soon as people would like, which is where this guide comes in. Using the tips below, you can sideload factory images or OTA updates to your Pixel device as soon as they are available.
Products used in this guide
Sideloading a new Android 9 build
Before we go into the steps of sideloading Android updates, it is strongly recommended that you have previous knowledge of working with the Android SDK (software development kit) and Terminal (macOS or Linux) or Command Prompt (Windows). It's possible to harm your device if something were to go wrong in the following process.
If you need to download the Android SDK you can grab it from the Android Development website and follow their instructions on how to install it correctly. For the following process, all you will need is the adb and fastboot files which are located in the Platform Tools folder — you don't need the entire SDK.
Additionally, all the following commands are written as they would be in Terminal on a Linux or OS X platform. If you are following this guide and using a Windows machine, you will not need to use the "./" seen in the guide.
Enable developer settings and USB debugging
Go to your Settings and scroll down to System and tap About Phone. Tap on the Build number seven times until the dialog box says "you are now a developer." Go back to the System menu and you should find a new option called Developer options. Make sure that the developer options are turned on and that USB debugging is on. While in Developer options, turn on OEM unlocking. Plug your device into your computer and click "OK" on the dialog box asking you to Allow USB debugging while connected to the computer. You can also select to always allow access on that computer.
If done correctly, this will be everything you will need to do on your phone or tablet for the moment.
Unlocking your bootloader
Pixel phones bought from Google directly have a bootloader you can unlock. If you want to manually flash software, you'll need to do this.
To do this you must first boot into your bootloader. You can either manually turn off your phone or tablet and hold down the power button and the volume down button to enter your device's Bootloader Menu or you can enter the following commands into your terminal or command prompt.
Run the following command to make sure your device is properly connected to your computer. If it returns a string of characters it means that you are all set to start updating your device.
./adb devices
Now to enter into the Bootloader menu just run the following command.
./adb reboot bootloader
At the bottom of the screen, there will be several things listed including the lock state of the device. This should say locked unless you have unlocked your bootloader in the past and never went back and locked it again.
To unlock your bootloader, which is required only when flashing a stock firmware image (not sideloading and update, which we'll get to soon), you must enter the following commands. Remember that when unlocking your Pixel's bootloader it will factory reset your device, so you will lose everything stored on it. If you haven't backed up anything important on your device yet you can hit the power button while Start is highlighted in the Bootloader menu and this will boot you back into your device like normal. Now back to unlocking your bootloader.
Now type:
./fastboot flashing unlock
A dialog will appear on the device asking if you are sure about unlocking. Again this will factory reset your device, so if you want to back out of the process you just need to select no with the power button. If you are ready to unlock your bootloader you press the volume up button and then the power button to confirm that you wish to unlock your bootloader.
./fastboot reboot-bootloader
It is recommended to reboot the bootloader just to give itself a check to make sure everything is working correctly before moving on to the next step.
Flashing the stock firmware image
Now that your bootloader is unlocked, it's time to flash the new firmware. To find the system images, head on over to the Factory Images page, find your device, and download the latest factory image available. It is easiest to then uncompress the file in the Platform Tools folder where the adb and fastboot files are so that you don't have to type the path to the different files when flashing the firmware. (Or if you know that you can drag a file into a terminal window to copy the path, just do that.)
To begin, make sure you are still in the bootloader menu on your device and double check that your bootloader is in fact unlocked.
First, make sure that your computer is communicating correctly with your phone or tablet. As long as your device's serial number comes back as a connected device you are ready to begin updating your device.
./fastboot devices
Now it is time to flash the updated bootloader with the following command.
./fastboot flash bootloader [bootloader file].img
You will not see anything on the screen of your device but there should be a dialog in your terminal or command prompt. When it is done flashing the bootloader you should reboot back into the bootloader as to make sure everything is still working correctly.
./fastboot reboot-bootloader
Next, you flash the updated radios. This step is only necessary if you are updating the firmware of a phone or tablet that has cellular radios built into it.
./fastboot flash radio [radio file].img
./fastboot reboot-bootloader
Finally, it's time to flash the actual system image to your phone or tablet.
Warning: The following line of code will wipe your device. If you do not want your device to be wiped, remove the "-w" from the command. The update should still take just fine, and it will not wipe your user data.
./fastboot -w update [image file].zip
When this is done, your phone will restart itself and boot up normally. As this process clears all data from your device, it will take slightly longer for your device to boot up for the first time. Once you have been greeted with the device setup walkthrough process, you know you have successfully flashed a new version of the firmware.
If you do not want to enter the commands manually there are scripts included inside the compressed folder containing the system image that will do most but not all of the heavy lifting for you. The flash-all script files will automate the flashing of the bootloader, radios (if needed), and the system image. The problem with this process is that you must first make sure that your phone is in the bootloader menu and its bootloader must be unlocked before starting the script. Of course, if these are not already done the script will fail to run and nothing will happen.
Flashing an OTA update image
If you don't want to unlock your bootloader, you can sideload an OTA update. That is, you're going to download to a computer the update file your phone normally would grab itself over the air (thus OTA), and then push it over via the command line.
It used to be that we'd have to hunt for the OTA file location when a phone would download it, and use that to pull the file from Google's servers. And we can still do that if we want... but Google now provides OTA images for download. (You can find them here). This is a smaller file that just brings you from the previous version to the latest version — it isn't a complete operating system that could be loaded onto a phone fresh.
Just as is the case with the factory image update, put the OTA file in the Platform Tools directory to simplify the process of sending the file to your phone.
First, make sure that your computer is communicating correctly with your phone or tablet. As long as your device's serial number comes back as a connected device you are ready to begin updating your device.
./adb devices
Next, put your device into the bootloader menu by either the following command or by holding down the power button and the volume down button while it is turned off.
./adb reboot bootloader
Now use the volume down button twice until you have scrolled to Recovery mode, and press the power button to select it. It will look like your phone is restarting itself but an image of an Android with a red exclamation mark over it will appear. Next, hold down the power button and press the volume up button, and you will be in recovery mode.
Now that you are in the Android system recovery, use the volume down button to highlight apply update from ADB and press the power button to select it. The text on your Pixel's screen will now say that you can send the OTA to the device using adb.
./adb sideload [OTA file].zip
In your terminal or command prompt you will see a dialog that shows you the progress of transferring the update to your phone or tablet and once it has been completely transferred you can read what is happening with the update live on screen. Again, once the process is done your phone will restart itself and attempt to boot normally. You have successfully updated!The cost of using a Broadway theater became more expensive after the production experienced delays and one woman who put up collateral for the show is still waiting for her money.
Spider-Man: Turn Off the Dark, the most expensive Broadway musical ever produced, has endured a lot since it began performances last November: Budget overruns, cast and director changes, and, of course, injuries. The production has survived flying equipment, broken harnesses, and nosy workplace safety inspectors. Now, the show has something new to contend with as an investor is suing the production for money owed.
To get off the ground, the Broadway spectacle had to pull money from many sources, including from Patricia Lambrecht, who put up $2.5 million in collateral so that producers could license the theater on 213 West 42nd Street in New York where the show was scheduled to run.
Specifically, as a condition of the Theater License Agreement, producers of Spider-Man: Turn Off the Dark needed to demonstrate that the theater would be returned to good condition at the conclusion of the production.
Lambrecht's collateral was a guarantee that even if the show never opened, the theater would be paid for restoration costs.
Lambrecht pledged $2.5 million, but the agreement allegedly provides that she was to be paid a facility fee totaling $368,750.
After the production experienced numerous delays, the show's producers needed Lambrecht to extend the pledge of collateral. Since the show was becoming riskier, the cost of doing so became more expensive. Labrecht says that she got an agreement where the facility fee paid to her would be upped to $985,000.
But Lambrecht says she's only gotten $360,000 from producers, leaving a balance of $625,000, plus seven months of interest and counting. She's just filed a lawsuit in New York to get her money.
E-mail: eriqgardner@yahoo.com
Twitter: @eriqgardner'Game of Thrones' releases chilling second trailer (with Beric Dondarrion!)
CLOSE On the first day of summer, HBO released a slew of promotional material for season seven of 'Game of Thrones,' all featuring the slogan: "Winter is here." USA TODAY
Brace yourselves Game of Thrones fans, because #WinterIsHere.
The second trailer for the seventh season of the epic medieval fantasy series was released Wednesday, and it’s even more chilling than the first.
CLOSE The new season of 'Game of Thrones' premieres July 16 on HBO. HBO
As war scenes glide across the screen, we hear the voice of Jon Snow (Kit Harington) sending a cool message of unity.
"For centuries, our families fought together against their common enemy, despite their differences — together," he says. "We need to do the same if we're going to survive, because the enemy is real. It's always been real."
After more battle imagery filled with fire, and a glimpse of the long-lost Beric Dondarrion, the trailer ends on a solemn note with Sansa Stark (Sophie Turner) reiterating Snow’s message of unity.
"When the snows fall and the white winds blow, the lone wolf dies — but the pack survives,” she says.
Game of Thrones returns July 16 to HBO. You can watch the trailer and scroll through photos from the upcoming season below.
Read or Share this story: https://usat.ly/2sQT9yT“If we believe their politics comes from lack of sophistication because they’re unintelligent or uneducated,” says Panofsky, “I think we’re liable to make a lot of mistakes in how we cope with them.”
Panofsky, Donovan, and their team of researchers analyzed 3,070 Stormfront posts spanning more than a decade—all from forum threads in which at least one user revealed the results of a DNA test. Some of the results were 100 percent European, as users expected. But often—surprisingly often, says Panofsky—users disclosed tests results showing non-European ancestry. And despite revealing non-European ancestry on a forum full of white nationalists, they were not run off the site.
While some commenters reacted with anger, many reacted by offering up arguments to explain away the test results. These arguments largely fell into two camps.
First, they could simply reject all genetic ancestry testing. Genealogy or the so-called mirror test (“When you look in the mirror, do you see a Jew? If not, you’re good”) were better tests of racial purity, some suggested. Others offered up conspiracies about DNA testing companies led by Jews: “I think 23andMe might be a covert operation to get DNA the Jews could then use to create bio-weapons for use against us.”
The second category of explanation was a lot more nuanced—and echoed in many ways legitimate critiques of the tests. When companies like 23andMe or AncestryDNA return a result like 23 percent Iberian, for example, they’re noting similarities between the customer’s DNA and people currently living in that region. But people migrate; populations change. It doesn’t pinpoint where one’s ancestors actually lived. One Stormfront user wrote:
See, THIS is why I don’t recommend these tests to people. Did they bother to tell you that there were whites in what is now Senegal all that time ago? No? So they led you to believe that you’re mixed even though in all probability, you are simply related to some white fool who left some of his DNA with the locals in what is now Senegal.
Panofsky notes that legitimate scientific critiques are often distorted by a white-nationalist interpretation of history. For example, the mixing of DNA in a region would be explained by the heroic conquest of Vikings. Or a white female ancestor was raped by an African man.
The team also identified a third group of reactions: acceptance of the genetic ancestry test results. Some users did start to rethink white nationalism. Not the basic ideology—Stormfront’s forums are not exactly the place you would do that—but the criteria for whiteness. For example, one user suggested a white-nationalist confederation, where different nations would have slightly different criteria for inclusion:
So in one nation having Ghengis Khan as your ancestor won’t disqualify you, while in others it might. Hypothetically, I might take a DNA test and find that I don’t qualify for every nation and every nation’s standards, though I'm sure that at least one of those nations (and probably many of them) will have standards that would include me
Another user dug deep into the technical details of genetic ancestry testing. The tests can rely on three different lines of evidence: the Y chromosome that comes from your father’s father’s father and so on, the mitochondrial DNA that comes from your mother’s mother’s mother and so on, and autosomal DNA that can come from either side. One user suggested that a purity in the Y chromosome and mitochondrial DNA were more important than in the autosomal DNA. But others disagreed.A vessel carrying drugs worth crores was seized off the coast of Gujarat.
A joint investigation into the drugs seizure near Gujarat is underway.
The Coast Guard made the biggest single narcotic haul this week, seizing around 1,500 kg of heroin valued at around Rs 3,500 crore, from a merchant vessel off Gujarat coast.The Coast Guard ships Samudra Pavak and Ankit intercepted the merchant vessel on Saturday noon. The ship was brought to Porbandar this morning. A joint investigation by the Coast Guard, Intelligence Bureau, police, Customs, Navy and other agencies is currently underway, officials said.The search operation for the suspect vessel was started by ships and aircraft of the Coast Guard on July 27."Based on intelligence inputs, the vessel was intercepted at around 1200 hrs yesterday. This is the largest single haul of narcotics seized till date," a defence spokesperson was quoted as saying by news agency Press Trust of India. "The movements of all ships in the area including the suspect vessel were minutely observed throughout till its apprehension along with eight crew members by Indian Coast Guard ships on July 29," read an official statement, reported news agency IANS.New Zealand's oldest surviving maritime structures may have been identified by researchers who have taken a much closer look at the first printed image of the country.
A high-resolution image of the drawing of a Maori canoe, done by Abel Tasman's artist in December 1642, has revealed new information about Maori occupation in Golden Bay.
Canterbury University maritime history student Rosanne Hawarden and Wellington researcher Rudiger Mack said they had been able to use the image to identify beach landing sites.
The image, first published in the Netherlands in 1705, shows Maori warriors in a canoe, one of a number that circled Tasman's ship after it anchored in Golden Bay. Tasman called it Murderers Bay because four of his crew were killed when their rowing boat was rammed by a canoe.
When Mack had the image enlarged he found surprising new detail. Canoes near the shore were so tiny they were all but invisible to the naked eye.
Armed with the magnified images, Hawarden and Mack made several trips to Golden Bay and were able to identify two beaches - near the historic pa site at Taupo Pt in Abel Tasman National Park, and Takapou, in Wainui Bay.
Drawings of Taupo Pt done by surveyor John Barnicoat in 1844 showed canoes on the same rocky beach. They also show where large boulders had been moved so canoes could be hauled ashore.
Hawarden said the landing site had been ignored in archaeological surveys, and the pa site had not been radiocarbon dated.
"If the landing site was in existence before the Dutch arrival, it would be the oldest existing maritime structure in New Zealand and a site of national importance," she said.
She and Mack interviewed local iwi, Maori scholars and former landowners and searched photographic archives. All the evidence showed that the rows of cleared boulders had changed very little in living memory.
Mack will be doing a presentation on the canoe landing site at the Museum of Wellington City & Sea at 7.30pm on February 25.
An a high resolution copy of the images can be ordered through the National Library.Web applications which require high scale or redundancy (very common in enterpise environments) must be deployed to multiple web servers and traffic distributed to the servers by a |
Toe aiosi I'opuuir vaAOiea Maae
- :''"vst on the, Coast f.-.- ',
HONOLULU DRU G CO,' LTD.
1C24 Fort SL : Telephone 1SS4
Ctixxs R.' Frazier
V" Company i V
PORTUGUESE ARE
TO FILE CHARGES
WITH SEC. FISHER
Matter of Distribution of Hai
ku Pineapple Lands to Be
Brought' Up
The Portuguese residents of the Ha
walhn Islands are deeply interested
In the 'probable. visit of Secretary
Fisher to the islands, and Judging bv
fan editorial appearing in "A Setta" of
Mlo, will be on band to preitr
cb3rges, notibly In regard to tne dis
tributlon of the Haiku pineapple lands.
The editorial is as follows:
"The long delayed, lorg expected,
and very welcomed Fisher is now
scheduled with certainty, to arrive in
the near future. Of course it is a fore-
going conclusion that the result of his
Investigation will not acect Frear's
reappointment in the least Cut he
v:in lx firiven few atdministration
nuts" to crack which we hope he will
"devour with some relish. 4 The most
interesting oes will be relative ta
homesteading.
f'Here were. the preliminary one3.
VTby were the Molokns A gang of
unworthy Hussims given the choic?
tf-Oie'Kapaa landg'it $15.00 an acre,
I ji preference vto. the Kauai cltir.eri
who had been, were, are, and Will be
glamoring for lands?, Whywemtr8
' sa rbe lands; abandoned by the -Molo-kans
leased to the Hon. Faircfclld;and
bi&rowd? v'-'-,- : "':;Vr '. f,H.
rWhy? Is' ; it th? t now- af te m nt
years the worse portion of these land
la l cf?g reopened for 'homesteads at
a highe- figure than, was given?to ths
. "Why was It, that a number nf r-
Jicitons from ra;uU!eBorrtftvKaiVu
r ineapple: lands -were ignored?., viiy
were these same lands given to Mal
hinis from America and Government
officials Jin Honolulu? ; Why; ; did the
Supreme Court refer to every diction
ary and Encyslopldla Ir. existence b6
as.to deci de th?t actu il. and : pr rm-m-
ent residence is required bythe. Kalwf
kl 'Tn. jfHaal3i)3Homest'eadera.?',
'-."Why-arrf King tStarret, and Prince,
T?'Tichard '.rllowed. to reside In Ho"p
lulu; pressing the crutch of fat Govern
nftit obs while' the'r homestead in
Haiku are being' cultivated 'by Asia
tics? How will '.these Gov. H officials
comply with the taw as laid I down by
the.Supreme Court?''' v'"'': r.
rWhyre the iratelads,-cut Into
CO acres-lots at. $15.00 an acreVand th
Kulalmano, 4 (Pepeekeo) lands 'into 9
ar-d 10 acre lots at $90.00?n Bcfe?
Why does anf acre of Haiku Pineapple
land produce four times as. much year
1 y income as an. acre of Popeekeo
cane land?? v' :.::-:!: - t rX f?
"Why? " Why? Wh v?: 5
;;WASHIKGtbN, 6i July 29.--Secretary
Fisher expects Congress to
adjourn in time'forhim to:reachrSan
Francisco sb to sail, for Hajrail on
the steamer of August 23d. v - '. -
" : The ternrH)f Governor Frearr of Ha
waii expired over'aJyear-ago,-and the
President has '.determined not to ap
point a Governor' of Hawaii until Sec
retary; J Fisher' can vfsit'the islands
and make' a feport i on; conditions
there.1: The information a which. has.
reached the President is conflicting
and the President Is insistent that he
shall receive at first hand the report
of Secretary Fisher as to the actual
state of affairs upon the island.
. The'secretary jhas 'been planning
for some, time to -make' the trip to the
Islands ty Investigate the merits of
the 1 fight being. waged against1 Gov
ernor Fr ear, but owing to the Import
ance of his department In matters of
legislation, it has been impossible for
him vto leave Washington as long as
the two houses are, in session.
'Anticipating an early -adjournment
of Congress, Secretary Fisher re
served passage for Hawaii upon the
steamer sailing August 10th, but ha3
been forced to cancel his reservation.
NARROWLY ESCAPES
" '. DEATH UNDER WHEELS
s Joaquin Gonsalves, a photographer,
narrowly escaped, injury at Pawaa
junction - yesterday afternoon" by be
ing, dragged from between two street-
tjai, by - passengers " ; on a Waikiki-
Dound street-car. Gonsalves waa
standing on the footboard of the King
street car and jumped off Just as the
other car approached. He was knock
ed down but was caught by passen
gers on the footboard just as he was
falling between the cars.
BOWEL COMPLAINT IN CHILDREN
' Children when teething are liable to
attacks of diarrhoea and this trpuble,
especially, in warm weather, should
never be neglected. The best medi
cine in use for ailments of this kind
Is Chamberlain's Colic, Cholera and
Diarrhoea Remedy. When reduced
with water and sweetened, it is not
unpleasant, which is of great import
ance when giving medicine to chil
dren. For sale by all dealers. Ben
son, Smith & Co., agents for Hawaii.
"PLbto-EngravlBg of highest grade
ran be Hectired from the StarBulleOn
rnotoisrniTiiis Plant. Sllbt.xt-4
IS HER IEXPEGTS
5raillEiiON?t
m. : leu
FnurnMiLaaire Sale. 'lr
. "'Hji'' J.-'"V.
RUSSIAN;SU(CiDEEAGUE
i-t THE-LATEST SENSATION
Count 1 WHo-;Drew Fatal tot
;y : Exposes; Strange' Of-: v:
mi
fST.rpETERSGURG,:July
sfan clubland boasts a suicide cluKaa
its latest sensatloh. '"It has headquar
ters" here and branches in Moscow,
Odessa;,Kleff.d'TotheirMargevt6wn8
Called the Suicides league, it has;no
-fixed abode, no charter and few rules.
Air members are sworn to secrecy;
but one tor two; who took fright,! left
it and' told "friends a thfng or two.
The club had av large and aristocatfic
membership, "including, titled. people
and society'belles; mothers 'of f anil
lies, ; old.v men, middle-aged'rakes:
and many young people. Social gath
ering8 are held weekly, Jn members'
houses'. The theme; of conversation
must be suicide, and" prlizes are given
q the best suggestions' for self-mur-ever;:.
v-':'...- ; "-" '
KfThe police, Cwhp h&xe made several
ain tries to catch the club at sittings,
ay that a dozen, suicides a day- are
the average for. St Petersburg,; and
think the league has something t'do
With, IL But the league has just pill
lished a denial, saying, W arennt
respoilsible for these vulgar suicides.
Our members- are forbidden to take
their' lives f or : reasons of jealousy,
A big line of
'
in XTRAGOpD clothes, the kind that wears and
abuse, and looks well.
Here, too; you'll. find complete outfits for boys, all of
the first quality, at right prices-SHirts; TiNOuSersv Shirt
Waists, Heckwear; StoiBkings, Hosiery,
Single Khainlckerljockers, IinesiTrou-
sersv Underwear.
Everything your boy needs to wear is here.
IT
love, hungef ; poverty, bt li fe's'prdl -
onr
Is poor, aftdiwe aim atr getting togeth
er,. cultivated people' who "rwlll feimply
kill themselves for-the science of.the
ihlng tW fofbld hanglngy drowning
and common i poisons." v H
.'Once a hjionth a'ballot is - held; -'All
tiietaretAJnkii)Ut opte, ywhichhas
a skull andj -cross-bones..The mem
ber who.flshAaithl'trtlt ls;suppbsed: to
comfcit. suicde within' aweek; if he,
or she,; bias o, new plan, ; one'of -'the
btherarvesij suggestions.' ; TJils sounds
iarcicaj; jbutV Ctoun't VSouvorpff,';who
wasVa"'mei
lik a tragedy to be taken seriously.
He drew the fatal lot; ; r V - 'v '. ; r r
! 'His fenqvmetubers ;d2cided that he
mustgc ti'isstate. In iiessarabi?,
hold a jnaguificent Xeast and put poi
son intb 4 hfc glass as the last ; toast
was drunk. He obeyed, drank the
champagne!' andT apparently fell dead.
But next -day, "a near.ineighbor'was
startled to; see him drive'up to the
house. - The count - explained ;to his
startled hostVthat h T had only taken
a little powdered sugar; and meant to
leave the league, forever.,
' The members had gone 6ff after the
feast, very pleased " with" themselves.
But they reckoned with SouvoroffJ
who appeared at their next meeting,
attired ns his'own ghost, y find gave
thera such a fright that nfany resign
ed then and there. Though bound to
silence, the count says- he would: like
someone to show up the league, Las It
Suits specially designed for boys,
BLVA'
-. works aT lot in Influence on - weak Pe(
meeting, wjiere the. president,-fa very
well. known. man,';; drew. the- fatal
skulU and cross-bonea;rt Consternation
reigned Tor'some time, as - the! presi
dent is of world-wide reputation, and
r his death' would'raise - iBcandaL But
tuiciderslare. nothing; If. not:resource-
f ul., They passed! a resoltttionbegglng I
him not to kill himself. vHe: graciously
consented:' "Anda-jolly ; glad he J wa3,
too," remarked the count. t.''?
.- This president : is supposed to be no
less a: "personage than --Arcybaszeff,
whose f books fare? as degenerate; as
they aie clever. 1113 last one; "Ai the
Last1 Limit actually preaches suicide
as one of" the few experiences worth
having.? Those who, have i tried l it say
that the experience of pulling- put the
lots.'at monthly meetings?fls.'Zl moije
thrilling than 'anything; they have ever
known. These; anyway,, are the dec
larations of sober Russian 'papers. ;
KERMIS ROOSEVELT' GOES
TO BRAZIL AS lUILROADER
j; NEW YORK; July T.Kermit. Roo
sevelt, the second son of -V Theodore
Roosevelt, sailed - today on' the Olym-
pic for. Brazil; where he fsgoing Into
railroading. He. is a Harvard man.
He was with his father, on the African
hunting trfp, and since that time has
hunted in various
Tparts of America
ori'Uis own - bock.'
big and little
fflGGi
tf L B E RT A ; FA R M E R S
. EXPECT TO PROFIT
D l rHI'HlilH ;lMHHi-
Will Send Grairtto Liverpool.by
";v::; Oa r -i''
v CALGARY, Can.; July. 20. The-ben-
' ;
eflts that wi0 accrue -to'all ; western
Canada through the -opening of,thd
Panama, canal are numerous.,! But no
province will profit more than will Al
berta. xShe will.be plucked from. an
inferior market "pqsltlon and placed
level' with the other agricultural prov
inces. ; To her the canal wilt be worth
millions yearly,-considering the wheat
crop alone.' ; Last Year;'from 'this
source,1' it would have turned- a : full
$3,000,000 into -the pockets of theAl
berta farmer. And less than a-tenth
ot thearable lands of the province are
under "cultivation; - X - - I'i V ''
y At present the 'Alberta farmer Is at
something of a -disadvantage la mar
keting his.grain crops. -The LIrerpool
market sets the" price of the world's
wheat Wheat at the initial elevator.
is worth the. Liverpool. price less Uhe
cost of getting -the grain to that r-t
wvi.L'ii,.hiw ho rrnin
' thTEnkl
whr- ;. At timps..local conditions
make I a dftlerence, - but : in. Canada, j
Where there is a : large etcess for ex;
port,;the, price is!practically, always
vc s.
Edcrheimer,
MAKERS
55
IV, The. AlLerta farn::r-an
tive route, but prices r.re scllc::i i.u
tas'to make' it aval!ab!e. Thli i.?
ship by rail to Vancouver r.n.J fr.
tl;ere by crran ta. Liver;-
... -.
;1
canal. Capo lirn cr to Til.': ".'
Mfitlco, 't-encj arroj-i tLvT-l......
rail. The avcrrrj rate frc:a "
points 'to' Vancouver 13 14 cc:,.,
bushel.':.From Vancouver to Li-, r
4
1
i
-t
t3 Crrn:t! tetter- the fr,..
m$; cents per bU3)l;' a tc.tal frt
rnto,. AlLerta t; Llv?rr:oI, cf 22 r:
per bushal. :::. i this, there U
charge, of G cenis j cr bu;':cJ f..-T-t
ing the grain, as then', are ro c!
tors.,at Vanccuvrr'z".:i, janr-rro
not : equipped '. i'or carrying, gra;.i i i
bulk, making a' tof.-.rccn c" Zi cent.?
pcr'biiishel; by the v. ; torn r.ut..
.-.Thus," even in winter, when,tie ex
pensive "''all-hiir route must be J
from Alberta to tiJe-water, there ii
always an'advantao la favor cf. tha
eastern jroute of at least 3 cents per
bushel.' Put elevators at' Vancouver, ;
which -structures : are projected f.o'.v - '
ahd will soon'1o in course- ci ct n-
struction, and the rate' favors the c:: tJ j
era route when the Jakri are oi i
and' the western durir- the winter..-
, : o
'4, VC.V
a uoraan caa find the stylo cf
alwaysadj t
. er-bead io nt it...,
TJioto-EngraTlns cf '.hlzhcsf pr;:!s
ran beKemred from Lfir Mar.:::.:.::.i
i
i
.'V
v0
--if-..
.j :
XTRACO OtY -. 11? ;,
....... T'VjC : ; - - " - r
Stem & CoT?- ;' t :.The emails have been arriving steadily. Subject line: ‘Thought you might be interested in this’ ‘Have you seen NPR’s story on disability?’ ‘Thoughts on this?’ ‘Saw this, thought of you’ ‘WTF is wrong with this story?!’ ‘Wait, how much of this is actually accurate?’ The content is sometimes just a single link, to This American Life’s six-part series on disability in America, picked up by Planet Money and All Things Considered. Sometimes there are a few lines of commentary, but not usually.
In a nutshell, the series tells listeners that the number of people on disability in the United States are skyrocketing, and that this is due to some sort of stealthy scheme to work the system.
And people on all sides of the political divide, but especially the right, are eating it up, despite the flood of stories attempting to counter the numerous factual, ethical, journalistic, and social problems with this story, how it’s reported, and how Chana Joffe-Walt chose to interpret the data available to her. It’s quite clear that she went looking for a particular story and conclusion, and she got exactly what she wanted. In the process, she contributed to familiar hateful rhetoric about disability in the United States, and what it means to be disabled.
Scroungers. Sucking off the government teat. Fakers. Lazy. Slackers.
The fact: Yes, more people are on disability than ever before. That’s absolutely true, but there are a lot of reasons for that, and they aren’t as simplistic as what Joffe-Walt seems to want us to think. She suggests that states and low-income people are in collusion to get people enlisted on the disability rolls, that disabled people don’t work, that disability has essentially become a replacement for other benefits programmes, that changes in disability guidelines have resulted in more lax standards. While she doesn’t come out and say it, the subtext is crystal clear: There are fakers on the rolls.
But let’s take a look at some demographics here, because, as the Consortium for Citizens with Disabilities point out in their response to the piece, demographics account for the changes in disability benefits enrollment, rather decisively. For starters, 20% of the US population is disabled, and an estimated 10% have ‘severe’ disabilities, like those that might make someone unable to work at all, or able to work only in a limited capacity. Given the overall distribution of people on disability benefits (less than 5% of the US population) in the US, it’s clear that there are some people who aren’t on the rolls who probably should be, rather than the other way around. That number is indeed shifting over time, but not for the reasons cited; it’s not that standards are relaxed and people are faking.
The boomer generation is aging, for one thing, which means more and more people are entering old age, and they’re starting to experience the disabling conditions that can come with aging for many older adults. Advances in medicine have also, of course, improved survival rates for older adults, which means more people are living after major medical events, and more people are requiring more advanced care. For younger disabled people, the same medical advances have improved lifespans and quality of life for people with conditions once deemed fatal at an early age; it’s a good thing that more people are living, and living well, not evidence of a bad thing.
And this is a country in the grip of an economic downturn. An analysis at the Center for Economic and Policy Research notes that, yes, the cost for Social Security Disability has in fact exploded, in correlation with the economy. Projections from the trustees’ reports also indicate that once the employment rate stabilizes, these rates should go back down. With a shrinking safety net, people are turning to whatever support they can find to survive.
People who would have otherwise been employed find themselves desperate for any means of support due to the inept economic policy that sank the economy. This is a simple explanation that doesn’t require examining the moral turpitude of beneficiaries or evidence of corrupt or negligent administrators. Fix the economy and you would remove much of the burden on the program.
Notably, this doesn’t mean the increasing rolls equate to a bunch of fakers. Disabled people work, and many (like myself) actually prefer to work; but when we’re squeezed out of jobs due to a poor economy and the pressure of employment discrimination (which employees do you think companies drop first?), we’re forced onto disability benefits if no other options are available. Which brings me to Disability Insurance (DI), another programme discussed in the report. One of the reasons claims on DI are rising? Because there are more women in the workforce, which, yes, means the pool of potential claimants is larger. Again, women in the work force is a good thing.
Furthermore, the distribution of disabled people in the US is actually quite variable, and dependent on a lot of factors. In rural communities, access to health care is limited, and people are more likely to acquire serious disabilities as a result of having to wait for treatment, having difficulty with access to preventative care, and working in potentially dangerous occupations like farming and logging. Meanwhile, industrial areas come with numerous dangerous jobs, along with pollution that exposes neighbouring communities to further dangers. It should come to no surprise to learn that these communities also tend to be low-income, and many of them are also heavily populated by people of colour.
Education also has a profound effect on whether people are able to work, and keep working, after disability. Those with higher levels of educational attainment can obtain desk jobs and other work that’s not as taxing, making it possible for them to work while disabled or to return to work after accidents and injuries. For those who haven’t graduated high school or who have barely achieved high school qualifications, though, the options are thinner; working with your body is often the only option, and it’s difficult to return to work on a factory line or in a harsh environment with back pain, joint damage, and other physical disabilities.
This makes it unsurprising that ‘one in four’ people in the single county Jaffe-Walt used as the basis for her story were on the rolls. In fact, I would have been more surprised if her results had come up with a substantially lower number; demographically, I would expect that number to pop up, because all the indicators for that region point towards a higher incidence of disability than the US average.
As John Bouman pointed out in his critique of the series: ‘Joffe-Walt never examines the issues through what should be an obvious lens — what if virtually all of the people receiving disability benefits are actually disabled or medically unable to work? The real problem is not why so many people get disability benefits, but why so many people are disabled.’
He cuts to the heart of the problem with a lot of assumptions in media about disability. The media assume that disability is exaggerated and people seize on excuses to lie back and enjoy the pleasures of government benefits, despite the fact that disability benefits create a state of enforced poverty, about which more in a moment, and that many people are denied repeatedly, and have trouble navigating the system on their own, making it functionally impossible to get the benefits they’re entitled to. The United States is facing a crisis of health care, especially when it comes to preventative care, early identification and treatment, and followthrough after major medical events.
It’s no wonder that this country has a high disability rate overall; and people should indeed be asking why this is instead of fingering disabled people as leeches on the system, draining benefits funds dry. Paralyzed Veterans of America noted that this report, like others on disabled people, also contributed to the significant stigma against people with non-evident disabilities, like mental health conditions, autoimmune disorders, cognitive and intellectual disabilities, brain injuries, and other disabilities that are not necessarily immediate recognisable to the untrained eye.
NPR’s logic on this issue dismisses the millions of Americans who may look healthy but have severe disabilities, including disabled veterans.
People with non-evident disabilities are accustomed to being mocked, belittled, and swept under the carpet by the media, but reports like these are a sharp reminder that the media are extremely uneducated when it comes to disability issues (Jaffe-Walt is not a disability expert, nor were any interviewed for this series), and has little interest in self-education. Consequently, harmful messages about the nature of non-evident disabilities are perpetuated in stories like these, leaving listeners, viewers, and readers with the perception that ‘disability’ fits within a very narrow and easily-understood definition, and everyone else must be faking for those sweet benefits.
About which. It’s extremely difficult to get disability benefits in the United States (many people need the assistance of an attorney), and when you do get them, there are significant restrictions on your way of life. Typically work can force you to be dropped from benefits (if you make more than a certain amount, for example), and the amount of the payments doesn’t keep pace with the cost of living; a $700 monthly check is hardly princely. Disabled people can struggle to stay alive in an expensive world while the government denies claims for things needed for basic quality of life; the structure of the disability benefits systems in the United States tends to keep people trapped in their homes, prefers institutionalisation over community-based living (even though community-based living is actually less expensive), and further marginalises disabled people.
This is not a lifestyle choice. It’s something you do because you have no other options. And, contrary to Jaffe-Walt’s claims, 21% of disabled people in the US, including people receiving benefits, work. That number could be a lot higher without rampant disability discrimination making it difficult to find and keep work.
This was brought up in sharp criticisms of the story after Ira Glass hotly defended the fact checking. Shawn Fremstad pointed out that fundamental journalistic errors in the piece were not only factually incorrect, but also socially irresponsible because of the messages they conveyed. Depicting disabled people as unemployed scroungers, for example, and radically misreading statistical analysis, resulted in a very negatively skewed picture of disability. Hannah Groch-Begley at Media Matters for America also took a close look at the story, debunking the section on children and disability.
The reporting in that segment was actually bitterly reminiscent of an absolutely horrific Nicholas Kristof column that ran in the New York Times last year, portraying parents in one of the poorest and hardest-hit regions of the country as monsters exploiting their children for disability benefits. In addition to being riddled with errors, the piece also sent some extremely dangerous messages about disability benefits for children (something which, incidentally, play a major role in pulling US children out of poverty).
After the tide of negative commentary about the piece, including detailed debunking of the errors, one by one, while Ira Glass continued to stand proud behind his fact checking, NPR actually stealthily revised sections of the story. This certainly speaks to an admission of wrongdoing, although the minimal publicity around the changes shows that NPR had no interest in publicly apologising for the harm done by the bad journalism. While the changes might look minor, and NPR claims they were made ‘for clarity,’ they’re actually major, and they significantly change the style and tone of the piece.
There’s a big difference between ‘People on federal disability do not work’ and ‘The vast majority of people receiving federal disability benefits do not work’ (gee, maybe because…they’re disabled?), for example. These subtle and important distinctions shift the presentation of the story dramatically, and definitely undermine the scaremongering Jaffe-Walt was going for in the original script.
This is the state of disability journalism in the US. Harmful, error-riddled stories that propagate false mythologies about disability, don’t acknowledge the complexity of disability, fail to account for the multitude of factors involved, and don’t consult a single disability expert. This is lazy, bad journalism and I would expect better of a national-level organisation that happens to be highly renowned for the quality, breadth, and detail of its coverage. The fact that right-wing media are jumping on this report and heaping it with praise is an indicator of how skewed and dangerous it is: it provides an ideal argument for dismantling the social safety net, and no actual information about disability in the United States and the health and disability crisis that is gripping this country.
Which is a pity, because we could use some good, solid disability journalism right about now.
Shame on you, NPR.Smoking Nargile In Istanbul
A hookah pipe is called a nargile in Turkey. It’s a surprisingly popular activity among Istanbullus of all ages, and we partook in quite a few smoking sessions ourselves. You can order tobacco in a variety of flavors, and spend hours lounging around, smoking and drinking tea.
The nargile has long been a prominent part of Turkish culture, although the introduction of cigarettes led to a serious decline in its stature. Lately, though, it’s been making a comeback among young people. It’s completely different to smoking a cigarette. You take your time with a nargile, and usually smoke with a group of friends. It’s social, and a lot more tranquil than hurriedly puffing down a cigarette as you rush off down the sidewalk.
Besides which, it tastes great. Apple is the mainstay, but you can try cherry, banana, coffee, orange or melon flavors, in addition to many others. Our personal favorite was a mix of a apple and mint, and we had a few favorite places in which to smoke it: the Perla Kallavi rooftop cafe off Istiklal Caddesi, the cafes at Tophane, Erenler Nargile near the Grand Bazaar, the courtyard of the Re Cafe in Kadiköy, and the Ağa Kapısı near Süleymaniye, which has a view over the Golden Horn. But in just about any corner of the city, we could find a good spot (and invent a good excuse) to sit down for a couple hours with a pipe.
Locations: Perla | Tophane Cafes | Erenler Nargile | Ağa Kapısı | Re Cafe
–Buy Your Own Nargile HerePhoto via Wikimedia Commons.
At some point, we've all fantasized about quitting our jobs to do whatever we want until we die. I've asked myself a lot, "How much money would I have to save to do thatright now?" The answer is actually kind of boring, either "a million-ish dollars (assuming you're debt-free and and don't mind living somewhere weird)," or "significantly less than a million-ish dollars (assuming you're debt-free, really good at investing, and don't mind living like a monk)."
A number of internet personalities preach the virtues of a frugality-first lifestyle meant to help you save and invest to a point where you can live off your meager budget forever; philosophically, they fall somewhere between the Four-Hour Workweek guy and those who think you can "opt out" of paying your taxes because they're secretly voluntary.
There's the Early Retirement Extreme guy that claims to live off $5,000-$7,000 per year and espouses vaguely anarcho-capitalist ideals; there's Mr. Money Mustache, whose New Yorker profile portrayed him as a goofy, stoner-ish version of the Early Retirement Extreme guy. There's the Retire By 40 guy and a couple who call themselves Millennial Revolution and implore you to "Stop working. Start living."
These people make achieving early retirement seem like more work than, well, work itself—not to mention that the idea of retired young-ish people making a living selling others on the dream of early retirement seems like a pyramid scheme. "Those [people] are outliers," says Mike Dang, a co-founding editor of the financial site The Billfold who also serves as the Editor-In-Chief of Longreads. "It's not a story you can learn from. They're nice to read, and then you move on with your day because you have a whole different set of problems than what those people have."
The first of those problems is that saving is generally a complicated business, especially if you came of age during the Great Recession, says Dang: "Wages were stagnant, but the amount of debt we were accruing after college was skyrocketing." Housing costs, healthcare, and student loans have risen since, so many young people are financially stretched as it is: "There are all these expenses you need to think about, then your savings, then retirement."
Let's say you could clear all your outstanding debts, cut down on housing costs through living at your parents' house, and taking a second job freelancing part-time (or selling weed). In that case you could stop working once you had around a million dollars.
As certified financial planner Sofia Bera explains to me, "People who have a ton of money don't need to invest for growth—they just need a big enough sum to generate enough income on a yearly basis," through payouts on investments. For retirees of any age, the idea is to have enough of a nest egg built up to the point that you can expect to draw a "salary" from your investments while still adding enough to weather inflation rates. "That can work out really well if you only need two or three percent a year in dividends in order to withdraw from your portfolio," Bera says.
Once you hit that million-dollar figure, you're able to turn your money into a perpetual money-making machine that you can theoretically live off of—that is, if you make some life adjustments. Judging off the yields Bera suggests, you'd be able to take $20,000 to $30,000 per year from your fund—enough to live sustainably in any of the lowest-income places in the United States.
Regardless, you really should start saving some money for retirement. Even a small amount can make a big difference over a number of years. (Here's a primer to get you started.) As for how much you'll need: Dang says that when people ask him this question, "I always tell them to think about how they want to live their lives." Some might decide to work well into advanced age as a way to keep themselves occupied while providing themselves with a bit of income; others might want to spend their twilight years having fun or using their decades of sexual experience to do weird sex stuff (and potentially get a couple STI's).
The point is, even if the world suffers some sort of cataclysmic event that turns society into The Road Warrior, you'll still need some savings to get by—if only to buy up all the weapons and gasoline you'll need to become a post-apocalyptic pirate ruler. So get started, because the magic of compounding is real.
Follow Drew Millard on Twitter.PM’s bid to opt out of laws such as working time and agency workers directives could stop unions and businesses supporting referendum on EU
David Cameron is to make an opt-out from EU employment social protection laws such as the working time directive and the agency workers’ directive one of his goals in his negotiations with Europe, according to reportsfrom Conservative political sources in Brussels.
If the prime minister achieves the demand as part of his renegotiation with his EU partners, it would be a body blow to efforts to persuade trade unions to support British membership of the EU on his new terms. Cameron has pledged to hold a referendum on those renegotiated terms by 2017.
No reference to renegotiation of the employment law was included in the list of British proposals reported by EU diplomats in a memo listing Cameron’s demands leaked to the Guardian a fortnight ago.
No 10 would only say: “This is just more of the speculation we said there would be during the negotiation.
“The prime minister has set out the four priority areas for reform and made clear that cutting back on unnecessary EU regulation is part of making Europe more competitive. As the prime minister has said before, Europe if necessary, national when possible.”
A demand for Britain to be excluded from employment laws restoring the opt-outs negotiated by John Major and then abandoned by Tony Blair in 1997 would be a high-risk political move, since it would enhance the risk of a large no vote putting Britain’s entire relationship with the EU at risk.
Pro-Europe businesses would have to calculate whether the enhanced risk of a defeat in the referendum would be worth the prize of achieving the opt-outs.
The GMB and Unite unions have explicitly said they would challenge any attempt to opt out of UK social employment laws, including the agency workers directive.
There is already an increasingly Eurosceptic mood in parts of the left due to the imposition of austerity on Greece. But the move would please Conservative Eurosceptics who have been unimpressed by the modesty of Cameron’s demands.
Cameron has tried |
time, our customers, employees, franchisees and fellow Canadians can all rest assured that Tim Hortons will still be Tim Hortons following this transaction, including our core values, employee and franchisee relationships, community support and fresh coffee.”
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MORE ON THESTAR.COM: Tim Hortons-Burger King deal ‘out of left field’ but has ‘huge upside,’ observers say Is Canada becoming a corporate tax haven? Tim Hortons, Burger King shares soar on merger talks Tim Hortons shares were up 8.9 per cent to US$82.10 in pre-market trading in New York, while Burger King ticked 0.5 per cent higher to US$32.60. Both shares surged almost 20 per cent on Monday when reports of the deal first surfaced. The purchase gives Burger King access to a coffee brand with a cult following, which may help boost breakfast sales. Tim Hortons, Canada’s biggest seller of coffee and doughnuts, also lets Burger King get into the grocery business by selling packaged coffees at supermarkets in North America. The new combined business would have about $23 billion in system sales and more than 18,000 restaurants in 100 countries. The acquisition also moves the merged company’s global headquarters to Canada to take advantage of lower corporate taxes. When the companies disclosed the talks on Aug. 24, it revived debate over American companies shifting their headquarters to other countries in search of lower corporate tax bills. President Barack Obama criticized the practice in July, and his aides said that the administration would take action to stop the trend. 3G Capital, the investment firm that owns Burger King, will have about 51 per cent of the new company. Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway Inc. also has committed $3 billion of preferred equity financing, according to the statement, which didn’t disclose terms on the stake. Omaha, Nebraska-based Berkshire won’t participate in managing the restaurant business. Burger King also may be in a position to expand Tim Hortons restaurants in the 98 countries where it operates. There may be supply-chain, marketing and administrative cost savings.
Read more about:Image caption New email account owners are receiving old emails
Yahoo email addresses reassigned to a new owner are receiving personal emails intended for the previous owner.
One man told news site Information Week that he had received emails with some highly sensitive information in them.
In June the web firm announced Yahoo addresses and IDs would be reassigned if they had been inactive for a year.
Privacy experts called on Yahoo to address the issue "immediately". Yahoo says it has taken a series of measures to overcome privacy and security fears.
"Before recycling inactive accounts we attempted to reach the account owners [in] multiple ways to notify them that they needed to log in to their account or it would be subject to recycling," a Yahoo representative told the BBC.
"We took many precautions to ensure this was done safely - including deleting any private data from the previous account owner, sending bounce-backs to the senders for at least 30-60 days letting them know the account no longer existed and unsubscribing the accounts from commercial mail."
It is also in the process of rolling out a feature called "Not My Email" where users can report an email that is not intended for them.
The process will come as little comfort to the previous owner of an email account now owned by Tom Jenkins, an IT security professional.
Mr Jenkins told Information Week: "I can gain access to their Pandora account [online radio] but I won't. I can gain access to their Facebook account, but I won't. I know their name, address and phone number. I know where their child goes to school. I know the last four digits of their social security number. I know they had an eye doctor's appointment last week and I was just invited to their friend's wedding."
Other users have revealed that they have also received messages that contain personally identifiable information.
Intimate data
"I recommend logging into your Yahoo account every six months or so in order to ensure that you retain control over it," said security expert Lee Munson.
Privacy experts said that the issues were inevitable.
"These problems were flagged by security and privacy experts a few months ago when Yahoo announced their intention to recycle old emails, and cautioned that Yahoo's plan created significant security and privacy risks. Yahoo downplayed these risks, and ignored critics, but now we see these concerns were legitimate," said Mike Rispoli, spokesman for Privacy International.
"This email recycling scheme, an effort to re-engage old users and attract new ones, is resulting in some of our most intimate data being accessed by someone we don't know and without our knowledge.
"We're talking about account passwords, contacts for friends and families, medical records - this issue needs to be addressed immediately by Yahoo if they care about the privacy of their users and want them to trust the company with sensitive information."Chicago, Illinois (CNN) -- Former Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich was found guilty Tuesday of making false statements to the FBI, but escaped convictions on 23 other counts in a trial that is seen as at least a partial victory for Blagojevich.
The jury, which deliberated for 14 days, said it was hung on 23 counts against him and on the counts against the former governor's brother, Robert Blagojevich.
The former governor faced charges including racketeering, wire fraud, attempted extortion and bribery. A two-term Democrat, he was removed from office in January 2009 amid accusations that he attempted to sell the U.S. Senate seat that had been occupied by Barack Obama before Obama was elected president.
"On every charge except for one, they could not prove that I did anything wrong," said Rod Blagojevich, shorty after the jury was dismissed. "I told the truth from the very beginning."
He added he would appeal the one conviction and thanked members of the jury for finding what they did.
The next court date in the case is set for August 26, though prosecutors said they will try the former governor again.
The maximum penalty for making false statements is five years in prison and a $250,000 fine.
Conviction on the counts of wire fraud, racketeering and attempted extortion would have carried a maximum sentence of 20 years in prison and a fine of up to $250,000, while a conviction on the count of solicitation of bribery would have had a maximum sentence of 10 years and a fine of up to $250,000.
Blagojevich's brother, Robert, stood trial with him on four of the charges.
Robert Blagojevich testified that his brother was "trying to politically work something to his benefit" in handling the Senate appointment but was thinking in terms of political horse-trading, not corruption.
In one conversation recorded by federal agents, the former governor told an aide, "I've got this thing, and it's [expletive] golden. I'm just not giving it up for [expletive] nothing."
"It didn't seem out of the ordinary, because Obama was taking a lot of people from Illinois with him to D.C.," said Robert Blagojevich, who raised money for his brother. He said the governor "was interested in the idea of being the head of Health and Human Services."
While awaiting trial, the ousted governor repeatedly asserted his innocence in interviews and on Twitter, as well as during his appearances on the "Celebrity Apprentice" reality show.
"Unfortunately, the pain and embarrassment that this whole situation has caused our great state will not come to a complete close today," said U.S. Rep. Jesse Jackson Jr., D-Illinois, who was cited in the criminal complaint against Blagojevich.
CNN's Katherine Wojtecki contributed to this report.Death Grips do not care about money. If you think that the secretive Sacramento trio have sold out to the man in the form of a label signing to major label Epic Records (Columbia in the UK), then think again. Recording their latest album The Money Store, at the same time as their wildly successful mixtape Ex-Military in 2011, as well as No Love to come later this year, the hardcore hip hop act are an addictive blend of brilliantly abrasive audio appealing to that sadomasochistic death drive that kept Sigmund Freud so amused.
Because, if Death Grips were a drug, then they would be the hard stuff. They bring you to a place where finances disappear with your sanity, leaving you stripped bare and with an overpowering sense of doom and its inevitability. Fascinating and enticing, The Money Store is more of the aural assault that had ‘information overload’ and ‘data noise’ bandied around like a viral video with Ex-Military and its effects are equally insidious. Drummer Zach Hill describes their creative vision as a “Warholian nightmare”, while MC Ride (aka Stefan Burnett’s) poetical insights are like snapshots of a man gone mad. Songs like ‘Hustle Bones’, ‘Double Helix’ and ‘Fuck That’ ride on a wave of hyper-melody driven by mania, while themes of paranoia languish in a bedlam of cultural collapse and total chaos, best expressed by the fit-inducing video for ‘I’ve Seen Footage’. A power point presentation gone wild, images are thrown at its viewer with not a moment surrendered for absorption, let alone comprehension. Aggressive and often bleak, someone out there thought Death Grips would fit in somewhere between soul singer Adele and boy band One Direction, hence being signed to Columbia and exploring the mainstream potential of a sentiment suppressed by many but shared by all.
Are you releasing two albums in a year to keep with the theme and intensity of information overload?
Zach Hill: Possibly. That’s part of it, to a certain extent. But the main reason behind that is purely because we have enough material. We basically have made two albums and we have different emotions behind them and each one’s different in different ways. We also like the idea of getting behind two releases in one year as absolute, rather than a free mixtape or something. We approach a lot of things more in how visual artists do. Where you finish a show and, rather than putting out pieces in a group show or something, we perceive it as there are two museum shows going up this year because we have that much work.
We like the idea of putting out two major pieces in one year and both of them functioning, musically, as very cohesive with each other. It’s not like a major flip in sound, from on to the other, but there’s an emotional tone and quality to each album, sonically, that’s slightly different. No Love, that comes out in the fall, I’d say, is slightly more aggressive and darker.
More aggressive!?
ZH: [laughs] Yeah, I guess there’s more suffering within that record. I mean, there’s a lot of suffering in all our music but I’d say there’s a more agitated tone to that recording.
Again, back to the visual art thing, we’re perceiving it as… The Money Store is more like pop art level, to where there’s a bridge and a lot of expansion musically. It’s still very aggressive with lots of those same feelings and emotional chords throughout the music but it’s more of a bridge to the third one that’s acting more like pulling the whole curtain down. Sorry, I’m not very good at talking about our music.
No, I get it.
ZH: We talk very abstractly about the music. Basically, this one acts as this bridge to No Love. We always refer to it as the hammer falling down. It’s more…
…immediate?
ZH: ‘Something like that. It has a different kind of vibrancy to it. It’s very awake. If The Money Store was in a dream state, No Love is when you wake up and all the things about reality are right there in front of your face and you can’t avoid it. [laughs]
By saying that No Love will be the ‘curtain falling’, does that mean Death Grips has a predestined end point?
ZH: No, no, no, no, no! I didn’t mean it in that sense. I mean, if you visualise The Money Store as this curtain that has this amazing setting in a room, there’s this big curtain and we raise that up. It’s very vibrant and it’s got more of a pop iconic thing going on in The Money Store. You’re looking out of this curtain and then No Love would be if someone came and ripped this thing down and behind it there was this whole other dimension that went on infinitely. It’s definitely not an ending. It’s more like discovering a tunnel behind.
So it’s like waking up from a nightmare into another nightmare?
ZH: [laughs] Yeah, totally! Or it’s like, all of a sudden, this dream becomes very lucid.
The dream might be lucid but Death Grips is quite obscure in contrast.
ZH: It is, in a certain sense. It’s a hard balance to not become alienating and alienate yourself but we like to keep the focus on the music. It’s definitely conscious but it goes both ways. There’s no hiding behind anything but when we started the group, we talked about never revealing who was who because we wanted to create music that was concentrated on that isolation and to take away the individuals of the groups. We perceived Death Grips as its own entity and something larger than ourselves. We wanted to take ourselves out the equation and create something that is separate from what our day-to-day lives are.
When we think about artists and bands that we love, that we gather the most energy from and are most inspired by, we think about artists that have operated in a similar fashion. The ones that are more focused on what they’re making or producing, rather then what their personal life is or what they’re doing in their the day to day. It’s a hard balance because it’s really interesting to get into that world when you’re a fan of something. At the same time, from a fan perspective, opening up too much about what’s behind the music that I love can also take away from that mystery. It starts making it too literal when what I liked about it was that it was un-literal because I gained from it naturally.
I like what you said about a visual artist’s life never being that important in their work. Unless, of course, it’s after their death and it’s Andy Warhol.
ZH: Actually, we kept talking about the ‘Warholian nightmare’ while we were making The Money Store. We kept talking about this record as directly relating to certain things about Andy Warhol, if we had to choose an artist. It’s the same, in our minds, as pop art.
The concept of individuality is a major theme of Warhol’s work and you said that you, as a band, want to stay more elusive, in order to de-individualise yourselves, in a way. It’s weird that modern democracy is so focused on individuality but the outcome seems not unique at all.
ZH: Yeah, exactly. There’s this whole idea of identity and singularity. It’s really interesting. It’s like the snake eating its own tail; that whole cycle where through all the individuality it kind of becomes this one-ness, one thing.
When we talk about these ideas, while we’re making music, we don’t talk about it in an absolutist tone, like we know what we’re talking about. It’s just kind of things we discuss like everybody; where you’re just observing things without having any answers. Not having answers and not being thoroughly clear on all these things but just recognizing that they’re happening around you. It’s a part of that inspiration and that confusion.
What’s the aim with being on a major label?
ZH: To expand on these ideas. Getting resources to broaden the vision. As far as Death Grips is concerned, it’s about perceiving it as its own entity. We want that to grow, musically-speaking and through the content, as large as possible but not with ourselves attached to it as individuals. It’s very simple. We need to maximize our art by having resources for straight-up ideas that cost money. That provides us with resources to further our search within our art. That’s basically what it comes down to.
There’s that and also the expanding of awareness of our group. We want this music to go as far as it could possibly go. The way that exactly we want it to go. That’s happening as well because we got a very excellent record deal where there’s no one in charge of this thing, except the three of us. That’s for certain.
It’s all about expansion and being able to further realize your creative ideas and make them happen. There’s still an infinite world of things you can do with zero but it’s also nice to know that if you have an idea that requires it, it is also a possibility.
Death Grips’ The Money Store is out now on Columbia (UK) and Epic (US).I first met Dr. Hiroshi Ishiguro at last year’s GF2045 conference in New York. Dr. Ishiguro is known around the world for his android, geminoid and telenoid robots and I have been trying to get him on my podcast ever since we met. At last, last week we were able to find an empty slot in his busy schedule and I was able to ask him a few questions.
During our 50 min conversation with Dr. Ishiguro we cover a variety of interesting topics such as: how and why he got interested in building androids and geminoids; whether it is possible to build disembodied Artificial Intelligence; what is human; the cultural East-West divide on the perception of robots as being good or evil; the uncanny valley and the Turing Test; the importance of implementing emotions such as pleasure and pain; the differences (or lack thereof) of hardware and software; telenoid robots…
As always you can listen to or download the audio file above or scroll down and watch the video interview in full. To show your support you can write a review on iTunes, make a direct donation or become a patron on Patreon.
Hiroshi Ishiguro Laboratories Mission Statement:
The end of the information age will coincide with the beginning of the robot age. However, we will not soon see a world in which humans and androids walk the streets together, like in movies or cartoons; instead, information technology and robotics will gradually fuse so that people will likely only notice when robot technology is already in use in various locations.
Our role will be to lead this integration of information and robotics technologies by constantly proposing new scientific and technological concepts. Toward this, knowledge of art and philosophy will be invaluable. Technology has made art “reproducible”; likewise, artistic sense has contributed to the formation of new technologies, and artistic endeavors themselves are supported by philosophical contemplation and analysis.
Hereafter, human societies will continue to change due to “informationization” and robotization; in this ever-changing setting, artistic activities and philosophical speculation will allow us to comprehend the essential natures of humans and society, so that we can produce truly novel science and technological innovations in a research space which lies beyond current notions of “fields” and boundaries of existing knowledge.
Who is Hiroshi Ishiguro?
Ishiguro was born in Shiga in 1963. In high school and university, while growing up, Hiroshi was devoted to painting. At Dr. Hanao Mori’s laboratory at Yamanashi University, he got inspired to learn about robots and computers. Today as a scientist attracting global attention, Hiroshi is focusing his research on humanoid robots such as androids, geminoids, and telenoids.
Having graduated from Yamanashi university, Ishiguro started his Ph.D. at Osaka University in 1988. He studied the methodology of research from Dr. Saburo Tsuji and has followed the principle “Seek the fundamental problem” to this day. Dr. Ishiguro has attended Yamanashi University, Osaka University, Kyoto University, University of California and Wakayama University, where has worked on distributed sensor systems and interactive robotics.
Currently, Hiroshi is Professor of Department of Systems Innovation in the Graduate School of Engineering Science at Osaka University (2009-). While going around universities, he has continued the research in ATR (Advanced Telecommunications Research Institute), and now he is Visiting Group Leader (2002-) of the Intelligent Robotics and Communication Laboratories. He also participated in the foundation of Vstone Co., Ltd., an academic-industrial venture company aiming for technical transfer. His principle is that robotics is just the philosophy. Dr. Ishiguro is the author of Robot to ha nanika? (What is Robot?) and Android Science.Google's Android mobile operating system was China's most popular platform in 2011, with its market share ballooning by 35 percent in the space of less than a year.
Beijing-based research analytics firm Analysys International said by the end of 2011, Android had 68 percent of the smartphone operating system market, a figure up from 33 percent only three quarters before, representing a clear double in growth amongst the Chinese market.
China has the world's largest mobile phone market --- with a population of around 1.3 billion, and an estimated 988 million mobile phone subscribers.
While the iPhone remains popular in China, Android devices come in many shapes and sizes, and are on the whole far cheaper and more flexible in their capabilities than the iPhone.
While China is still two or three years away from issuing licenses for 4G LTE in the country, top-end 4G-capable Android devices are left behind, unable to reach the super-fast mobile broadband speeds. The iPhone 4S does not have 4G LTE technology, but Apple is expected to add the capability in the next-generation iPhone 5, following the lead from its younger sibling, the iPad 3.
But China has yet to see a widescale rollout of the iPhone yet. The country's biggest mobile carrier now has over 15 million iPhone users, while many refused to switch carriers from the China Unicom exclusive carrier, ZDNet's Hana Stewart-Smith reports, leading to an initial decline in uptake.
China remains Apple's second-most important market after the United States, cemented by chief executive Tim Cook's visit to the region last month. Cook met with the Chinese vice-premier and toured the controversial Foxconn plant where Apple builds its shiny rectangles for the vastly Western consumer market.
China contributed more than 16 percent, or $4.5 billion, to Apple's earnings in Q4 2011, putting the country ahead of the entire 27 member state collective of the European Union.
Apple saw its China market share rise from 4.1 percent in the first quarter to 5.7 percent by the end of the fourth quarter, signalling a rise but of little significance considering China's vast population numbers.
Image credit: Elizabeth Phung/Flickr.
Related:Cringe-inducing.
Via Free Beacon:
House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D., Calif.) lost her “real people” during a protest in front of the Supreme Court building on Monday evening.
Pelosi was leading a series of speakers who were protesting President Donald Trump’s recent executive order halting the Syrian refugee program and barring immigration to the U.S. from seven Muslim-majority countries with terrorism problems.
Pelosi turned the podium over to Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D., N.Y.), who spoke and held a small candle before Pelosi wanted to introduce and bring in some “real people.”
“I want to introduce the real people,” Pelosi said. “I’ll do the real people now.”
Pelosi spoke some more before mentioning two people who would tell “their courageous stories.”
“Are they here?” Schumer asked as he looked around. “Where are they?”
After realizing that the two “real people” were not present, Pelosi and Schumer went to introduce Sen. Chris Murphy (D., Conn.). Murphy was not present either, however. Pelosi and Schumer then went into introduce Sen. Mazie Hirono (D., Hawaii), who turned out not to be at the protest either.
Keep reading…Those who watched the Red Bulls demolish the New England Revolution, 4-1, Saturday night at Red Bull Arena cheered wildly as Anthony Wallace’s goal capped the team’s most complete victory of the season.
Little did they know just what that goal meant to Wallace, or the journey he has been on since his career began with such promise.
“I got a lot of ‘great goals’ and ‘good jobs’ and ‘nice goals’, the modest Wallace said about the reaction he received from friends and family about his first career Major League Soccer goal. “But it took a big deflection – twice. But the team put forth such a great effort, the rest was already taken care of. At the end of the day, the three points is all that matters.”
Okay, so there was a bit of luck involved. In the 56th minute, Lloyd Sam’s cross from the right was headed away by a defender. Dax McCarty settled the ball at the top of the box but had no lane to shoot, so he played the ball back at Wallace, who had moved forward from his left back position. Wallace drove a left-footed shot that deflected off the legs of the Revolution’s Chris Tierney and Jose Goncalves and zipped into the lower left corner of the net.
But the announcement of the goal didn’t come right away. Play resumed as officials discussed whether or not it would be an own goal. After a few moments the announcement was made. The goal was his.
“I wasn’t even listening for it, to tell you the truth,” Wallace said. “I didn’t care either way as long as we got the result.”
That shining moment came at the end of a long road that started with great fanfare but was interrupted by injury and poor timing.
Born in Brooklyn, Wallace and his family moved to St. Petersburg, Fla., when he was 2 and he started playing organized soccer at 4 years old. By the time he was 15 he was a member of U.S. Soccer’s Residency Program in Bradenton, Fla. His teammates over the next few years included Freddy Adu, Michael Bradley, Danny Szetela, Dax McCarty, Sal Zizzo, Robbie Rogers, Tony Beltran, Chris Seitz and Jozy Altidore.
One of the most experienced youth internationals in U.S. history, Wallace was a member of the Under-17 team from 2004-06 and the Under-20 team from 2006-09. In 2007, he started four of five games as the Americans reached the quarterfinals of the U-20 World Cup.
He played one season for the University of South Florida in 2006, starting all 19 games as a defensive midfielder, before being drafted by FC Dallas with the No. 9 overall pick in the 2007 MLS SuperDraft as a Generation adidas player. The future seemed limitless.
“I was very young at the time. I was ready to come in and learn,” Wallace said. “I wasn’t expecting to start or even get much playing time off the bat, which was the case. I only played in one first-team game my first year. The first few years of my career were a big learning experience for me, but that’s what molded me into the player I am today.”
But Wallace missed time with FC Dallas while playing for youth national teams and made just 11 starts for the club in three-and-a-half seasons. He was traded in July 2010 to Colorado, where he was the starting left back for a Rapids team that won MLS Cup. The victory in the final came against FC Dallas, his former club.
“Towards the end, right before I got traded to Colorado, we had a coaching change and things weren’t really going in my direction, so it was good to get a change of scenery,” Wallace said. “It was great in Colorado. Going from Dallas and not playing at all, to Colorado and starting every game, and at the end of it, winning MLS Cup against my old team was the sweetest thing.”
Wallace’s play earned him a call-up to the senior national team, then coached by Bob Bradley, and he earned his only cap in January, 2011 in a 1-1 tie with Chile.
“That was a great feeling,” Wallace said. “But ever since then I went through those injury spells and just fell off the radar. The next thing you know they were long-term injuries. But I was able to bounce back from both of those and things are good now.”
He missed the second half of the 2011 season with a knee injury, and a torn Achilles tendon sidelined Wallace for the entire 2012 season. By 2013, he was only able to make six appearances – all as a substitute – and he soon found himself out of the league.
He went home and played for the Tampa Bay Rowdies of the North American Soccer League last season and was ready to play again this year when his agent got a call from the Red Bulls, who were playing a preseason game in Orlando. He impressed the coaches and he made the club.
Though he didn’t play right away, sitting behind Kemar Lawrence and Roy Miller at left back, Wallace patiently waited for his opportunity. That came when Lawrence, Miller and Karl Ouimette were called by their respective national teams for the CONCACAF Gold Cup. That led to more playing time and that thrilling moment against the Revolution.
“He was great. He stepped up and was confident. He understood his role,” Red Bulls coach Jesse Marsch said. “It’s a credit to (Red Bulls II coach) John Wolyniec and USL-Pro. It’s a credit to Anthony and the way he has trained and kept himself mentally engaged knowing that this point was going to come, and it was important for him to step up and perform well. He played very well and in training he has a lot of confidence. He knows that he fits well into the group.”
And that’s all Wallace could ask.
“I’ve had the same conversation with Jesse on a few occasions,” he said. “Basically, whenever my number is called I need to be prepared and be ready. On my end, that’s all I could do, be physically prepared, mentally prepared and just wait for my chance.
“I’ve been around for quite a few years now so you never know when it could come. The way things were going in the beginning it didn’t look like those chances will come, but at the end of the day you never know, so on my end, I just had to be ready.”
And he was.
“I’m really happy for Wally,” McCarty said. “He was obviously signed for a reason because the coaching staff saw something in him, that he was a guy that could get the job done. He’s a very good player. We knew we would be missing Roy and most likely Kemar for the Gold Cup, and we signed Wally with every intention of having him step up and play and make sure that he gets the job done. I couldn’t be more proud of him for his performance.”The Greek parliament has approved a 2017 budget that calls for keeping spending restraints in place, while projecting economic growth to continue at 2.7%.
Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras said that 2017 will mark Greece’s “final exit” from its nearly decade-long financial crisis. The budget adds more than 1 billion euro in new taxes, mostly indirect taxes on items from phone calls to alcohol. It also cuts spending by over 1 billion euro.
Greece is meeting and exceeding goals for the third year in a row,’” said Mr. Tsipras, who noted that Greece notched a 1.75% budget surplus in 2016, and predicted the 2017 surplus would reach 2%.
RELATED: In Historic Turn, Global Economy Grows While CO2 Emissions Stay Same
Mr. Tsipras said revenue targets had been exceeded for the second year in a row in 2016, almost double the initial goal. He said growth in Greece’s economy signals a return to economic stability. “Indeed, in the third quarter, recorded growth in gross domestic product of 1.8% of GDP, the largest since the beginning of the chrisis,” Mr. Tsipras said.
According to government figures, investment into the country increased in 2016 by 3.3%, while the second and third quarter of 2016 saw investment grow by 10%. In 2017, the government projects new investment will increase by 9.1%. Mr. Tsipras noted Greece was ranked first in reforms and changes this year by the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development.
MORE: Costa Rica Has Been Powered Only By Renewable Energy For 122 Days
In an address to Parliament, Finance minister Euclid Tsakalotos stressed the improvement in unemployment, which has been reduced from 27% to 23% and is expected to fall further in 2017.
George Chouliarakis, the Alternate Minister of Finance, said “the vast majority of issues’” with the country’s creditors have been agreed upon, including market and financial sector reforms, as well as in the areas of health, education and tax collections.
Click To Share The News With Your Friends – OR, (Photo by Christine Zenino, CC)As a child in government schools, I must have recited the pledge of allegiance thousands of times. And not once did it occur to me that the “one nation... indivisible” part of it is simply an embrace of the Lincolnian heresy, a preemptive attack on the potential for any kind of organized withdrawal whatsoever. At this point in history, can we not see what a terrifying affirmation this doctrine really is? No matter how oppressed people may be, their secession from the overbearing super-state is obstructed by invisible ideological walls. Thus the words of the Declaration of Independence have turned inward and eaten themselves like an absurd snake consuming itself from the tail forward. Recall those words?
[T]o secure these rights [of Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness], Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed,... [W]henever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness.... [W]hen a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.
The Declaration from which the foregoing passages are copied was a declaration and justification of the secession of thirteen British colonies from the British Empire. To repeat, secession from the established state. Yet, owing to the Republican triumph in the War Between the States, the victorious party’s anti-secessionist doctrines became enshrined in the dominant ideology of the nation. Too bad. Secession is certainly not necessarily a bad thing, however repulsive one might find the secession of the Confederate states to have been in 1861.
Americans have cheered secession in many parts of the world in recent decades. Yet, in the USA, secession remains tainted by its association with the defense of slavery in the 1860s. Americans need to get over that knee-jerk association and recognize that secession might—not necessarily, but might—be an essential first step in people’s escape from an intolerable government and in the reestablishment of their liberties.A Massachusetts man was sentenced to 17 years for a plan to attack the Pentagon with remote-controlled model planes. WHDH's Christa Delcamp reports.
BOSTON - A Massachusetts man was sentenced to 17 years in prison on Thursday for a plot to attack the Pentagon and the U.S. Capitol building in Washington with explosives loaded into remote-control model airplanes.
Rezwan Ferdaus, who was arrested in September 2011 and pleaded guilty in July to terrorism-related charges in a deal with prosecutors, told the court he had devoted a lot of time to self-reflection while in jail awaiting sentencing and that he accepted his fate.
The 26-year-old was arrested after an FBI sting operation in which he requested and took delivery of plastic explosives, three grenades and six assault rifles from undercover FBI agents who he believed were members of the al-Qaida network.
Ferdaus, a Muslim who has a physics degree from Northeastern University, delivered a long, soft-spoken statement in which he offered no apology for his actions but thanked his family and friends for supporting him.
He spoke of "a world filled with injustices," but also said "no dehumanization can serve as justification for inhumanity in other places."
The 17-year sentence, which also includes 10 years of supervised release, was the result of a July plea agreement worked out between his attorneys and prosecutors.
Read more Security stories from NBC News
Ferdaus pleaded guilty to charges of attempting to destroy and damage a federal building and attempting to provide material support to terrorists. Prosecutors dropped four other counts that could have raised the total possible sentence to 35 years.
Before approving the sentence, Stearns told Ferdaus that he was impressed by his self-reflection.
USAMA via AFP - Getty Images A remote-control model of a 1950s U.S. Navy Sabre jet fighter that prosecutors said belonged to Rezwan Ferdaus is seen in this undated photo released by the United States Attorney's Office District of Massachusetts.
"You don't need any lecture from me. Your statement convinces me that you have the character and the capacity to search your own soul," Stearns said. "I'm going to leave it to you to finish that journey."
Parents: Depression led to mental illness
In a letter to Judge Richard Stearns, Ferdaus' parents, Showket and Anamaria Ferdaus, said he slipped into a depression during his senior year at Northeastern, which led to mental illness that was "obviously visible" to his family since late 2009.
They said they tried to get him to see a doctor but he would not.
"We took a very cautious approach. After all, he was over 18 and we could not force him to see a doctor. That is the American way. We felt helpless," they wrote in their letter.
Islamist leader jailed for inciting deadly attack on US Embassy in Tunisia
Ferdaus' attorney, Miriam Conrad, told reporters after the hearing that her client had shown no interest in terrorism before FBI investigators approached him.
"There was no evidence ever produced that Mr. Ferdaus sought out contact with any outside groups before the government became involved or even after the government became involved," Conrad said.
'Wanted to become a terrorist'
Assistant U.S. Attorney Jack Pirozzolo disagreed.
"He was a person who decided that he wanted to become a terrorist," Pirozzolo said, adding that before the FBI investigation began, Ferdaus had tried to obtain weapons illegally from an area gun shop and performed surveillance on a train station in his hometown of Ashland, Massachusetts.
"Those events predated the undercover operation that unfolded here," Pirozzolo said.
NYT: The case of the biker, the jihadist and the 'terrorist bride'
Ferda |
, then maybe a forbidden method like this wouldn’t pass. However, it was a valid plan in these sand dunes.
Emilia’s standing ice tower surely was functioning as a mark. In the worst case scenario when something really would happen and they’d have to inevitably withdraw, they should be able to follow that and go back.
[Subaru: Yeah…….seems like you can walk on this tower. I’m still scared of it possibly toppling over, though. Since the foundation seems to be rustling too much.]
[Emilia: I think it’s fully pinned down, so I think it’s no biggy, but you’re worried?]
[Subaru: Don’t really hear “no biggy” nowadays, huh. ……..Ahh, alright.]
Subaru puts aside his worry, makes fun of Emilia, and lifts his head. Emilia seemed a wee bit displeased with that response, but for now he’d just give her a wry smile.
After that, he looked towards the inside of the dragon carriage that was behind Emilia over her shoulder. Everything inside should’ve been the same, but there was one person that he was worried about in order for that to be true.
[Subaru: Where’s Anastasia?]
[Anastasia: What is it, Natsuki-kun? Looking for me?]
Immediately after looking for her, Subaru jumps because of the person’s voice.
The person who showed her face a little from Emilia’s side to cut into his view was Anastasia. She looked down on Subaru, him being surprised, and she squinted slightly with her light blue eyes.
[Anastasia: No need to get startled that much. Ain’t I deliberately staying inside?]
[Subaru: I knew that you were inside, but I didn’t expect you to appear from Emilia’s armpits, so I got startled.]
[Emilia: ……Hey, Subaru. You seem reeeeally irritated with how you said that.]
[Anastasia: I thought that was unusual too, usually I’d be irritated. What a coincidence.]
Subaru gets irritated by Emilia and Anastasia, but he gets a hold of himself again. There was Beatrice shrugging her shoulders in his arms, but he turned to Anastasia for now.
[Subaru: We’ll be relying on your knowledge to conquer the sand dunes. Please guide us well, okay?]
[Anastasia: Natsuki-kun sure is a worrywart. I’ll be with you, so we’ll be in the same boat in regards to the outcome of this journey……..there’s no way I wouldn’t try and cut corners, you know? Caaalm down.]
[Beatrice: ……Can one really nonchalantly believe a fox?]
Anastasia says those words, and Beatrice talked with a voice that could only be heard by Subaru. He was in complete agreement with her, but it would be wrong to provoke her by using that basis.
If he was gonna say that, then choosing to set out to conquer this watchtower would be a mistake in itself. As of now, they should be using up all of their strength to fulfill their respective roles without complaining.
[Subaru: Right…Anastasia.]
[Anastasia: Yes, Natsuki-kun. Since if something happens, I’ll let Julius know, and if we come near the place Echidna said, I’ll report that too. No need to worry at all.]
Subaru called out to her cynically, and the Anastasia who was Eridna showed no sign of disturbance.
It seems like there would be no problem moving forward like this, for now.
[Emilia: It seems like the wind has gotten stronger. Subaru, if there’s nothing else, then I’m gonna close it, but…….]
[Subaru: …..Ahh, go ahead. Emilia-tan, I’ll leave the people inside up to you.]
[Emilia: Yeah, leave it up to me. You be nice to Beatrice, too.]
[Beatrice: No need to worry about that, I suppose. I’m satisfied.]
Emilia put her hand on the door, and she exchanged words when she left as she went back inside. Beatrice responded to Emilia’s last joke with a light remark, her smile gets interrupted by the door, and she went back inside.
Subaru now went around to the front of the dragon carriage, and he appeared at the driver’s box.
[Julius: Seems like Emilia-sama’s mark is working well. You are as clever as always.]
[Subaru: You can call it guile, you know.]
[Julius: I won’t. I’m jealous of how you’re adaptive in that you can come up with ideas myself and others cant come up with easily. I really cannot come up with these sort of evil ways.]
[Subaru: Guile sounds cuter than evil ways!]
Julius sat on the driver’s box, and he had a faint smile on his face that couldn’t be seen well.
He had a white cloth wrapped around his handsome face, so his expression could not be seen. But even then, they talked with each other in this past month, and he could understand how much he was joking based off the tone of his voice.
[Subaru: Meili, how about you? Doing your job?]
[Meili: You’re gonna ask me that? Onii-san hasn’t run into bad animals even once, and neither has the dragon carriage. That’s not proof of me woorking.]
When he peeked into the driver’s box, he saw Meili pouting with her face, just as he expected. She was also wearing a cloak from her head for the sand wind, and she answered Subaru’s question with a displeased sounding voice.
In response to Meilis answer’ Subaru wipes off the sand off his head while gazing at the pathway.
[Subaru: Even if you say that, it’s hard to see the results of your hard work. I don’t know if the mabeasts haven’t showed up because of you, or if they just aren’t around here……]
[Meili …….Hmm, so that’s what you’re gonna saay.]
Subaru said a careless thing, being disappointed by the high anticipations he had as there were no other obstacles that came up besides the sand and the wind. Meili says that with a low toned voice, and she puts her cheeks in between her hands as if she was thinking of something, sinking into silence.
Subaru honestly had a bad feeling about that.
[Julius: Subaru, apologize to her. It’s clear that you just said something improper.]
[Subaru: Y―you don’t have to tell me, I know. That was kinda my fault. Well, not kinda, but completely. Don’t be sad. I wasn’t trying to be mean.]
[Meili: ……Okaay, it’s finee. It’s not like I’m mad or anythiing. But, I think there’s a reason for what you said too.]
[Subaru: O―oh. That’s good. Thankfully, you are much more mature than you loo…….]
[Meili: ――Look, I’ll make it clear why I’m here.]
Meili interrupts Subaru’s explanation and apology, and she threw out those extremely disturbing words.
The inappropriateness of that sound causes Subaru and Julius to look at each other, and they quickly tried to form some words. ――It was immediately after that.
[――――]
Patrasche and the dragon carriage’s earth dragons both stepped hard on the ground, and they stopped moving.
The earth dragon’s instincts quickly sense something nearing them, and it alerts the master grasping onto the bridle. Then, Subaru and Julius open their eyes at the same time, and they saw it.
[――――]
They saw the sand’s surface suddenly start wriggling as if on purpose, and something wriggling immediately came crawling out below the sand. It was a terrifying animal that had a large amount of sand stuck on its whole body, and it let out an unbelievable piercing cry with its gigantic mouth.
It had no arms or legs, and the way it bent its long, fat, body back and forth would make one think of a snake. However, it had slimy looking skin that was close to the same color as the sand, a stink, and patterns of equidistant lateral stripes carved on its body. Subaru saw it slowly lowering its head, and he saw its true colors.
It wasn’t a snake. ――This was an earthworm.
Subaru did not turn his hands. The body was so huge, and it seemed that its head and mouth could swallow 4-5 people whole. The stink it carried was similar to a rotten smell, and the dropping saliva from the cavities of its small teeth made noise as it evaporated the sand.
[――――]
The eyeless head turned towards them, and it was acting as if it was sniffing a smell.
Subaru completely forget about breathing at this moment. He also felt Patrasche’s thoughts blanking, being across the bridle, and Beatrice grabbed hard onto Subaru’s clothes while being in his arms.
As soon as he thought of “sense of smell”, Subaru remembered his own witch stink that he had. When mabeasts would react to that, as well as when they’d react to it here, this group would――
[Meili: Ahh geez, you stiink. Hurry up and leave. Get loost.]
[――――]
Meili let out an adequate voice, not showing fear in front of Subaru and the others.
Those words cause the gigantic earthworm to turn towards Meili, but it immediately listened to that little girl’s orders, and it crawled into the hole that it dug through.
A few seconds later, the hole that the earthworm came from gets completely covered with sand, and only silence reigned within the area.
[Julius: ……..That was an earthworm, most likely. It’s a mabeast that prefers to lurk beneath sandy soil, but it was a little bigger than I thought.]
[Subaru: A little? How little?]
[Julius: Based off my knowledge, surely I thought they would’ve been as big as a male adult’s arms.]
Even if the earthworm appeared as that size, that would be big enough for it to be a grotesque threat. But, that sand earth worm was hundreds to thousands times larger than what Julius thought it was.
Mabeasts at the Augria Sand Dunes did get ferocious, including the native species, but perhaps he should’ve considered that difference in scale as a type of difference too.
Anyhow
[Emilia: W―what was that loud voice…….?]
Emilia opens the dragon carriage’s small window, and she she shows her face from the window that was connected to the driver box and the inside of the carriage.
Even if she didn’t see that earthworm, she should’ve heard that mabeast’s roar. Emilia looked worried, but Subaru couldn’t speak right away.
Then, Meili takes Subaru’s place, as he stiffened up, and she faces Emilia as she said
[Meili: No need to woorry. I just wanted to let you guys know how blessed you are because of how you don’t have to worry about that thiing.]
[Subaru: Ahh geez, I really am no match for Meilii-san!]
Subaru loosens up thanks to Meili’s words, and he gave her a full compliment from the bottom of his heart.
Emilia was surprised from that change, but after Meili’s got surprised, she immediately appeared to be satisfied.
[Meili: Reeally? Is this it? Does Onii-san see me in a new light now?]
[Subaru: Yeah, I seriously respect you. I sincerely felt just how dangerous this place would be, had you not come along. The Augria Sand Dunes are scary! Scaaaaaaaary!!]
He now understood one way how the many reckless adventurers didn’t come back from them daring to conquer this place.
He understood that they certainly were extremely daring.
It was the absurdity of fooling themselves by believing that the initiation of the sand dunes would be easy. Hooray for peace. Peace is the best.
[Beatrice: You’re flattering her quite a lot, I suppose. I’m disgusted.]
[Subaru: Shut up! Weren’t you scared too!? “Ah, I’m scared!”]
[Beatrice: I―I was only with you because you were nervous. Don’t get the wrong idea.]
[Subaru: Don’t act so tough. You pissed yourself a little just like I did. I can tell.]
[Beatrice: Piss, I suppose!?]
Their quarrel started like a comedy episode, but nobody could blame them for it at the time.
It seemed like mabeasts would approach them if they caused a fuss, but the power of the being who countered that had been adequately proven. Thus, even Julius didn’t try to stop their quarrel.
He simply readjusted his consciousness to realize that the ice they were walking on was thinner than he’d imagined.
That was the first day of the conquering of the sand dunes when they reflected that just that thought had enough significance.
※ ※ ※ ※ ※ ※ ※ ※ ※ ※ ※ ※ ※
Suddenly, light ran through the sky, and it penetrated the wind.
[――――]
It makes a violent sound, and the ice tower that received a direct hit smashed in half as it crumbled down.
The pulverized ice tower immediately reduces into mana, and every little bit of it that fell down was swallowed into the sand, disappearing from the world without any ruin, without a trace.
The light continued several times more, and it ran through the sky in succession.
Coincidentally, matched the same amount of times the silver haired girl established the ice tower.
Nobody knew what that meant at this point of time.
They simply understood that the conquering of the sand maze was by no means a simple matter.
That was the only established fact.
AdvertisementsAfter appearing merely in the form of a short description and a support page, Google's upcoming photo sharing service Photovine now has a little bit more to offer: a registration form and an official teaser video.
The registration form currently accepts invite requests, and the confirmation email claims that Photovine will be "slowly rolling-out invites starting later this month."
The video (below), however, tells us a little bit more about how Photovine works. A user starts out a theme or a topic with a photo - in the video, the topic is called "warm and fuzzy" and starts with a photo of a dog that fits the description. Then, other users chime in, and after a while you get a lot of "warm and fuzzy" photos, which explains Photovine's motto: "Plant a photo, watch it grow".
The service seems incredibly simple to use, but there's a lot we don't know: how do you manage your friends on the network, how do you share photos on social networks such as Twitter, Facebook and Google+, and so forth. We'll have more as soon as we try it out.High court case could reshape what we consider ‘our’ beach
By Russ Lay on September 12, 2016
Public beach or private rights? First of four parts
You’ve rented a house just far enough from the oceanfront that it’s too far for the family to walk to the beach.
Everyone piles into the car and heads for the Beach Road, checking out public access parking lots and hoping to score an empty space. Or at least one with a bathhouse or maybe a port-o-john.
After several tries, you finally find one.
The kids pile out and rush to the beach as the adults schlep enough gear over the dune to survive a week on a desert island.
You scan the beach looking for an empty spot close enough to the water to keep an eye on the kids, but far enough away to avoid being be forced to move as the tide rolls in.
Umbrellas and canopies are planted, beach blankets spread out, toys unpacked, volleyball nets and court laid out, chairs turned to catch the sun and coolers with sand wheels strategically placed in what has now become your stake of dry sand.
Then, as you settle in your chair and pop open a cold one, a representative of the owners of the rental home behind you approach and order you to pack it all up and move.
You’re trespassing on private property.
Locals and visitors to the Outer Banks take one thing for granted: Once you walk onto the sand, the entire beach is usually available for your enjoyment.
But a lawsuit filed by an Emerald Isle couple and heading to the N.C. Supreme Court could significantly impact, even restrict, the public’s right to set up camp on what is commonly called the “dry sand beach.”
And that suit, filed by Gregory and Diane Nies, has made county and municipal governments as well as an odd assortment of unlikely interest groups nervous enough to come to Emerald Isle’s aid with financial and legal support.
The concern is amplified because the Nies’ are being represented by the Pacific Legal Foundation, one of the nation’s largest and most successful property rights law firms.
On their web page they have vowed to take this case as far as the U.S. Supreme Court.
So far, the Nies’ have lost each of their court cases, with the North Carolina Court of Appeals handing them their most recent defeat.
Based upon some recent decisions handed down from the state’s highest court, the decision by the state Supreme Court to hear the case has left many believing that the jurists will agree with the appeals court decision.
But more disconcerting is the Pacific Legal Foundation’s vow to move onto federal court if the Nies’ lose at the state level.
The PLF has extensive experience in the federal system, including the U.S. Supreme Court. In fact, their web site boasts that the “PLF has had an unprecedented eight wins in its last eight direct High Court appearances for its clients, including three in the last two years.”
All of which has led Currituck, Dare and Hyde counties, five Dare municipalities, and the North Carolina Beach Buggy Association to join Emerald Isle in sending money to help fund their Supreme Court case costs.
Municipal law specialist Ben Gallop of Hornthal, Riley, Ellis and Maland was also tapped by the nine entities to file an amicus curiae, or “friend of the court,” brief in support of Emerald Isle.
These special briefs are only allowed to be filed in state and federal Supreme Courts, and their presence typically signals interested parties feel such cases have ramifications that extend far beyond the plaintiff’s and defendant’s immediate interests.
The nine entities have been joined by the state’s four other oceanfront counties, all 16 other coastal municipalities as well as unlikely allies such as the N.C. Coastal Federation, the N.C. Wildlife Federation, the Surfrider Foundation and other users of beaches and waterways.
In fact, this is perhaps the oddest arrangement of allies ever put together on one side of a court case involving the state’s beaches.
More often than not, groups like the Surfriders, Wildlife Federation and Coastal Federation are lined up against coastal county and local governments when litigation is involved.
Even stranger is the law firm and lawyer chosen to write and submit the combined N.C. Coastal Federation/NC Wildlife Federation amicus brief — Derb Carter and the Southern Environmental Law Center.
This may mark the first time in history Dare Country and the SELC were on the same side of a lawsuit where the state’s natural resources and access to them were in play.
In our next installment, we will look at the history of North Carolina’s public beach doctrines. Following that we will visit the argument from the Nies’ and the PLF’s point of view, followed by a final installment covering the Emerald Isle position.Calorie labels can be a little bit useless.
Yes, they do contain a number that indicates the amount of energy contained in a given food. But the units of measurement are unfamiliar and difficult to parse. What does 250 calories in one soda actually mean?
Researchers at Johns Hopkins University wanted to see what would happen if they made calorie labels more blunt — specifically, if the labels told consumers how much exercise it would take to burn off the energy in a soda.
They went into Baltimore and put up signs in six corner stores' fridges, right where the drinks were. They said it would take 50 minutes of running or 5 miles of walking to burn off the 250 calories in a 16-ounce soda. And they waited, over six weeks, to see if shoppers made different decisions.
Here's what happened among the teenagers who shopped at these convenience stores: they bought fewer sodas. Results published this week in the American Journal of Public Health show that consumption of sports drinks such as Gatorade went down as well.
At the same time that teens were buying fewer sodas, they were also more likely to purchase water — or leave the store with no drink at all.
In exit interviews, about one-third of those surveyed said that they noticed the signs. And among those, 40 percent say it changed their decision about what they would buy at the store. Those who did still buy sodas tended to buy smaller bottles than they did before the signs went up.
This suggests a relatively easy way to make calorie labels, which are becoming more ubiquitous, more powerful. The Affordable Care Act mandates that all chain restaurants with 10 or more locations post calorie information about their standard food items. But most research shows that these listings don't change consumers' behavior.
One study looked at New York City's calorie labeling law, which went into effect in 2008. It compared New Yorkers' consumption of fast food after those labels went up to that of residents of nearby Newark.
If the calorie labels made a difference, you would expect to see declines in New Yorkers' calorie consumption while Newark residents' consumption remained constant. But that didn't happen: while the researchers did find that about half of New Yorkers noticed the labels, there was no statistically significant change in how they ate.
What makes the new research encouraging is that it suggests a way to make the numbers on calorie labels more meaningful. "These results might also be relevant to other local or state initiatives in various settings (convenience stores, vending machines in schools or workplaces) that require point-of-purchase information," the authors write.
And, on a more personal note, this new study will make me think twice about grabbing the 50-minute run bags of Cheez-Its in Vox's office.They should change the name of Saturday Night Live to Saturday Night Fever because the late-night show is feelin' the Bern. Presidential hopeful Bernie Sanders will appear on SNL this weekend, Deadline reports.
Bern-ing sensation
Saturday Night Live has not officially confirmed the appearance, but it makes sense that Sanders would stop by tomorrow night. Larry David, who has impersonated Sanders on SNL in the past, is set to host Saturday's episode. Sanders is following in the footsteps of his competition for the Democratic nomination, Hillary Clinton, who appeared on SNL late last year. In that sketch, Clinton played Val, a bartender forced to listen to Hillary Clinton (played by Kate McKinnon) complain about the trials of being, well, Hillary Clinton. Donald Trump hosted SNL back in November.
Maybe Bernie Sanders will play a banker at a Wall Street firm.Hmmm, I'm getting notes of sandalwood, rosemary and a hint of boiled cabbage…
We kid you not; there are people out there being paid to smell others' farts and diagnose physical health based on their various odours. And not only that, it pays well, with reports of professional fart smellers in China being paid up to US$50,000 per year.
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Think you've got what it takes to hone your hooter and examine anal emissions? Read on.
According to Chinese news sources, the hottest career in health and physical well-being right now focuses entirely on analysing the smells of others' rectal gas.
By picking up on traces sweet, savoury, bitter and even meaty aromas, these brave anal analyzers are allegedly able to identify illnesses and pinpoint their location in the body.
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According to the smellsperts, extremely stinky farts indicate bacterial infection in the patient's bowels or intestines. A raw, fishy or meaty smell, meanwhile, could point to infection in the digestive organs or even highlight the presence of bleeding or tumours in the intestinal lining. Finally, the presence of garlic or chives in our farts is thought to be an indicator that we're consuming too much of the foods in question, which could ultimately result in inflammation of the small or large intestines.
But it's not just the whiff of our farts that gives telltale signs about our health. The group also claims to be able to tell a lot about a person's physical wellbeing by measuring the amount of gas expelled with each fart, with enormous guffs suggesting that we're consuming too much fibre and mere whispers hinting at intestinal obstruction.
A "professional gas smeller" as shown on Chinese TV. We'd want goggles, too…
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But before you pack your bags and move to China to seek your fortune, you should know that it's not all fun and games in the world of anal aroma analysis!
Those hoping to break into the industry must be aged 18-45, completely abstain from smoking and alcohol, and be free of any kind of nasal impairment or related illness. If you fit the bill, you must then undergo a series of smell recognition tests and complete a long training course. Only then, ladies and gentlemen, only then will you receive your certification to smell other people's farts on a daily basis!
Sounds like a pretty awful career to us, but then again, after spending the day with your nostrils filled with noxious gas, everything else in the world must smell like a trip to the Body Shop with rose petals stuffed up your nose…
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Image credit: Shutterstock/glenda
Related:
Japanese fart-deodorizing underwear
Scented oil that smells like a boy's bum
An aroma-shooting USB device
Welcome to Gizmodo's winter break! We're exploring the crazier side of tech this month, so check out gizmodo.com/core if all you want is straight tech news.
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This article originally appeared on Japanese news blog RocketNews24. It was republished with permission.Everyone remembers the 2007 New England Patriots and how unstoppable they were during the regular season. Well, today I’m going to show you a play that sets out to recreate some of the magic that they had from that season. The play will be run out of Pistol or Shotgun Spread(flipped) and is called 60 H Y Option. We’ll just call the route ran by the X receiver (A on Xbox) receiver the Wes Welker route and the streak by Circle receiver (B on Xbox) of course is the route that coined the term, “You Got Mossed”. Now you may not have Welker or Moss specifically but you can recreate that scheme around the specific traits they possessed. Besides those two, the play does a great job of being effective vs both man and zone coverage and with only one receiver needing a specific player trait you can run this with almost any team.
Pistol/Shotgun Spread 60 H Y Option
X receiver (A on Xbox): He sets up the whole play, and his ability to beat man coverage forces your opponent into more zone looks out of fear of getting destroyed by the slot receiver. His yards per catch won’t look to pretty overall, but the faster he is the more dangerous he becomes with the ball in his hands.
R1 receiver (RB on Xbox): Doesn’t need great hands, but he can’t have Brandon Jacobs type hands either…..
Triangle receiver (Y on Xbox): Along with the A receiver, he will lead your team in catches, due to being a viable option vs man and zone coverage.. Teams that have a good tight end have an advantage formation subbing him.
Square receiver (X on Xbox): His route doesn’t cause the most damage but the threat of it affects what plays your opponent will choose. Similar to a base runner keeping a pitcher from throwing as many off speed pitches as he would like.
Circle receiver (B on Xbox): You know in every league you see a receiver with a stat line like 30 catches and 1,000 yards? He’s that guy……….The taller your #1 receiver is the better
Hopefully you enjoyed these Madden 15 Tips on dominating with Option Routes. Do you use any option routes in your current offensive scheme? Let us know in the comments below. Make sure you check back daily for news and tips for your favorite sports games here at Sports Gamers Online.Disgaea 5 Will Have The Most Volume Of Any Game In The Series
By Sato. September 2, 2014. 4:30am
Nippon Ichi Software recently announced that Disgaea 5 is headed to PlayStation 4 during Sony’s pre-Tokyo Game Show press conference. While we only saw teaser during the conference, NIS shared a little more in this week’s magazine reports. [Thanks, Game Jouhou.]
Disgaea 5’s story will have the theme of “revenge” and will also have more volume than previous Disgaea games. There will be new systems as well.
The protagonist’s name is Kilia, a young demon boy who swears to get revenge against the demon emperor Void Dark. The heroine, named Seraphine, is a demon lord of the “Gorgeous Underworld,” and is the well-brought-up daughter of an upper-class family.
There’s also Usalia, who is the demon lord of some place called “Rabbit Rabbit World,” and has been affected by some curse that makes her go violent unless she eats curry.
The magazine report also has some quotes from Nippon Ichi president Sohei Niikawa, who stated,“We thought about going multi-platform with PlayStation 3, but doing so would’ve made the PS3 the standard. Since we’re making it, I want to be able to offer something that could only be done with the PlayStation 4.”
Another quote from Niikawa says: “The number of characters that can be displayed at once has vastly grown. On the PlayStation 3 it was limited to 10 characters shown in high definition, but the PlayStation 4 can display 100 characters.”.
A product code for a trial version of the game will be included in the September 25 issue of Dengeki PlayStation magazine.
Disgaea 5 is expected to release in Japan sometime in Spring 2015 for PlayStation 4.September 1, 2015
Ozan Tekin is a member of the Revolutionary Socialist Workers Party (DSIP), which is affiliated with the International Socialist Tendency. He answered questions from Bill Mullen about the backdrop to the AKP's defeat, the Turkish state's war against the Kurds, and the prospects for the working class and the revolutionary left in the wake of the Gezi protests.
In June elections, the Islamist party's share of the vote dropped from just under 50 percent, denying it an opportunity to form the government for a third term in power. Little changed from the last election in 2011 for the other main parties in Turkey--the center-left Republican People's Party (CHP), at one time, the dominant force in Turkish politics, often ruling with the support of the military; and the far-right Nationalist Movement Party (MHP). The big winner was the People's Democratic Party (HDP), a recently formed alliance of pro-Kurdish and left-wing political forces that won 13 percent of the vote, enough to win representation in parliament and deny the AKP their majority. With no coalition government emerging, a new election has been set for November 1.
Two summers ago, small protests in Istanbul against the demolition of a central green space, Gezi Park, in order to build a shopping mall spread to a national political upsurge that has since shaken the power of the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP), led by President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan.
LET'S START with the Turkish state. The Justice and Development Party lost its parliamentary majority in the June election, in part because of the success of the People's Democratic Party. Since then, there have been several failed attempts to form a new government. How does the revolutionary left assess the apparent instability of the Turkish state at this moment and the challenge of the HDP?
THE AKP has been in government for 13 years. After the elections in 2002, it was able to form a majority government in parliament. This was a relief for the ruling class after a period of crisis between 1999 and 2002, at the end of which all the parties that had participated in a coalition government--a center-right party, a center-left wing party and the fascists--lost significant amounts of support. The AKP was promising stability, economic success and the prospect of joining the European Union (EU).
But the Turkish state and big capital is traditionally hostile to Islamists. The AKP leadership has its roots in the Islamic movement that was overthrown in 1997 in what was called a "post-modern" coup [because the government was forced out by the military without suspending the constitution]. This was one in a series of military takeovers in modern Turkish history.
Democracy demonstrators fill Taksim Square in Istanbul during the Gezi struggle
So as soon as the AKP took power in 2002, there were plans and plots to overthrow them hatched inside the army from the start. This peaked in 2007, a few months before the elections with a wave of highly nationalistic protests known as "Rallies for the Republic," which were organized by the deep state and army and led politically by the Kemalist party, the Republican People's Party, and the fascists of the Nationalist Movement Party. The rallies were accompanied by official threats from army leaders that they were about to intervene in politics to save "secularism."
In Turkey, any party and individual victimized or overthrown by the military gains popularity. Recep Tayyip Erdoğan was the beneficiary of this in the elections of 2007, with the AKP reaching 47 percent of the popular vote. The party's share of the vote grew by more than one-third over the 34 percent it won in 2002.
To avoid the danger of a military takeover, the AKP developed a strategy to influence wider sections of Turkish society. It promised improvements in human rights; an end to the Kurdish war, by recognizing that the Kurdish question exists and the state had made serious mistakes; putting the military generals who were plotting a coup on trial; and lowering the level of racism against Armenians by trying to build ties with the Armenian state.
The period between 2002 and 2013 was also an era of economic growth, in which the ruling class was the main beneficiary, but ordinary people also had better conditions compared to the past. Turkey's economy, after a short period of crisis and an increase in unemployment, wasn't seriously damaged by the global crisis of 2008, and kept growing. All these added fuel to the AKP's success, and the party reached 50 percent of the vote in 2011.
Since the Gezi Park protests of 2013, everything has started to change for the government.
First, the AKP turned its back on all policies it defended in the earlier period. Every protest was met with brutal police repression and the reversal of democratic rights. There was a shift to a harder position in denying the Armenian Genocide as its 100th anniversary approached.
The peace process with the Kurds became very fragile as the government took a very hostile stance. Imprisoned military generals were released on the argument that their jailing was a "witch hunt" against the army--this was to help the government prove that corruption accusations and trials against many AKP leaders were also "witch hunts," organized by the movement led by Erdoğan's rival, Fethullah Gülen.
Basically, the AKP started to act in a completely opposite way from what it had done since 2002.
The dynamics that shaped Turkish society in the first decade of 2000s were pro-democracy struggles, mass sentiment against Kemalism and the army leadership, growing disapproval of the civil war against the Kurds and support for a peace process, and a growing rejection of the racism against any minority that the state had historically targeted.
These dynamics, which once helped the AKP to survive military threats and made it very strong and popular, dug the grave of Erdoğan and his friends. In the June elections, the AKP lost almost a fifth of its share of the popular vote. This was after some months of infighting among the party leadership.
It's very important to understand this crisis alongside two factors. One is the peace process with Kurds. The popular discontent with the war and the struggle for a different direction opened up democratic space for every kind of struggle for the oppressed.
Then there was Gezi--a mass movement against the government that was very different from the republican rallies of 2007 and had a libertarian soul at its core. This was the crucial movement that started the process of decline for the AKP. Even though the Gezi movement didn't go on to produce a political formation, it caused a crisis for not only AKP, but the ruling class as a whole.
A few months after Gezi, the Gülen movement split away from the AKP, with its figures in the judiciary coming up with serious allegations of corruption and robbery against the government. The AKP labeled this as a "coup" and started to eliminate Gülen supporters from among the police and judiciary. But even 50 percent of AKP supporters--though they followed the "coup" line officially--believed the allegations. This is another aspect of the growing anger against the government.
Then came the Soma mine disaster in May 2014, in which a total of 301 workers were killed. The popular belief was that they died because of the neoliberal policies that the AKP had implemented for years. Workplace "accidents" and safety became a major debate throughout society, and the ministers of the AKP behaved in such an arrogant way that everybody became convinced that they were the reason behind thousands of workplace deaths over the years.
After the latest elections in which the AKP suffered its setback, none of the mainstream parties were able to form a coalition government, so we'll now have new elections on November 1. Opinion polls show that the share of votes isn't likely to change. We're entering a period of great instability for the ruling class--this also sets the context for the prospects of even wider struggles for freedom.
WHAT CAN you say about the role of the working class movement and the left in this picture?
THE LABOR movement has been very weak and divided over political questions for the last three decades. There are as many as seven different trade union confederations in all. The military coup of 1980 was successful in smashing working class organizations and the left. In the 1990s, there were struggles |
’s denial of loans to these people for years under the Keepseagle case. You know, there’s a lot of things that happened.
It’s time for justice. And it’s time for peace. And the way you’re going to make peace out here is to take care of your environment and to treat people with dignity. You know, nobody is going anywhere. Telling Native people they should go home—wait, wait, let me get that right. You know, this is where we live, you know? And so, you know, I think that the long-term solutions are really systemic. It’s, you know, having local food. It’s not having your food owned by Monsanto, and it’s not putting a bunch of, you know, pesticides, and it’s not exporting all your oil and destroying your water. You know, the North Dakota Department of Health says that there’s not problems with the oil spills or the brine spills into the river. Their answer was, is that dilution has—had solved the problem. The solution to pollution is not dilution. The solution to pollution is don’t do it. You know? There’s only so much poison you can make. It’s time to quit, North Dakota. And it doesn’t just affect you. Like, North Dakota act like what happens here, it’s really their business. I’m telling you, everything happening in North Dakota affect the rest of us. And everybody should care about North Dakota. And we should work together to protect this water up here and protect the people, so we can live in dignity, you know?
AMY GOODMAN: You know, it was the morning of the September 3rd pipeline security guard attacks on the Native Americans that we spoke to you. It was before the dogs were unleashed, when you said, “Governor Dalrymple, this is not 1963. This is not Alabama. You are not”—
WINONA LADUKE: “You’re not George Wallace, Governor Dalrymple.” You know, that is right. It is time to, like, evolve. This is—you know, that era that was in the '50s and the ’60s, this is like—you know, you don't get to put dogs on Indians. You don’t get to put water cannons on us. You don’t get to fire at us. It’s time for peace. You know, these people—I always get super offended. You know, I’m not a protester; I’m a protector. And why is it that I get called an “activist” or “protester,” when what I want is clean water, and a corporation that is going to poison your water isn’t called a “terrorist”? How does Dakota Access become a victim in this? At what point are they a victim? And that’s what the court is saying. People are told that they cannot have any contact with the victim. That’s what Nick Tilson was charged with. And they said “no contact with the victim.” He said, “Who is the victim?” And they said, “Dakota Access.” That’s not even a corporation. It’s a project. We’ve got to quit defending the rights of corporations over human rights and the rights of water, you know?
AMY GOODMAN: And the SLAPP suits?
WINONA LADUKE: And the SLAPP suits, oh, my gosh, there’d be so many busy people. And what I’m saying is, is that, in my experience, they had all the hearings on pipelines in northern Minnesota in January, like the 3rd of January. The technically enhanced naturally occurring radiation standard meetings in North Dakota were the 14th of January. It’s cold as heck. You know, nobody want to go. But I’m saying it is time to take your vacation in North Dakota, civil society. You know, North Dakota needs a little help out here. And bad things got to—you know, got to quit happening up here. And this is your chance, everybody, to come support us. We don’t need the Deep North up here. You know, what we need is justice. And what we need is something that’s right, you know?
AMY GOODMAN: Well, I want to thank you both for being with us. Winona LaDuke and Tara Houska, both with Honor the Earth. This is Democracy Now! We’re broadcasting from Mandan, North Dakota, across the street from the Morton County jail and courthouse, where so many of the water and land defenders have been brought to. This is Democracy Now!, democracynow.org. I’m Amy Goodman. Thanks for joining us.Once again, it was ESPN’s weekly NBA basketball coverage that led the night in the Wednesday cable ratings this week, scoring 0.9 and 0.6 ratings in adults 18-49 throughout the night. Meanwhile, VH1’s “Black Ink Crew” followed closely behind, raking in a 0.6 for itself, just one-tenth lower than its previous 0.7. TBS’ “Full Frontal with Samantha Bee” also took a minor hit, dipping from a 0.5 to a 0.4.
The season 8 premiere of “Archer” grabbed a 0.4 on FXX as well, in line with the 0.4 its season 7 finale scored last June. Both MTV’s “Catfish: The TV Show” and OWN’s “Greenleaf” dipped this week also, falling from 0.4s to a 0.3s this time around.
Outside of the Top 25, “Underground” held steady with a 0.2 yet again, and “The Magicians” fell from a 0.3 to a 0.2 on SyFy.
Top 25 original cable shows among adults 18-49 for Wednesday, April 5, 2017
Shows Net Time Total Viewers (000s) 18-49 rating NBA REGULAR SEASON ESPN 8:01 PM 2,146 0.9 BLACK INK CREW 5 VH1 8:00 PM 1,256 0.6 NBA REGULAR SEASON ESPN 10:35 PM 1,282 0.6 MY 600-LB LIFE TLC 8:00 PM 1,722 0.5 FULL FRONTAL W/ SAM BEE TBS 10:30 PM 1,209 0.4 ARCHER FXX 10:00 PM 742 0.4 REAL HOUSEWIVES OF NYC BRAVO 9:00 PM 1,267 0.4 SKIN TIGHT TLC 10:02 PM 1,134 0.4 RACHEL MADDOW SHOW MSNBC 9:00 PM 2,561 0.4 DUCK DYNASTY SPECIALS A&E 9:00 PM 946 0.4 LITTLE WOMEN ATL LIFETIME 9:00 PM 867 0.4 SPORTSCENTER 1AM ESPN 1:09 AM 778 0.3 CATFISH: THE TV SHOW MTV 8:00 PM 610 0.3 TOTAL DIVAS E! 9:00 PM 669 0.3 NBA PRE-GAME ESPN 7:00 PM 631 0.3 GREENLEAF OWN 10:00 PM 1,250 0.3 COPA MX – L UNIVISION 9:23 PM 684 0.3 HUNTER STREET NICKELODEON 7:00 PM 1,497 0.3 LAST WORD W/ L. ODONNELL MSNBC 10:00 PM 2,336 0.3 JEP & JESSICA A&E 8:30 PM 776 0.3 DAILY SHOW COMEDY CENTRAL 11:00 PM 888 0.3 BERING SEA GOLD DISCOVERY 10:00 PM 1,103 0.3 THE OREILLY FACTOR FOX NEWS 8:00 PM 3,606 0.3 SEE NO EVIL INVEST 9:00 PM 1,050 0.3 BILLY THE EXTERMINATOR A&E 10:32 PM 673 0.3
Source: The Nielsen CompanyCarl Paladino, Donald Trump’s New York co-chair, on Thursday said that President Obama is not a Christian, arguing that the President’s foreign policy proves he’s a Muslim.
“In the mind of the average American, there is no doubt he is a Muslim,” Paladino told the New York Observer in a phone interview. “He is not a Christian.”
“Look at what he’s done with Iran, what he’s done with the Sunni-Shia thing over in Iraq and Iran, and with ISIS,” he added.
Obama’s Christian faith has been questioned by conservatives for years, despite the fact that he was a member of the Trinity United Church of Christ in Chicago before taking office and that he has attended church with his family since then. The Observer, which is owned by Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner, noted this.
Paladino was not the only Trump supporter to revive a conspiracy theory about Obama this week. Former Trump campaign manager Corey Lewandowski on Tuesday raised questions about Obama’s Harvard transcripts, suggesting that Obama did not release the records to hide that he was not born in the United States.By Lt. Col. Max Despain, 376th Air Expeditionary Wing Public Affairs / Published June 04, 2014
TRANSIT CENTER AT MANAS, Kyrgyzstan (AFNS) -- Airmen gathered in front of the headquarters building for an inactivation ceremony June 3, for the 376th Air Expeditionary Wing as part of the overall Transit Center at Manas closure.
In a sunset event, Col. John C. Millard, the 376th AEW commander, sheathed the wing colors in a black sleeve, symbolizing the organization's inactive status while the Honorable Pamela L. Spratlen, the U.S. ambassador to the Kyrgyz Republic, observed the occasion.
In her comments, Spratlen described the moment as "bittersweet," complimenting the wing as "the absolute best of the United States military in your integrity, your commitment to the mission and your professionalism."
The ambassador reminded the crowd, "We are part of something much larger," and thanked the service members for their "extraordinary service."
Millard share his pride in the 376th Air Expeditionary Wing's role in closing the transit center, "You have made history as your spirit never faltered in the quest to accomplish the mission."
After thanking the ambassador for her advocacy and the embassy's hospitality, he returned to the unique accomplishments of his wing.
"You can forever be proud of the accomplishments you've made here... This is a first of a last. You are the first Air Force-led base closure in Operation Enduring Freedom... You are the first to mark a true end of an era."
For the more than 12 years the American military has operated out of this location, serving as the premier transportation and logistics hub supporting operations in Afghanistan. The wing performed four critical missions to include air refueling, onward movement, airlift and humanitarian assistance.
In the course of its existence, the wing flew 33,000 air refueling missions, offloading more than 1.8 million pounds of fuel to136,000 coalition aircraft.
The onward movement mission meant the transit center supported more than 5.3 million coalition personnel either traveling to or departing from Afghanistan.
Ninety-eight percent of all international security assistance and coalition forces going into and out of Afghanistan traveled through here.
At the same time the transit center supported 42,000 cargo missions, transporting 1.4 billion pounds of cargo.
The humanitarian assistance mission pillar only formally existed for four years, and those projects were conducted through the only Air Force Theater Security Cooperation division. They completed 37 humanitarian assistance projects at an investment of $4.7 million. There were more than 110 military-to-military exchanges and 188 social-cultural events, resulting in interaction with more than 7,000 people.
The 376th Air Expeditionary Wing's roots date from the activation of the 376th Bombardment Group (Heavy) during World War II. The 376th AEW took the name "Liberandos" from the B-24 Liberator bombers it flew during this conflict.
The 376th earned its place in history leading the air raids against Nazi Germany's oil fields in Ploesti, Romania in 1942. Although their efforts left the refineries severely damaged, enemy fire brought down 74 B-24s, and of the 89 that made it home, only one-sixth of those planes ever flew again. Hundreds of Airmen were killed or captured.
Before the current activation, the Liberandos have been reactivated two times since World War II, once as a bomb wing that took on a refueling mission in the 1960's, and again, in the 1970's as a bomb wing that became a reconnaissance wing, operating in such diverse conflicts as Vietnam and Operation Desert Storm before inactivating in 1991.
Following the attacks on Sept. 11, 2001, the wing was reactivated. It was designated the 376th Air Expeditionary Wing, standing up operations at the Manas International Airport, Kyrgyz Republic, on Dec. 21, 2001, where it has operated for more than 12 and a half years.While Maserati did reveal the 2018 GranTurismo and GranCabrio in the past days, the Italian car maker had neglected to release a full gallery of the new model; until now.
So feast your eyes on the new Italian GT that insists on using an old-school naturally aspirated V8 which produces the kind of music we like, as well as 460hp at 7,000rpm and 520Nm of peak torque at 4,750rpm.
The visual changes are subtle but necessary as the car has been around since 2007, with the company taking inspiration from the beautiful Alfieri concept.
This means that the 2018 GranTurismo and its topless sibling, the GranCabrio, now feature a new ‘sharknose’ hexagonal grille, lower air ducts and a redesigned rear bumper among other smaller revisions.
One of the highlights of the facelift is the interior, which now features a modern 8.4-inch infotainment system with Android Auto and Apple CarPlay, a redesigned lower console and the ever-gorgeous Poltrona Frau leather seats.
Have a look at the gallery below and tell us what you think on the comments.
PHOTO GALLERYCaught on camera: Uber tutors drivers to 'circumvent' regulations Uber launched in New Orleans last week, but a new video that surfaced on Friday is prompting critics to say "We told you so." Share Shares Copy Link Copy
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WEBVTT VIDEO IS PROMPTING CRITICS TOSAY "WE TOLD YOUSO."AFTER MONTHS OF DEBATE THE CITYOF NEW ORLEANS FINALLYALLOWED UBER TO OPERATE IN THECITY, BUT CERTAINREQUIREMENTS WERE PUT IN PLACE,AND A NEW VIDEO HASCRITICS OF THE COMPANY ASKING:IS EVERYTHING BEING DONEABOVE BOARD.THE VIDEO WAS RECORDED AT AMEETING WITH POTENTIALDRIVERS AND UBER NEW ORLEANS CEOTOM HAYES. BESIDESTHE 15 DOLLAR MINIMUM FAREREQUIRED, ALL DRIVERS HAVE TOBE AFFILIATED WITH A COMPANYTHAT OWNS AND OPERATES ATLEAST TWO STRETCH LIMOS. IT'SCALLED THE TWO STRETCHREQUIREMENT AND WAS PUT IN PLACEIN AN EFFORT TOENSURE THAT UBER DRIVERS WERELICENSED WITH AN ALREADYEXISTING COMPNAY. BUT IN THISVIDEO YOU'RE ABOUT TOSEE, UBER CERO TOM HAYES HASADVISE FOR POTENTIALDRIVERS..."... not record it."COUNCILWOMAN SUSAN GUIDRY SAYS:"While the video is very brief,intends to tutor drivers incircumventing for-hire regulations. I do not thinkanyone familiar with Uber'scorporate practiceswould be surprised by this: itis their standard M.O. A fewdays ago Iasked the Administration toinvestigate whether the few Ubercarscurrently active in New Orleansare in compliance with existingregulations, but I have notheard of any action that hasbeen taken."IN A LITTLE OVER 48 HOURS FROM1 of 1 2 of 1
Recently, stickers bearing the words “Please Respect Canada’s Official Languages” appeared on bus shelter ads in West Vancouver. The ads in question feature Chinese text.
Today (July 15), NDP deputy leader Libby Davies issued a statement on the matter:
Resorting to vandalism to spread a xenophobic message is cowardly. Canada is a multicultural society and New Democrats understand that diversity strengthens our nation. We call on the local MP, John Weston, to openly speak out against the vandalism and to condemn Putting Canada First - the organization that has led the charge against these Chinese language advertisements.
According to the North Shore News, the stickers went up last week. They appeared after North Vancouver resident and Putting Canada First spokesperson Brad Saltzberg complained to West Vancouver council about ads along Marine Drive featuring Chinese text.
The newspaper quoted Saltzberg as saying:
If it goes on unchecked it will continue to the degree we’re seeing in other business districts and other municipalities whereby No. 3 Road in Richmond, it looks like Hong Kong. It doesn’t look like Canada.
West Vancouver mayor Michael Smith has also weighed in on the issue. Smith told the North Shore News:
There’s some people who would like to turn the clock back 50 years when all the immigrants to Canada came from Europe. It’s a different world.
If this controversy sounds familiar, it might be because it’s reminiscent of last year’s ridiculous debate over Chinese signs in Richmond.Bill’s lack of availability for lunchtime patio dining makes him no less appealing to Sookie Stackhouse (Anna Paquin), an orphaned mind-reading waitress, who when the series began was a virgin looking at a very limited number of days of continued sexual ignorance. Bill has a courtly reserve to him, one he has kept up at least since the Civil War. It is the women of Bon Temps whose metabolisms run rapid with appetite. They like to bed down with vampires and accessories.
“True Blood” doesn’t care where those accessories come from. It isn’t interested in what we buy; it cares whether we really are who we sleep with. The sex is served in such luridly voluptuous, viewer-satiation-guaranteed portions that the show feels like nothing else on television, by which I mean television that isn’t available exclusively on $15.99 hotel-room pay-per-view. “True Blood” is also like little we’ve seen on the larger screen in years, a vestige of the ’80s forged from the musings of Adrian Lyne and the camera of David Lynch at a time when studios, unburdened by the need to sell DVDs at Wal-Mart, submitted to greater sexual permissiveness on film.
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The reactionary gender politics that often attended such permissiveness are embedded in “True Blood,” even as the show’s creator, Alan Ball, works aggressively to prove what a fired-up liberal he is. As if we’ve consistently skipped those parts of the newspaper that have recounted the scandals of Jim Bakker or Ted Haggard, Mr. Ball insists on telling us that right-wing religious extremism is frequently linked with an untenable moral and sexual hypocrisy.
A Congressional candidate who makes vampire bashing (read: gay bashing) part of his platform is buying V, vampire blood with a Viagra effect on civilians, from a drag queen on the black market. Mr. Ball, as he did in “American Beauty,” which he wrote, and “Six Feet Under,” which he created and where eros and thanatos did battle every week, shoots his metaphors as if activating an armed squadron. Standing in for a hundred Jerry Falwells and the Curse of American Sexual Paranoia, one detractor on the show declaimed, “Vampires have taken our jobs and our women, and their very blood turns our children into addicts, drug dealers and homosexuals!”
The current season has set up a showdown between a psycho Christian cult called the Fellowship of the Sun, which runs a kind of conversion camp called the Light of Day Institute, and the vampires (and vampire sympathizers) the cult aims to destroy. At the same time it is libidinous women to whom bad things keep happening — and who make bad things happen.
No one in the fellowship is quite as terrifying as Maryann (Michelle Forbes), a not-entirely-human Dionysian nut job, who cooks up pot pies made of dubiously acquired organs and poses the greatest threat to the moral foundation of Bon Temps with her penchant for hypnotizing the town into states of violent, orgiastic rapture. When she is around, eyeballs start bleeding black. She wants everyone to be getting it on all the time. She also likes human sacrifice. Unchecked sexual freedom apparently isn’t what we’re supposed to be signing up for, either.
“True Blood” charges along under the spell of its own unmodulated id. That Mr. Ball seems tenuously at the rudder of his ideological ship doesn’t bother the millions of viewers who cannot get enough. “Sex and the City” — that was merely nun’s play.After failing to deliver on the contract he had signed with Russian online gift store Pich Shop, a 21-year-old entrepreneur agreed to be auctioned off to the highest bidder and marry a complete stranger for at least one year, in order to avoid being sued.
A week ago, a strange listing showed up on PichShop.ru – a young man named Aleksandr Kramarenko available for marriage, with a 1 year warranty. The “product” was listed as “in stock” and featured a detailed description – including age, height, weight, zodiac sign and interests – and photos (both dressed and topless). The listing mentioned that Aleksandr was going to be auctioned off to be married to the highest bidder, and invited women no older than 35 to bid for the chance to become his wife for at least one year. The minimum bid was set at 10,000 rubles.
This all sounds a bit too corny to be true, and, to be fair, such pranks are not exactly uncommon around the holidays. Some of them are actually pretty elaborate and end up attracting a lot of media attention, which translates into free publicity for companies, but this particular story seems legit.
On the “product” page, Pich Shop states that the 21-year-old entrepreneur owes them 3,125,150 Russian rubles ($51,000), after failing to deliver on a contract to screen print 1830 ash floorboards. They sent him the materials for printing, but not only did he not deliver the finished products, but he couldn’t return the materials either, “for reasons that were beyond his control”.
That could be a made up story as well, but a number of Russian news outlets have contacted both the online gift shop and Kramarenko, and both sources confirmed that the story was for real.
“Aleksandr acted as mediator. He took the order and passed it for production to a third party, but his partners deceived him. He owes us,” said Alexander Belousov, a representative of PichShop.ru. The shop was going to sue him for damages, but they offered him this deal as an alternative – he had to agree to be auctioned off and stay married to the winner for at least a year. He apparently agreed.
This way, the shop gets part of the money it’s owed, some free publicity, while Kramarenko gets to walk away from the contract after a year of marriage.
And in case you’re wondering who in their right mind would bid thousands of dollars for the opportunity to marry a stranger, last week, Belousov said that they had already gotten bids of around 300,000 rubles ($5,000) and was expecting even higher ones as the December 20th deadline approached.
On December 21st, Alexander Belousov announced that Pich Shop had received around 200 bids for their unique “product”, a third of which were from men. However, according to the rules, only bids from women of up to 35-years-old were counted, the rest were disqualified. The lucky winner will apparently be announced at the end of this week, but as for the winning bid, the sum is apparently confidential and will not be revealed. “What I can say is that the winning bid has exceeded the groom’s debt,” Belousov added.
Aleksandr Kramarenko’s wedding date will be set after this week’s announcement. In the meantime, this story has gotten him a lot of exposure, and Belousov claims that he has already received job offers from several modeling agencies.Making hay with the mildly controversial Coca-Cola Super Bowl ad, the Public Religion Research Institute (PRRI) yesterday released an infographic showing ethnic distribution of religious unaffiliation or affiliation across generational categories, adding a bit of kindling to the ongoing conversation among religious sorts about how to hold on to Millennials in light of the white, Boomer-and-beyond stronghold on religious institutions.
Data like these are always engaging, especially with a delightful, refreshing beverage. But this new data set tells little that most religionists didn’t already know—while it might actually skew our understanding.
The PRRI infographic illustrates, that is, that the percentage of younger people who claim no religious affiliation is on the rise. At the same time, it shows that percentages of those in any age category who do claim a religious affiliation are more likely to be white, this pale religious reality growing dramatically with age.
The coupling of affiliation and ethnic data as presented here, however, significantly confuses the categories and, in doing so, muddies the picture of religious affiliation and unaffiliation in America.
This happens in a couple of ways. First, PRRI’s stacked chart (below), in which percentages are relative to one another within a category, can create the impression that, in raw numbers, there are more unaffiliated Millennials (18-30) than there are Gen X-ers (30-49) or Boomers (50-64).
A bar that shows 31 percent clearly represents more people than does one showing 22, 16, or 11 percent, right?
Image courtesy PRRI
But this is actually not the case. In fact, people aged 18 to 30 made up just north of 21% of the U.S. population in 2013, according the U.S. Census Bureau, while folks between the ages of 30 and 49 comprised nearly 35% of the population:
[Source: United States Census Bureau, Current Population Survey (CPS) Database, accessed Feb. 6, 2014 at http://www.census.gov/cps/. Population sums shown are in thousands.]
What this means in raw numbers is that the 30% of Millennials who are religiously unaffiliated (15.86 million) are a somewhat smaller group than the 22% of GenXers (17.95 million) who are unaffiliated. Further, in terms of percentages, twice as many 18 to 29 year olds (31%) as 50-64 year olds (11%) is unaffiliated.
But, though Boomers make up a smaller number of the unaffiliated than do either GenXers or Millennials, there are a lot of them. So yes, younger people are more likely than Americans over 30 to be unaffiliated, but—counter-intuitively, perhaps—there are more unaffiliated among the over-30 population.
In the end, I can’t help but think that it might not be that useful to image religious affiliation, or unaffiliation, as a generational phenomenon.
After all, affiliation itself is unfolding in very different ways. Even Atheists—counted in most data sets as “unaffiliated—are going to church these days. Holding up shocking demographic percentages surely doesn’t tell the story of the religious shift through which we’re all living.
White People Come in All Ages
By a similar because-math logic, the identifiable whiteness of the religiously affiliated in the PRRI categories for people over age 30 is more pronounced than among the Millennials.
There are higher percentages of white GenXers, Boomers, and Silents who claim religious affiliation. Thus, the PRRI report amplifies the lack of ethnic and racial diversity in American Christianity in particular, highlighting, for instance, the fact that, by percentage, “seniors are about three times more likely than Millennials to identify as white Catholic” [emphasis added].
In real numbers, though, the difference is between some 3.6 million Millennials and 7.4 million Silents who identify as “white Catholic.” That doubling across generational populations is surely not nothing—and, hey, I’m a fan of speaking strongly to the effects of the whitening of American Christianity within churches and well beyond. But the gap here is perhaps not more “dramatic” than any astute observer of American religion would expect.
More importantly, the conflation of racial and affiliation data in the infographic leaves unexplored the pronounced lack of diversity among the unaffiliated as well.
It is here that the visually-compelling data-blending may become more obfuscating than just confusing.
Among the affiliated, race is distinguished. So, you can see that older religiously affiliated are more white. But there’s no comparable distinction within the unaffiliated, who are mostly white as well (71%). The way the data is presented—mixing affiliation and race—can make it appear that the unaffiliated are a part of a more diverse America, while the affiliated are old white folks. That’s not exactly the case.
For we must also bear in mind that some 71% of the unaffiliated are also white, according to the Pew “Nones on the Rise” study. That means nearly three quarters of the Millennials in the PRRI study who identified as unaffiliated—22 of the total 31%—are white.
To my mind, the trouble with this data-muddling is to suggest that racism might be a feature of an aging, lily white American Christianity that the nation will naturally grow out of as the old folks shuffle off this mortal coil—taking their churches with them.
Nothing in the PRRI data or, for that matter, U.S. Census, General Social Survey, Pew, or other reliable data sets, tells that particular story. Certainly, nothing in more recent ethnographic studies that highlight a robust, if eclectic, American engagement in spirituality and religion within and outside conventional schemes of affiliation even hints at such a narrative.
I have to wonder, then, what exactly we’re being sold in terms of religious diversity and racial equality when we’re presented with a sparkling blend of data over amber waves of grain to the tune of commercialized American moral progress.Presentation on theme: "Chapter 7s Class 1."— Presentation transcript:
1 Chapter 7s Class 1
2 Design and Effective Capacity
Design capacity is the maximum theoretical output of a system Normally expressed as a rate Effective capacity is the capacity a firm expects to achieve given current operating constraints Often lower than design capacity This slide can be used to frame a discussion of capacity. Points to be made might include: - capacity definition and measurement is necessary if we are to develop a production schedule - while a process may have “maximum” capacity, many factors prevent us from achieving that capacity on a continuous basis. Students should be asked to suggest factors which might prevent one from achieving maximum capacity.
3 Utilization and Efficiency
Utilization is the percent of design capacity achieved Utilization = Actual output/Design capacity Efficiency is the percent of effective capacity achieved Efficiency = Actual output/Effective capacity
4 Bakery Example Actual production last week = 148,000 rolls
Effective capacity = 175,000 rolls Design capacity = 1,200 rolls per hour Bakery operates 7 days/week, hour shifts Design capacity = (7 x 3 x 8) x (1,200) = 201,600 rolls It might be useful at this point to discuss typical equipment utilization rates for different process strategies if you have not done so before.
5 Bakery Example Actual production last week = 148,000 rolls
Effective capacity = 175,000 rolls Design capacity = 1,200 rolls per hour Bakery operates 7 days/week, hour shifts Design capacity = (7 x 3 x 8) x (1,200) = 201,600 rolls It might be useful at this point to discuss typical equipment utilization rates for different process strategies if you have not done so before. Utilization = 148,000/201,600 = 73.4%
6 Bakery Example Actual production last week = 148,000 rolls
Effective capacity = 175,000 rolls Design capacity = 1,200 rolls per hour Bakery operates 7 days/week, hour shifts Design capacity = (7 x 3 x 8) x (1,200) = 201,600 rolls It might be useful at this point to discuss typical equipment utilization rates for different process strategies if you have not done so before. Utilization = 148,000/201,600 = 73.4% Efficiency = 148,000/175,000 = 84.6% © 2011 Pearson Education, Inc. publishing as Prentice Hall
7 Bakery Example Actual production last week = 148,000 rolls
Effective capacity = 175,000 rolls Design capacity = 1,200 rolls per hour Bakery operates 7 days/week, hour shifts Efficiency = 84.6% Efficiency of new line = 75% It might be useful at this point to discuss typical equipment utilization rates for different process strategies if you have not done so before. Expected Output = (Effective Capacity)(Efficiency) = (175,000)(.75) = 131,250 rolls © 2011 Pearson Education, Inc. publishing as Prentice Hall
8 Problem S7.7 southeastern Oklahoma State University’s business program has the facilities and faculty to handle an enrollment of 2,000 new students per semester. However, in an effort to limit class sizes to a “reasonable” level (under 200, generally), Southeastern’s dean, Tom Choi, placed a ceiling on enrollment of 1,500 new students. Although there was ample demand for business courses last semester, conflicting schedules allowed only 1,450 new students to take business courses. What are the utilization and efficiency of this system?
9 Solution: Design capacity = 2,000 students
Effective capacity = 1,500 students Actual output = 1,450 students
10 Problem S7.8 under ideal conditions, a service bay at a fast lube can serve 6 cars per hour. the effective capacity and efficiency of a fast lube service bay are known to be 5.5 and 0.880, respectively. what is the minimum number of service bays fast lube needs to achieve an anticipated production of 200 cars per 8-hour day
11 To do 200 cars per day it requires,
Solution: Actual or expected output = Effective capacity*Efficiency 5.5 cars = 4.84 cars. In one 8-hour day, one bay accommodates (8 hr * 4.84 cars per hr) = cars To do 200 cars per day it requires, (200 cars) / (38.72 cars/bay) = 5.17 or 6 bays
12 Process Times for Stations, Systems, and Cycles
The process time of a station is the time to produce a unit at that single workstation The process time of a system is the time of the longest process in the system … the bottleneck The process cycle time is the time it takes for a product to go through the production process with no waiting
13 A Three-Station Assembly Line
2 min/unit 4 min/unit 3 min/unit A B C Figure S7.4
14 Capacity Analysis Two identical sandwich lines
Lines have two workers and three operations All completed sandwiches are wrapped Wrap 37.5 sec/sandwich Order 30 sec/sandwich Bread Fill Toast 15 sec/sandwich 20 sec/sandwich 40 sec/sandwich
15 Capacity Analysis Wrap 37.5 sec Order 30 sec Bread Fill Toast 15 sec 20 sec 40 sec Toast work station has the longest processing time – 40 seconds The two lines each deliver a sandwich every 40 seconds so the process time of the combined lines is 40/2 = 20 seconds At 37.5 seconds, wrapping and delivery has the longest processing time and is the bottleneck Capacity per hour is 3,600 seconds/37.5 seconds/sandwich = 96 sandwiches per hour Process cycle time is = seconds
16
17 Problem S7.11 Solution: Stat.1_A 0.05 hr/unit Stat.2 0.2 hr/unit Stat.3 hr/unit Stat.1_B 0.05 hr/unit (a) System process time = bottleneck time = 0.2 hr/unit (b) Bottleneck time = 0.2 hr/unit (c) Process cycle time = 0.05 hr+0.2 hr hr = hr = 20 min (d) Weekly capacity= total time in a week/bottleneck time = (10hr*5days)/0.2 = 250 units/week
18 Capacity Analysis Standard process for cleaning teeth
Cleaning and examining X-rays can happen simultaneously Check out 6 min/unit Check in 2 min/unit Develops X-ray 4 min/unit 8 min/unit Dentist Takes X-ray 5 min/unit X-ray exam Cleaning 24 min/unit
19 Capacity Analysis All possible paths must be compared
Check out 6 min/unit Check in 2 min/unit Develops X-ray 4 min/unit 8 min/unit Dentist Takes X-ray 5 min/unit X-ray exam Cleaning 24 min/unit All possible paths must be compared Cleaning path is = 46 minutes X-ray exam path is = 27 minutes Longest path involves the hygienist cleaning the teeth Bottleneck is the hygienist at 24 minutes Hourly capacity is 60/24 = 2.5 patients Patient should be complete in 46 minutes
20 Problem S7.14 Klassen Toy Company, Inc., assembles two parts (parts1 and 2): Part 1 is first processed at workstation A for 15 minutes per unit and then processed at workstation B for 10 minutes per unit. Part 2 is simultaneously processed at workstation C for 20 minutes per unit. Work stations B and C feed the parts to an assembler at workstation D, where the two parts are assembled. The time at workstation D is 15 minutes. a) What is the bottleneck of this process? b) What is the hourly capacity of the process?
21 Problem S7.14 Solution |
of working on his psychological growth and inspiring others to do the same. He experienced some hard times in his past that have taught him the value of learning to overcome problems and appreciate peace and tranquility.
Jörg Paschke-Goldt and Damjan Goldt
Damjan is a communication scientist, focused on psychology of communication, who also holds a master in computer science. He is especially interested in motivation and technical elements that can improve it. Through meditation and yoga, he learned to transform his thinking from a person who was solely focused on achieving to a person who can focus on his goals, but also appreciate the beauty of every moment. He knows from experience how small changes can immensely improve happiness.
We have the opportunity to collaborate with many talented people from different fields (like health science, gerontology, design or economics), who invest their time in our project and help My Happiness Toolbox grow.
What do we need the money for?
The money will be divided as follows:
9% Kickstarter and payment methods
19% taxes
12% production of the Happiness Diary
20% app development
40% personnel cost (happiness test implementation and filming of the online courses)
We want to thank all who helped us create this campaign, especially:
Utku Yilmaz for filming and editing our video.
All the lovely people who took part in the filming
Karin Schmidt for advising us
Stefan Fabris and Iva Arandjelovic for the designs
as well as Anna Tigges, Fritz Horstmann, Jordi Mañes, Franzi Schrödter, Emanoil Topalov, Milena Vasic and many many more
We also like to thank drubig-photo form Fotolia for the photo.Sony has set a date for its annual E3 media showcase, and it should come as precisely no surprise to anyone.
As revealed by Geoff Keighley on Twitter (and as confirmed by me, on the telephone to Sony), this year's PlayStation E3 Media Showcase will begin on Monday, June 12th at 6pm Pacific time. That translates to Tuesday, June 13th at 2am BST in the UK, so you're going to want to set your alarm (or drink many cups of coffee).
Just got my invite for @playstation E3 event - Monday June 12 @ 6p! pic.twitter.com/3MxcFoUKr3 — Geoff Keighley (@geoffkeighley) May 3, 2017
Sony's 6pm Monday slot is pretty much E3 tradition these days, of course. Microsoft, however, is shaking things up a little this year, moving its E3 Xbox showcase from its usual Monday morning slot to Sunday, June 11th at 2pm Pacific time (10pm in the UK).
That just leaves Nintendo (of the three big platform holders) to finalise its E3 showcase plans. We do know that it will, once again, be foregoing a live event in favour of a digital broadcast, but timings have yet to be revealed.
E3 proper opens its doors on Tuesday, June 13th and closes them again on Thursday, June 15th, whereupon everyone will go home for a cry and a sleep.After his VAC ban during a game against Hellraisers, Joel ”emilio” Mako hasn’t been able to compete in CS:GO.
He was looking to change that at the upcoming Birdie LAN in Uppsala, Sweden, but now the arrangers are removing his eligibility to play.
– We’ve discussed this internally and we can’t accept a player that has an active VAC ban, Birdie chairman Lezgin Bakircioglu tells Aftonbladet Esport.
Joel ”emilio” Mako caused a stir in the CS:GO community when he became the first player to be VAC banned during an official game. After the incident he was fired from Team Property and forbidden to participate in any official Valve events. He claimed his innocence for the longest time but recently admitted to Aftonbladet Esport that he had in fact cheated, during matchmaking.
”I know I’m not done with CS”
Last week he made it clear he was coming back to the competitive scene and was looking to participate at the Birdie LAN in Uppsala, Sweden.
– Recently things haven’t been easy for me because I haven’t had any competitions to participate in because of the incident. But I’ve been playing actively and streamed as much as possible for a long period of time because I know I’m not done with CS, he told Aftonbladet Esport.
He also said he’s learned a lesson from the incident.
– I’ve learned a lot in a short time, and especially grown. I can promise that cheating won’t happen again, even though it was fun in matchmaking it ruined my career more or less, and there’s nothing that’s worth the risk. I’m sorry I didn’t think of the consequences beforehand.
”Hasn’t made it clear to us there was an active VAC ban”
But now, the $5800 prize pool tournament where he planned his comeback will ban him from participating.
– He hasn’t made it clear to us there was a history with an active VAC ban, he asked us about the general rules and we pointed him to the general rules since the CS:GO rules weren’t done.
– But later we saw everything that was written about him and understood it was the same person. After that we’ve discussed internally and have come to the conclusion that we can’t accept a player that has an active VAC ban, Birdie chairman Lezgin Bakircioglu tells Aftonbladet Esport.
He also says that the organization don’t have enough resources to gauge every single player applying.
– This is the kind of thing you catch as you go along, but since he’s been so obvious about it we could catch it early.
When Aftonbladet Esport reach Joel ”emilio” Mako the former Team Property-player have just been told the news.
– There’s not much to say regarding this. Even Messi, who is the greatest football player of all time have people who hate him, he says to Aftonbladet Esport and continues:
– Of course this is a big setback for me. I had planed to go and compete with some well renowned players. But considering this there’s not much I can do. I will stream and play – when I have time.Lance Stroll, a Williams development driver, has caught the eye of Mercedes’ team boss Toto Wolff.
Canadian teen Stroll is currently leading the highly-competitive European F3 season, combining that race seat with a role at Williams.
The 17-year-old said this week that he is eyeing the reportedly expiring contracts of Felipe Massa and Valtteri Bottas, but he may not have known that Wolff also has an eye on him.
"He works extremely hard," Wolff said of Stroll, "but his intelligence and maturity is something else as well."
Wolff said that when it comes to Stroll, he is even more impressed with his maturity level than he is with F1 sensation Max Verstappen’s — who is a year older.
"Max behaves more like a youngster," Wolff told La Presse newspaper.
"Max is a teenager. In the car he is extremely good, but when you are with him, he’s a boy. But Lance’s maturity is surprising at just 17 years old."
Wolff, referring to Lance’s billionaire father Lawrence, also told the Canadian newspaper The Star: "I think for this is the next Canadian kid in formula one and it has nothing to do with his father’s wealth.
"It is because the boy can drive."Where in the world is Justin Bieber?
It's a question rabid fans and media outlets have been asking since the teen idol disappeared after being charged with assault at a Toronto police station last night.
Justin Bieber arrives at a Toronto police station on Wednesday night to face an assault charge. (CBC)
Country crooner Billy Ray Cyrus just may have the answer.
According to U.S. entertainment show Access Hollywood, the singer invited the teen idol to his ranch in Tennessee to return to his ‘native’ roots.
“Let’s go up to the teepee, build a fire, step away and just, you know, maybe take a break for a little bit, just think about what’s important,” said Cyrus. “Get back to life.… Build a fire, count the deer and the hawks and relax a little bit.”
Bieber says he's 'part Indian'
If Bieber took him up on his offer, it wouldn’t be the first time he claimed ties to Canada’s aboriginal people.
I’m actually part Indian... I think Inuit or something. —Justin Bieber
In 2012, Beiber caused a controversy after telling Rolling Stone magazine that he has aboriginal roots.
“I’m actually part Indian,” he told the magazine. “I think Inuit or something. I’m enough per cent that in Canada I can get free gas.”
Those claims caused a Twitter storm.
His comments even invited a response from the national chief of the Congress of Aboriginal Peoples.
“Mr. Bieber’s comment that aboriginal people are entitled to free gas is simply not true,” said Betty Ann Lavallée, in a statement. “These kinds of remarks are another example of what aboriginal peoples in Canada struggle with every day. It promotes the misconception that we are somehow getting a free ride."
Bieber was even invited to spend some time in aboriginal communities to learn about the people and culture.
Although we don't know if Bieber will take Cyrus up on his offer, we can speculate he is likely to turn up for his next court appearance on March 10 in Toronto.In the last year, a lot of people – in America and around the world – have come to appreciate the Obamas. At a time when the mudslinging in politics has sunk lower than your average argument in a pub or in a traffic jam, Barack and Michelle have a been a study in dignity.
Despite outright attacks of all hues and colours on them, the pair has maintained their dignity, never stooping to the level of their attackers and nowhere was this more evident than Michelle Obama’s stirring speech at the Democratic Republican Convention in which she backed her husband’s former adversary Hillary Clinton.
While Michelle’s words have already echoed on the other side of the political divide, at the DNC, Michelle put aside past battles to make a stirring speech for Hillary. Without as much as mentioning Trump and his politics of feelings over facts that dominated the RNC, Michelle focussed on what kind of nation America would be for children.
Echoing the power of the American Dream, she sought to remind everyone that current inhabitants of the White House were the slaves of descendants, the same people who had built it in the first place. This was a reminder of the greatness of the American Dream, an America where you could rise to the very top through grit, gumption, hard work and intellect, irrespective of the circumstances of your birth.
Without mentioning Trump, the speech focussed on the rhetoric of his campaign, including the hateful language that dominated the television, and reminded people that America was better than this.
She also sought to play on the notion of Hillary being the most ‘qualified candidate’ to lead the nation. Michelle said: “See, I trust Hillary to lead this country because I’ve seen her lifelong devotion to our nation’s children –- not just her own daughter, who she has raised to perfection, but every child who needs a champion. Kids who take the long way to school to avoid the gangs. Kids who wonder how they’ll ever afford college. Kids whose parents don’t speak a word of English but dream of a better life. Kids who look to us to determine who and what they can be.”
Focusing on Hillary’s long public career and her ability to not ‘buckle under pressure’, Michelle said that in troubled times, this is what America needed.
She said: “I want someone with the proven strength to persevere. Someone who knows this job and takes it seriously. Someone who understands that the issues a President faces are not black and white and cannot be boiled down to 140 characters. (Applause.) Because when you have the nuclear codes at your fingertips and the military in your command, you can’t make snap decisions. You can’t have a thin skin or a tendency to lash out. You need to be steady, and measured, and well-informed.”
The speech also sought to focus on the dream of the founding fathers that all people were created equal, something she didn’t need to add Hillary’s opponent didn’t believe in. Looking to neuter the hateful rhetoric of fear-mongering she looked to focus on the positives from tragedies like the Dallas shooting or the Orlando nightclub massacre, reminding people of the "police officers and protesters in Dallas who wanted to keep children safe" or the people who lined up to donate blood after the fateful shooting in Orlando.
She said: “That is the story of this country, the story that has brought me to this stage tonight, the story of generations of people who felt the lash of bondage, the shame of servitude, the sting of segregation, but who kept on striving and hoping and doing what needed to be done so that today, I wake up every morning in a house that was built by slaves and I watch my daughters –- two beautiful, intelligent, black young women –- playing with their dogs on the White House lawn. And because of Hillary Clinton, my daughters –- and all our sons and daughters -– now take for granted that a woman can be President of the United States.”
With its focus on family values, children, inclusivity, decency and American pride, Michelle’s speech comes as welcome relief at a when the DNC e-mail leaks looked to further aid Trump’s march towards the White House.
Without taking Trump's name even once, Michelle painted the different realities that would exist between the Republican nominee and Hillary pretty well. She also did a fabulous job by staying away from taking any pot-shots at Trump or stooping to his level, a reminder that people could be decent in politics and make their points without being nasty.
Rejecting the notion that there was a need ‘To Make America Great Again’, the theme of the Trump campaign, more than anything Michelle’s speech emphasised that America was already great and the only way to remain great was to 'Vote for Hillary'.
The speech did well to present the battle between Hillary and Trump as one between good and evil, between day and light, between inclusivity and racism and between positivity and hateful rhetoric. The message from Michelle's speech was clear, vote for Hillary to keep America 'great'.Steve Jobs believes in art.
But there seem to have been some at Apple who are slightly less inclined toward it after discovering that an artist had installed software on around 100 Apple Store computers.
The software was set up simply to capture shots of people's faces every minute as they stared into the laptops of their dreams. As 25-year-old Brooklyn artist Kyle McDonald explained to Mashable, we all have very particular expressions when we are in the throes of Mac hypnosis.
"I thought maybe we could see ourselves doing this we would think more about our computers and how we're using them, he said.
Who could have no sympathy with his quest? Well, the Secret Service, for one. Or, indeed, for four. For McDonald was woken this morning by the friendly but insistent faces of four members of the service and one search warrant.
While they didn't immediately remove him, they did take with them two computers, an iPod, and two flash drives. They also reportedly told him that he would be receiving communication from Apple.
People Staring at Computers from Kyle McDonald on Vimeo.
McDonald's Tumblr feed contains some of the images that his software managed to take. Moreover, he arranged a public exhibition of his work in an Apple store. Some of the laptops displayed not only stills of the people staring at them but also those of others who had previously been captured.
As he says in his video, most people, on seeing one of the pictures just hit the "escape" button when they saw themselves. Which, some art critics might say, shows just how dimly we view ourselves in reality.
McDonald reportedly has many feelings about this whole escapade. He first believed that Apple, having traced the software back to him (oh, yes, the company monitors Apple Store computers), wasn't too concerned. He claims that an Apple technician had spotted the software, installed it himself, and taken a picture of himself, and sent the photo to McDonald.
Then he wondered whether he was breaking the law at all.
He reportedly claims he asked Apple's security guards whether he could take pictures inside the stores. He also reportedly took pictures of people with a camera. And no one objected to that. Although it's not as if those people were featured in his works of art. Many of those people may not yet know that they have been committed to posterity.
Like a latter-day Google Street Viewer, McDonald said that if people see themselves on his site, they can ask to be removed. He didn't even display the source code online, so that it couldn't be used for nefarious purposes.
So what might happen to this Michelangelo taking on higher, more entrenched forces?
Will the Secret Service press some kind of fraud charges? Will Apple attempt to pursue him in the same way (inconclusively) that it pursued the man who allegedly picked up an iPhone 4 prototype?
Or will the company decide that it might be able to use his work as an artistic expression of just how rapt human beings can be when they encounter the shiny world of the Apple store? Surely pictures of faces are more interesting than the images of laps everyone saw during the launch of the iPad.
Apple hasn't yet commented on this little exhibition of artistic bravery. But I know that lawyers out there will have strong feelings about this, as will the throngs of artists. I am prepared to organize a duel between the two.
At heart, though, what is more creepy? That someone took a picture of you without you knowing? Or the gawking, eye-dulled expression that human beings seem to take on when they're staring into a computer?If you ever visit the Church of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem, be sure to turn your gaze to the upper-story windows on the main facade. Just beneath the window on the right, you’ll find a ladder.
At first it might seem like a simple ladder of little account, probably left by someone doing recent maintenance. That is, until you learn that it’s been there for three centuries.
They call it the Immovable Ladder, and it has become a powerful symbol of something all Christians will have to give an account of someday: our painful, long-standing divisions.
This is its story.
[See also: “Brother, Finally!”: Pope Meets Orthodox Patriarch of Moscow for First Time in 1000 Years]
[See also: “I Even Believe in the Devil”: The Supernatural Catholic Faith of Justice Scalia]
No one is exactly sure how the ladder got there in the first place. Some accounts say the ladder was left there by a mason doing some restoration work on the church, but no is sure exactly when.
An engraving from all the way to 1723 appears to include the ladder. The first mention of the ladder in writing dates to 1757, when Ottoman Sultan Abdul Hamid I mentioned it in an edict. Various lithographs and photographs in the 19th century show the ladder.
Here’s one such photo from 1885, with the ladder circled:
But if the ladder was left there by a mason in the early 18th century or earlier, why has it remained there for so long? The answer has to do with how the holy site is managed.
Like many places in the Holy Land, the Church of the Holy Sepulchre is revered by many different religious groups. Deciding who gets to manage it has been a source of great conflict over the centuries.
In the 18th century, the Ottoman Sultan Osman III forced a compromise that came to be known as the Status Quo agreement: in addition to splitting Jerusalem up into quadrants, he decreed that whoever currently controlled a certain site would get to continue to control that site indefinitely. If multiple groups had claim to a site, then all of them would have to agree to any changes, however minor.
That last part has averted war but also prevented the proper upkeep of various pilgrimage sites. Unless all the relevant parties come to total agreement about how something should be improved, cleaned, or fixed, nothing at all can happen.
This helps to explain why the ladder hasn’t moved. Currently, six Christians groups have claims to the church, and they have found it easier to simply leave the ladder where it is. At this point, it’s not even clear who the ladder belongs to exactly, though some people argue it belongs to the Armenian Apostolic Church, along with the ledge that it is on.
In 1964, the ladder took on a new meaning. Pope Bl. Paul VI was visiting the Holy Land and was pained at how the ladder, which had become a symbol of the Status Quo agreement, was also a reminder of the scandalous divisions among Christians. So he decreed that the ladder remain exactly where it is until the divisions between Christians are resolved. Since the Roman Catholic Church is one of the six Christian groups with veto power over any changes, at this point the ladder will not be going anywhere for at least that reason.
That doesn’t mean some people haven’t tried to move it anyway! In 1981, someone tried to move the ladder, but was quickly stopped by Israeli police. In 1997, a prankster actually managed to successfully steal it, and it remained missing for several weeks! Fortunately, it was eventually recovered and put back in its place.
Here’s a picture of the person stealing the ladder in 1997:
More recently, the ladder was moved only briefly in 2009 while workers were taking down scaffolding used to repair the bell tower.
But maybe, someday, full Christian unity will be achieved, and the ladder will be legitimately removed.
Pray for Christian unity!
[See also: The Greatest Latin Mass Musical Setting Was Composed by… a Protestant?]
[See also: The Demon-Fighter: The Supernatural Life of St. Padre Pio]Over the years as I've looked into investing for my family, one of the names that consistently comes up when researching low cost and effective ways to invest is the name Jack Bogle.
John C. Bogle is the founder of Vanguard Group, one of my favorite low cost places to invest. The more I read about Bogle and his philosophies, and those of a group of his followers called the Bogleheads, the more I know I fall in line with what they believe about investing.
Bogle's ideas are based on the idea that investing should be simple, and that just about anyone can get good returns as long as they're willing to put in even a minimal amount of work, and stick with a plan for the long term.
It's about making the right long term decisions.
They stress that it's important that you start saving now, not later, diversify your investments, minimize your costs, and be able to stick to your plan through thick and thin.
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So let's take a look at the Bogleheads investment philosophy and it's rules in depth.
Develop A Workable Plan (Rule 1)
The first step in the Bogleheads investment philosophy is to setup a workable plan for your finances, where you are able to live well below your means, and set aside a significant portion of your income every month for retirement.
Living this way means avoiding debt through credit cards, home equity loans or other consumer debt. If you already have debt, work as hard as you can to pay that debt off to give yourself a solid foundation to start with. Make sure to set aside enough for household needs, but make sure your plan allows for a good percentage of your income saved for retirement.
Invest Early & Often (Rule 2)
Once you've got a good workable plan in place, gotten rid of debt and established an emergency fund, it's time to start accumulating wealth.
The earlier you want to retire, and the more assets you want to have in retirement for spending and giving, the earlier you'll want to start investing. You'll also want to ensure you're saving enough. The Bogleheads suggest a good baseline number is 20% of income.
The earlier you can start investing, the better. The power of compounding interest on your investments will be magnified the longer you have to invest.
The best way to invest is to setup automatic deductions from your paycheck, or auto deposits from your bank account every month right after payday. Make investing automatic, and since you never really see the money in your account you won't really miss it.
Never Bear Too Much Or Too Little Risk (Rule 3)
Owning stocks is really the best way to get the returns you need to accumulate funds for retirement. Over long periods of time the stock market roughly follows the pattern of the economy, which is to grow, but in the short term stocks can be volatile and risky.
Because of the risk involved it's important to have an asset allocation that involves less volatile investments like bonds. Bonds don't have as high potential returns as stocks, but they carry much less risk.
Choosing an asset allocation of stocks versus bonds is a personal decision in which you need to weigh your ability and need to take risk. The more risk you're willing to take, the less bonds you need. Usually the older you are and closer to retirement, the more bonds you'll want in your portfolio – to avoid losing a large percentage of your investments (like many did in 2008).
The rule of thumb for stocks to bonds allocation ratio is typically to have your age in bonds. So if you're 30 years old, you should have 30% of your portfolio in low risk bond funds.
Diversify (Rule 4)
Instead of trying to pick winners and losers in the stock market, Bogleheads tend to buy funds (typically index funds) that are widely diversified or that have an approximate mirror of the entire market.
Doing this essentially guarantees that they will receive the average return of all investors, which since you're not paying fees for an actively managed funds means you'll come out ahead of the average investor. Over half of actively managed funds usually underperform index funds over the long haul!
Never Try To Time The Market (Rule 5)
In the Bogleheads investment philosophy one thing that you don't try to do is time the market. While you may get lucky some of the time, a good deal of the time people tend to buy high and sell low, short circuiting gains when trying to time the market.
Instead try to create a good long term plan and stick with it.
Use Index Funds When Possible (Rule 6)
The best low cost way to invest is to buy the entire stock market through index funds. You can do that through either traditional mutual funds or ETFs.
When an investor buys an index fund they then own a piece of basically every public company in the United States. This wide diversification means lower risk because if one of those companies fails, it doesn't have a big effect. If you owned only that one company, however, (can you say Enron?) you might lose your shirt.
Besides investing in the total U.S. stock market you can further diversify by buying international index funds. Usually it is suggested to buy anywhere from 20-40% of the portfolio in international stocks.
Keep Costs Low (Rule 7)
A key part to enjoying good returns over the long haul is to keep your costs low. While an fund expense ratio of.15% versus 1% might not seem like much, the effect of compounding over a lifetime could mean that you'll have hundreds of thousands of dollars less for your retirement.
It's important to make sure you find the best lowest cost available options to you. If your 401(k) doesn't have index fund options (which some don't), do your best to find the largest most diversified funds with the lowest fees that you can.
Minimize Taxes (Rule 8)
Rather than focusing on something that can't be controlled, like how the stock market does every year, Bogleheads prefer to focus on things they can control.
One thing you can control is ensuring your accounts are tax efficient. In other words, take advantage of tax advantaged retirement accounts like 401(k)s, IRAs and Roth IRAs, as well as looking carefully at the tax efficiency of each holding in taxable accounts.
Invest With Simplicity (Rule 9)
Another rule is for Bogleheads investors is to make sure to invest with simplicity.
Simplicity is the master key to financial success. When there are multiple solutions to a problem, choose the simplest one. – John Bogle
John Bogle suggests keeping your investments as simple as possible for many investors. That means buying only two or three funds in total. Bogle suggests a portfolio of only two funds for many investors, Vanguard Total Stock Market Index Fund (VTSMX) and Vanguard Total Bond Market Fund (VBMFX).
Others in the Bogleheads sphere add in a third fund, Vanguard Total International Stock Index Fund (VGTSX), which gives international stock exposure as well. This is what is called a three fund portfolio.
Finally, there are some that would recommend simplifying even further just investing in an all-in-one Target Retirement fund.
Stay the course (Rule 10)
One thing that is essential to the Bogleheads investment philosophy is to choose a reasonable investment plan, and then stick with it for the long haul. While it may be easy to do that when index funds are outpeforming alternatives, it can be tough to stick with it when times are tough, like after the crash in 2008.
You have to do your best to stay the course, try not to be distracted by the trendy new investments and rebalance your portfolio once every year.
Conclusion
The Bogleheads investor is someone who saves a lot, has an asset allocation that includes both stocks and bond asset classes, buys low cost diversified funds, is tax efficient and stays the course.
Being a Boglehead investor really is pretty simple and only requires part of a day to setup the first time. From then on it will require an hour or two to rebalance your accounts on a yearly basis.
There is no need to stay on top of the markets day to day, or time the markets. You simply live below your means, save a lot and invest in low cost index funds to enjoy good long term returns.
Even though Bogleheads investing on it's face is extremely simple, it is based on a lot of comprehensive research over the years that show that buying and holding the whole stock market consistently outperforms many of the alternatives.
So keep it simple, invest and enjoy good long term returns. Sounds good to me.
What are your thoughts about the Bogleheads investing philosophy? Is it something you might consider trying?A 46-second video with very little visibility is turning out to be a royal pain for some partygoers in Saudi Arabia, with the Jeddah police having tracked them down by analysing the clip. The youngsters have been accused of not only going to a "mixed" party — where men and women mingle freely — but also consuming alcohol.
Also read: US blocks arms sales to Saudi Arabia citing civilian deaths in Yemen; is this the start of a changing equation?
The move seems like a step back from the time a Saudi prince called for a lifting of the ban on women against driving in the kingdom. Saudi Arabia has otherwise not had a stellar reputation for human rights, and has often been accused of moral policing, and that is exactly how the world is seeing this current incident.
The video surfaced a week ago and is shot in really low-light conditions, with hardly any faces visible. Even the audio — although clear — is not much of a giveaway of who attended or where the party was taking place. What it does give away the location, however, is the Jeddah Flagpole.
The flagpole is the highest in the world, standing at 170 metres tall. That and image analysis of the video clip reportedly led the Jeddah police to some of the people who attended the party. They even managed to nab the Jordanian national who had reportedly organised the party, and he confessed to having organised the party.
The patrons who graced the party can now face prosecution on two counts — first for participating in a "mixed" party [one with both men and women], against which there are strict laws in the Islamic country, and second for consuming alcohol, which is totally banned in Saudi Arabia. In fact, so stringent is the ban that it applies on everyone in the country, irrespective of religion.
Here is the video:
History of moral policing
While the crackdown on the "mixed" party may seem harsh to some, it falls right in place with similar acts of moral policing witnessed in the country. In one of the more recent instances, a Saudi woman was arrested this month after posting online a photo of herself without a hijab — the traditional Islamic veil.
Last year, an male actor from the country had been arrested after taking photos with his female fans at a mall.The Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles have done lots since 1984 when Peter Laird and Kevin Eastman created our beloved Ninja Turtles. Since 84, the ninja turtles have produced four television series with over a thousand hours of footage. Preview details on each individual episode starting with the most recent with Nickelodeons Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. Click for episode details…
Nickelodeon Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Episode Guide
Nickelodeon TMNT Episodes
Season 5
Season 5 Episode 3 “Heart of Evil”
Donnie and the Turtles battle Don Vizioso to retrieve Shredder’s heart.
Season 5 Episode 2 “The Forgotten Swordsman”
Karai searches for Kuro Kaubuto when she encounters an old enemy.
Season 5 Episode 1 “Scroll of the Demodragon”
The Turtles face a new villain.
Season 4
Season 4 Episode 26 “Owari”
Following the death of Splinter, the Turtles decide to end Super Shredder once and for all.
Season 4 Episode 25 “Requiem”
Super Shredder returns for vengeance, the Turtles must call on Splinter, April, Casey and the Mighty Mutanimals for help.
Season 4 Episode 24 “Tale of Tiger Claw”
A new female mutant named Alopex appears with a grudge against Tiger Claw.
Season 4 Episode 23 ” Tokka vs. The World
Tokka returns after her presumed death, when she finds out her baby is missing and searches desperately to find it.
Season 4 Episode 22 “The Power Inside Her”
Donatello is concerned over April’s increasing psychic power abilities.
Season 4 Episode 21 “Darkest Plight”
The Turtles search for Master Splinter, but are also being hunted themselves.
Season 4 Episode 20 “The Super Shredder”
The Turtles face the Super Shredder, will the be able to defeat him?
Season 4 Episode 19 “Bat in the Belfry”
Michelangelo befriends some odd new local heroes called Wingnut and Screwloose.
Season 4 Episode 18 “Mutant Gangland”
Don Vizioso’s crew tracks down the turtles and attacks with anti mutant weapons.
Season 4 Episode 17 “The Insecta Trifecta”
Raphael is forced to overcome his fear of insects and lead the team into battle against Baxter Stockman and his new henchman.
Seasons 4 Episode 16 “Broken Foot”
Leonardo discretely allies with Karai and get himself into deeper danger than he anticipated.
Season 4 Episode 15 “City at War”
The turtles face against some old foes while April deals with a deadly new enemy.
Season 4 Episode 14 “Earth’s Last Stand”
Fugitoid returns the turtles to Earth and reveals a horrible secret about his past.
Season 4 Episode 13 “The Ever-Burning Fire”
The turtles travel to planet Magdomar to recover the final piece of the black hole generator.
Season 4 Episode 12 “The Evil of Dregg”
Raphael loses his fighting abilities and is forced to overcome his feelings to rescue his brothers.
Season 4 Episode 11 “Revenge of the Triceratons”
The Triceratons return to steal pieces of the black hole generator.
Season 4 Episode 10 “Trans-Dimensional Turtles”
Old turtles meet new turtles as they join alliances to battle against Kraang, the good guys must get acquainted first.
Season 4 Episode 9 “The Cosmic Ocean”
The Ninja Turtles voyage through the Varuna ocean.
Season 4 Episode 8 “The War for Dimension X
The turtles are forced to trust the Utrom Council in order to find the next piece of the black hole generator.
Season 4 Episode 7 “The Arena of Carnage”
The turtles are captured and thrown into a arena filled with Triceratons. Working together has never been more important.
Season 4 Episode 6 “Journey to the Center of Mikey’s Mind”
When microscopic aliens invade Michelangelo’s mind, the brothers have to hunt them down through the strange world of Mikey’s subconscious.
Season 4 Episode 5 “Riddle of The Ancient Aeons”
The Ninja Turtles disembark onto a planet of pure evil.
Season 4 Episode 4 “The Outlaw Armaggon”
He is a giant shark with a cybernetic shark suit, he is Armaggon, a powerful bounty hunter!
Season 4 Episode 3 “The Weird World of Wyrm”
Casey Jones accidentally unlocks a Hypercube that Wyrm is trapped in. Things get messy from there.
Season 4 Episode 2 “The Moons of Thalos 3”
The team accidentally crashes on a ice moon and runs into an enemy. Both parties have to put their differences aside to survive.
Season 4 Episode 1 “Beyond the Universe”
Fugitoid saves the Ninja Turtles from a Triceraton attack. The group shortly runs into the powerful Lord Dregg.
Season 3
Season 3 Episode 26 “Annihlation Earth, Part 2”
A continuation from a two-part episode in Nickelodeon TMNT season 3 finale.
Season 3 Episode 25 “Annihlation Earth, Part 1”
The turtles get word a new Kraang invasion is set, but they realize a bigger threat is coming to earth.
Season 3 Episode 24 “Dinosaurs Seen in the Sewers”
Raphael makes friends with Zog, an alien Triceraton
Season 3 Episode 23 “The Fourfold Trap”
The Ninja Turtles are baited by an unknown enemy into a lethal trap.
Season 3 Episode 22 “The Creeping Doom”
Donatello experiences an accident and begins to slowly lose his intelligence.
Season 3 Episode 21 “Attack of the Mega Shredder”
Leonardo sneaks into Shredder’s lair alone to discover the biggest mutant threat.
Season 3 Episode 20 “Tale |
stuff lasts.
However, the recent election of Saudi Arabia to the UN Human Rights Council, partly due to a secret vote swap with the UK, seems to have crossed a line. Mainstream eyebrows that have usually looked the other way when it came to the Saudi record on human rights have now been raised.
And if that was not enough of an affront, the Saudi UN ambassador has just been selected to chair the influential Human Rights Council "consultative panel" that recommends to the president of the council a short-list of whom shall be appointed as Special Rapporteurs, including on such issues as rights of women, freedom of expression and religious freedom. This news is coupled with confirmation that Saudi Arabia has inflicted more beheadings than ISIS this year - more than two a day - and has ordered Ali Mohammed al-Nimr to be executed by crucifixion for taking part in an anti-monarchy demonstration when he was 17.
In another representative case, the popular blogger Raif Badawi was sentenced to a long prison term and 1,000 lashes in public for criticising the monarchy. This behaviour resembles the barbarism of ISIS more than it exhibits qualifications to occupy senior UN positions dealing with human rights.
Additionally, Riyadh, like Damascus, seems to be guilty of severe war crimes due to its repeated targeting of civilians during its dubious Yemen intervention. The worst incident was an airstrike targeting a wedding party on 29 September, killing 131 civilians, including many women and children.
Indispensable asset
This mismatch should be considered a grotesque anomaly. Instead, it fits neatly into a coherent geopolitical pattern. Ever since World War II Saudi Arabia has been an indispensable strategic asset for the West. Oil is the core explanation of this affinity, but it is far from the whole story. In the post-war period, Saudi anti-Communism was important, a kind of health insurance policy for the West that the government would not be lured into the Soviet orbit or adopt a non-aligned position in the manner of Nasser’s Egypt, which could have disastrously undermined energy security for Western Europe.
In recent years, converging patterns of extreme hostility toward Iran that Saudi Arabia shares with Israel has delighted Washington planners who had long been challenged by the difficulty of juggling unconditional support for Israel with an almost absolute dependence of the West on Gulf oil being available at affordable prices.
This tension had come to a head in the aftermath of the 1973 Middle East War in which Saudi Arabia expressed the dissatisfaction of the Arab world with Western pro-Israel positioning by imposing an oil embargo that caused a global panic attack. This crisis took the double form of a high road revealing Western vulnerability to OPEC oil supplies and a low road of severe consumer discontent with long gas lines attributable to the embargo.
It was then that war hawks in the West murmured aloud about coercively ending the embargo by landing paratroopers on Saudi oil fields. Henry Kissinger, never troubled by war scenarios, speculated that such an intervention might be "necessary" for the economic security of the West. The Saudi rulers heard this "never again" pledge, and have since been careful not to step on Western toes.
Against such a background, it is hardly surprising that NGO concerns about the dreadful human rights landscape in Saudi Arabia falls on deaf ears. President Obama, who never tires of telling the world that the national character of America requires it to live according with its values, centring on human rights and democracy, keeps mum when it comes to Saudi Arabia. He is busy reassuring the new Saudi king that the US remains as committed as ever to this second "special relationship" in the Middle East, the first being, of course, with Israel.
If we look beneath the word "special," which conveys the added importance attached of the relationship, it seems to imply unconditional support, including a refusal to voice criticism. US geopolitical backing confers impunity, shielding the beneficiary from any pushback by the international community at the UN or elsewhere. There are other perks that come with this status additional to impunity - perhaps none more notable than the favour of hustling Saudi notables out of the United States the day after the 9/11 attacks. Remember that 15 of the 19 plane hijackers were Saudi nationals, and the US government will still not release 28 pages of detailed evidence on Saudi connections with al-Qaeda gathered by the 9/11 investigative commission.
Surely if Iran had remotely comparable linkages to those notorious events it would likely have produced a casus belli; recall that the justification for attacking Iraq in 2003 was partially based on flimsy fictitious allegations of Baghdad’s 9/11 complicity.
Supporting the dollar
The Saudi special relationship - unlike that with Israel - is more mutually beneficial. Because of the enormous revenues earned by selling 10 million barrels of oil a day for decades, Saudi's unwavering support for the dollar as the currency of account has been a crucial help to American ambition to dominate the global economy. Beyond this, the Saudis, after pushing the world price of oil up by as much as 400 percent in the 1970s, quickly healed the wounds by a massive recycling of so-called petrodollars through investments in Europe and North America, and especially appreciated was the Saudi purchase of many billions of dollars worth of arms.
The United States did its part to uphold the relationship, especially by responding to the 1990 Iraqi attack on Kuwait that also menaced Saudi Arabia. By deploying 400,000 troops in Saudi Arabia and leading the successful effort to compel Saddam Hussein’s Iraq to withdraw from Kuwait, American reliability as the Saudis' protective brother was convincingly upheld.
Despite the major strategic benefits to both sides, the most remarkable aspect of this special relationship is its survival in the face of the Saudi role in funding Islamic anti-Western militancy throughout the world. Saudi promotion of religious education with a Wahhabist slant is widely believed to be largely responsible for the rise and spread of Jihadism, and the resultant turmoil.
I would have thought that the West, especially after 9/11, would insist that Saudi Arabia stop supporting Wahhabist-style extremism abroad, even if it overlooked Riyadh’s repression at home. More damaging than being the enforcer of Saudi impunity is the US acceptance of the anti-Iranian sectarian line that Saudis rely on to justify such controversial moves as direct interventions in Bahrain and Yemen, as well as material support for anti-Assad forces in Syria.
Saudi opportunism became evident when the kingdom threw its diplomatic support and a large bundle of cash to a coup in Egypt against the elected Muslim Brotherhood government. Saudi’s true enemies are Iran as regional rival and democracy as a threat to royal absolutism. What counts most is the regional rivalry with Iran and the danger that Arab democracy anywhere nearby poses to the royal regime.
Saudi impunity makes us appreciate the value of normal relationships that do not require promises of impunity in relation to international crimes and human rights violations. These special relationships have become politically costly in this century, especially when used to shield rogue states.
Accountability is better for stability, security and sustainable peace than impunity. It is awkward for the US government to champion human rights while refusing to blink when it comes to accountability for Saudi Arabia or Israel.
- Richard Falk is an international law and international relations scholar who taught at Princeton University for 40 years. In 2008 he was also appointed by the UN to serve a six-year term as the Special Rapporteur on Palestinian human rights
The views expressed in this article belong to the author and do not necessarily reflect the editorial policy of Middle East Eye.
Photo: Saudi King Salman talks to the media during a meeting with US President Barack Obama in the Oval Office of the White House in Washington on September 4, 2015. (AFP)Change our culture – support great mystery and suspense novels with strong moral values
Official verdict: Suicide.
But why would that vigorous department chairman kill himself? To avoid disgrace? Those rumored ventures on the dark side? Some other secret life? Visiting professor Preston Barclay wonders. But his questions bring no answers, only anonymous threats. He has enough problems already, proving himself on a strange campus while radical faculty do all they can to undermine him. Worse yet, that sexy siren assigned as his assistant complicates his courtship of the beautiful Mara Thorn.
While Press keeps asking questions, Mara’s research reveals a cancer of criminal activity that permeates the community and even the campus itself. The more Press questions, the more dangerous the threats against him become, and the more determined he grows to clear his friend’s name.
But can Press and Mara’s stumbling efforts prevail against the entrenched forces of the police, the campus radicals, and an unseen but powerful criminal organization that increasingly puts their lives in danger…?
2017 Selah Award Finalist
I found this mystery to be much different than the usual fare. I liked it and couldn’t put it down. ~ Amazon review
He is a reclusive history professor with musical hallucinations, she a headstrong professor of religion. Earlier, they solved a campus murder, but now police say they formed two-thirds of an illicit love triangle with a newly-murdered female colleague and … are probably guilty of her murder. A leak of the alleged scandal to the college administration threatens their jobs. Now their desperate attempt to prove themselves innocent of the triangle and the murder, plunges them into a tangle of unsavory corporate relationships among college trustees, putting their lives in danger.
When Carley Sutherland receives a frantic call for help, she races to a desolate park to meet her best friend. On a dimly-lit park bench, Carley’s friend fumbles in her handbag for her phone. She has a picture of a couple arguing, a picture of a woman who was later found dead in a ditch. Before Carley can examine the picture her friend took of the secretive encounter, a dark SUV stops near the bench. The window rolls down. A gunshot rips the silence. Carley’s friend tumbles from the bench, dead.
No need to wait for the second shot. Carley’s on the run, now, with a target on her back.
Wounded Army vet, Blake Richards, recuperates stateside while awaiting new orders. He doesn’t want to jeopardize his recovery or risk further injury, but at the sound of gunshots, his training kicks in. Blake ducks behind a tree and drops to one knee, scanning the area around him. A shadowy figure darts down a path. A woman nervously looks back over her shoulder. Hunkered down, he waits until the last second and then grabs her by the waist. With his hand clasped over her mouth, he pulls her to safety.
Blake doesn’t need to get involved with any woman, particularly one as beautiful and intriguing as Carley Sutherland. But he may be Carley’s only hope of staying alive. And she may his only hope of finding peace and healing amidst hidden dangers.
He will bury them – bury them alive. They will die … for Emily’s sake.
Once I got into the middle of the book I couldn’t put it down! It is well written, the tension is real, the ending joyful and not unrealistic. Waiting for the next one by Larry Timm. ~ Amazon review
On a moonlit night in Wichita, Kansas, a tormented father stands by the grave of his teenage daughter, Emily, and makes a chilling vow to avenge her death. Once he gets his hands on the three women he holds responsible for his daughter’s death, they will regret the day they met Emily outside the abortion clinic. He will expose a dark secret. He will bury them, as he buried Emily. Bury them alive. And after their caskets are in the ground, they will die … for Emily’s sake.
For 25 years the Lakeview Slayer has left a trail of bodies in his wake. Now he has his sights set on Natalie, the new owner of a dilapidated chateau and its vineyard. Nick Hardaway never recovered from his sister’s murder, a victim of the Slayer.
When news of the killer’s latest murder breaks, Nick grows more determined to make amends for his sister’s death. As he finds himself helping Natalie with her renovations at the chateau, Nick’s resolve comes in conflict with his feelings for Natalie.
Natalie may hold the key to capturing the Lakeview Slayer before he kills again, but she must decide if her feelings for Nick, and his willingness to help, are worth dying for.
Selah Awards Nominee
His son … a stranger … now dead.
Desperate to rediscover his estranged son, Marshall Sawyer agrees to finish the autobiography Harrison began before his untimely death. But the passages described in the book do not match the life Marshall remembers with his son.
Together with his daughter-in-law and a professional football player friend, Marshall embarks on a journey to find out the truth. What happened to the boy in the missing years after Harrison ran away at age fifteen and his marriage years later? As he begins to investigate, he soon discovers a dangerous plot —one that puts his life in danger, and the future of America at risk.
A laugh out loud mystery with quirky, lovable characters who find themselves in all sorts of trouble. The storyline is believable and comes with descriptions of mouth-watering food, which makes for a delicious plot! A cohesive and fast-moving novel. 4-Stars! RT Book Reviews
When the chef of Sunset Paradise Retirement Village ends up dead, life for sisters Fern and Zula Hopkins is whipped into a froth. Their zany attempts to track down the killer land them in hot water with Detective Jared Flynn. Should he be concerned about their safety or the criminal’s?
But there are deadly ingredients none of them expect. Drugs. Extortion. International cartels. And worst of all…broken hearts—especially when the Hopkins sisters’ niece KC arrives on the scene.
Before the snooping pair gain any headway with the case, it becomes crystal clear that the sisters share a mysterious secret that takes life from the frying pan and into the line of fire.
Selah Awards Winner for Debut Novel
First a runaway. Now running for her life. Won’t Jill Shepherd’s family be surprised when she returns to Grand Island, Michigan to end their lies and scheme to have her declared legally dead? But when Jill exposes the mastermind behind her intended death, her family’s deception may kill any chance she has of remaining alive.
Clay Merrick may seem to be little more than a handy-man restoring homes, but when the former Special Forces operative tracks a brutal killer to Jill’s historic house under renovation, he has most of the evidence he needs to bring the killer to justice … until Jill gets in the way..
Her stalker taught her fear. Her suspicions taught her terror.
Rochelle Cassidy has the perfect life as a radio talk show host in the Detroit market, but her celebrity status doesn’t stop an angry listener from wanting her … dead. Ed McGrath’s ideal life as a pro-hockey player doesn’t include a damsel in distress until the night he discovers Rochelle being attacked in a deserted parking structure.
Circumstances throw them together in more ways than one when Rochelle’s producer plays matchmaker. A sick boy, a corrupt politician, and questionable medical practices put more than merely Rochelle in danger, and still, her attacker shadows her every step.
The only way two people can keep a secret is if one of them dies.
Fast action from dramatic start to thrilling climax. Sailors and medics will delight in the accuracy of technical detail. Patterson delivers thrilling suspense fiction. ~ Donn Taylor, author of Lightning on a Quiet Night, Rhapsody in Red, and The Lazarus File.
An early morning wreck. A grisly, fiery mess. Paramedic Jim Stockbridge does his best to save the family but the flames drive him back. Now, with a masked killer out for revenge and two beautiful women on his mind, Jim is about to learn that failure is not an option – especially when lives are on the line
Paramedic Jim Stockbridge doesn’t need God, he’s a fighter, and as far as he’s concerned the world is his toy. But when he responds to an EMS call in the ghetto and finds his best friend brutally stabbed and shot, he suddenly realizes he’s in for the fight of his life.
Mad with rage he hunts down Sid Drake’s killers and renders his own form of justice, but he soon finds himself lost, tangling with a vicious street gang and its ruthless warlord, William “J-Rock” Jackson. And so it begins, a long dark journey that pushes Jim deep into his own personal world of bitterness and revenge, and ultimately to the brink of disaster.
Haunting nightmares ensue. Endless nights. A brutal biker gang nearly kills him. An angry detective wants him behind bars. And Jim’s girlfriend, Dr. Valerie Vick, the only woman he’s ever truly loved, has just made a painful announcement: She’s leaving. Suddenly Jim’s entire world seems to be falling apart, but through the leadership of two remarkable men he finds a new relationship with the Lord and new purpose for his life. But Jim’s enemy hasn’t forgotten him. J-Rock is out for blood…and Jim is his prey.
Summer’s steamy haze coats North Carolina’s Blue Ridge Mountains, but feisty Agnes Marie Hopper discovers the heat isn’t the only thing causing her blood to boil. After a kitchen fire destroys her home, Agnes moves in with her daughter, Betty Jo. Three months later they come to an understanding: neither can tolerate living with the other. So on a sultry August morning, Betty Jo drives Agnes and her few belongings to Sweetbrier Manor, a local retirement home and former house of ill repute.
With no intention of staying, Agnes devises a scheme to sneak out of the Manor and find another place to live. Before she can make her exit, though, she runs into her best friend from high school, along with some other quirky characters. With a nose for trouble, Agnes learns some of the residents are being robbed, over-medicated, and denied basic cable and Internet access. Armed with nothing more than seventy-one years of common sense and a knack for pushing people’s buttons, Agnes sets out to expose the unscrupulous administrator, protect her new friends, and restore Sweetbriar Manor’s reputation as a “rewarding and enriching lifestyle.” But the real moment of truth comes when Agnes is forced to choose between her feisty self-reliance and the self-sacrifice that comes with caring for others.
Four women … murdered. All it took was rope and his bare hands. Now the Thayer family has come to the north woods. Will any of them escape alive?
This book was excellent. A spellbinding page turner that keeps your attention through the whole book. Very similar in style to Mary Higgins Clark, but without any vulgarities. I will definitely be looking for more works by this author. ~ Amazon review
Haydon Owens wants to be the next Houdini. He has been practicing his craft and has already made four women disappear. Now the Thayer family has come to the north woods of Newberry, Michigan, looking for refuge, a peaceful sanctuary from a shattered past. But they are not alone. Little do they know that they are about to become part of Haydon’s next act. Who will escape alive?
Fifty. Half a century old. Closer to the grave than cradle. And what does Pastor Gus Gospello have to show for his fifty years on earth? Not much. Shepherd of a small church. Married without kids. Faithful keeper of God’s commands. Well, most of them, anyway.
Gus longs to make a difference for God—to have an eternal legacy. Now, as he comes to grips with his mid-life crisis, Gus acknowledges he’ll never be another John Wesley, Charles Spurgeon, or Billy Graham.
But can he become the next C.S. Lewis and write something like the Screwtape Letters?
His wife thinks so. Fueled with the unbridled hope of a naïve novelist, Gus sets out to craft a novel so rich in spiritual symbolism and truth that even the Devil takes notice.
And that’s never a good sign.
There is no overtime in the game of murder — only sudden death.
When Marcy Farris comes face to face with a murder victim at a high school football game, she’s plunged into a game no one wants to play. Despite police assurances, she knows this wasn’t a random murder. But to prove otherwise she’ll have to tackle the painful memories of her husband’s suicide.
Struck down by an injury in his prime, former NFL linebacker, Jack Briggs, wonders if there’s life after football. His perspective changes when he meets Marcy. Though she’s out of his league, Jack finds himself drawn to Marcy’s “go-for-it” demeanor. Now, as the killer stalks Marcy, Jack has to prove he still has moves before the killer has a chance to exact his revenge on Marcy.
Stephanie Walker lives a peaceful life until her undependable and dishonest father, Marty Walker, suddenly arrives at her home pleading with Stephanie to come with him to his Harrington Lodge in the beautiful Ozarks. Stephanie, suspicious of her father’s motives, declines her father’s invitation.
After his departure, Stephanie discovers the diamond necklace she borrowed from her aunt is missing. Racing through a raging thunderstorm, Stephanie drives to the lodge to reclaim the stolen item.
But when she arrives, Stephanie finds her father dead, her aunt’s diamond necklace gone, and a pair of handcuffs fitted just for her. Stephanie’s claims of innocence fail to sway the local sheriff, who produces several pieces of evidence linking her to the murder. With a shaky alibi and a vindictive stepmother, Stephanie turns to a lodge employee for help.
Their parents paid the ransom – the kidnappers released one child.
I enjoyed this book very much and read it in one day. It is about two sisters kidnapped as children but after the ransom was paid only one sister was returned. Tess, the sister that was returned spent her life wondering what happened to her older sister. At a certain point someone tries to kill Tess but she had no idea who or why. That is where the mystery begins. I would recommend this book to anyone that enjoys a good mystery. ~ Amazon review
Haunted by her sister’s desperate cries, Tess Howard spent twenty-four years searching for Rhona.
Now, reunited at last, the sisters unearth a mystery that could cost them their lives … and the life of the one man who knows their dark secret.
A terrifying journey through a world of darkness where the destiny of souls hang in the balance.
A near death experience transports Jamie Burroughs into The Maze, a realm every bit as peculiar as Lewis Caroll’s Wonderland, yet engineered with the moral intent of C.S. Lewis’ Narnia. Built by angels and demons and filled with traps and riddles, The Maze gives whoever enters a face-to-face encounter with their sins. For Jamie, The Maze becomes a terrifying journey through a world of darkness where his soul and the lives of those he loves hangs in the balance. With his family in danger and his soul in peril, Jamie is forced to reevaluate the kind of man he truly is as he struggles to escape The Maze before it s too late.
The United States, caught in a dangerous game of global espionage, turns a CIA agent working deep under cover as a drug pilot in Colombia to protect a powerful and prominent woman held hostage in Columbia. Trapped in an industrial conspiracy that threatens to destabilize the Americas, the reluctant pair seeks to prevent an international terrorist strike aimed at the heart of the United States.
Held captive in a remote Andean valley near the Bolivian border, the couple fights to save themselves and their respective counties. With action ranging from Havana, Cuba to Jamaica, the Cayman Islands, San Juan Puerto Rico and beyond this fast-paced narrative features unexpected plot twists, thrilling flight sequences, and emotionally charged confrontations.
When a murderer moves into the White House no one is safe … Not even the dead
Seven years ago, Grace Grafton died in a boating accident while partying on the Georgia, South Carolina coast. Was her death the result of alcohol and drugs or something more sinister? Nobody knows: her body was never recovered. Now years later, a woman reads in disbelief the note addressed to her: Hello Grace, did you think we wouldn’t find you?
Those nine chilling words end Grafton’s self-imposed sanctuary of witness protection. Now she and everyone she loves are in grave danger. Long believed dead, she has a secret that can change the world. She knows the man running for president is guilty of a double murder! But who will believe her?
Sara, an expert computer hacker, knows better than to trust anyone—certainly not the powerful and crooked business mogul for whom she works. But there is no future for the life of a thief. Determined to find a way out, Sara devises a scheme to double-cross her employer and steal millions through one final fatal transaction.
Desperate and on the run, she finds temporary sanctuary with the mysterious Derry Conway. As the FBI closes in and her former associates seek revenge, Sara tries to escape but finds all avenues blocked. Trapped, she sees only one road out—Derry must take the fall and pay for her crimes. But will it work? Is her freedom more important than the life of an innocent man? Or will Sara make the ultimate sacrifice to save those she cares about?
USA Best Books Winner – Christian Small Publisher Book of the Year Award – EPIC’s eBook Awards for Romantic Suspense – Selah Awards finalist – Genesis semi-finalist – Clash of the Titles finalist – Laurel Awards finalist – Runner-up, Oklahoma RWA International Digital Book Awards
What would you do to avenge the murder of your daughter? Caralynne Hayman is angry and bitter over the abuse and death of her eleven-year-old daughter at the hands of a radical religious cult—The Children of Righteous Cain. So when her husband, a founding member of the cult, suffers a massive heart attack, Caralynne stands by while her husband dies.
Caralynne’s secret seems safe until Dayne MacFarland returns. Determined to learn the truth about the cult, his investigation, and his rekindled love for Caralynne, lead the pair toward a confrontation with the group’s elders.
Seeking to get out from under the shadow of his famous father, Dr. John Watson, and his father’s even more famous friend, Sherlock Holmes, young Thomas Watson signs on as a newspaper reporter in Philadelphia—a city that rivals Al Capone’s Chicago for its crime and corruption. Now Thomas suddenly finds himself caught up in the biggest story of his career: a suspicious explosion at a speakeasy, which kills the owner and his card-playing buddies.
From the scanty clues that Thomas compiles, he and Sherlock’s older brother, Mycroft, set out to solve the case. But can the pair uncover the truth and reveal the killer before one or both become the next victim?
Welcome to Boring, Indiana, home to patio cookouts, homeowner dues, carpeted lawns, and neighbors so welcoming they’re dying to meet you — literally.
City slicker turned suburbanite housewife Laura Berry isn’t taking well to life in her new neighborhood. She moved to follow her husband’s dream, and now she can’t tell if she’s clinically depressed or just bored half to death. But Boring becomes anything but when Laura discovers her neighbor Candace Flynn face up on a sofa with her hand buried in a snack bag. With a healthy dose of neighborly suspicion and street smarts, Laura sets out to find Flynn’s killer, but her curiosity becomes desperation when the killer targets Laura.Ferrari president Sergio Marchionne says it would be "idiotic" to pin the blame on either team principal Maurizio Arrivabene or technical chief Mattia Binotto in light of the Scuderia's recent failures.
The Italian outfit has seen both its Formula One title bids falter following a string of tricky weekends in Singapore, Malaysia and Japan, leading to speculation over whether Arrivabene will remain at the team beyond this season.
Lewis Hamilton's sixth United States Grand Prix victory sealed the constructors' championship for Mercedes and put the Briton on the verge of winning his fourth drivers' crown, having opened up a 66-point buffer over Sebastian Vettel with only 75 points left available.
When asked if Arrivabene could be replaced by Binotto, Marchionne told Sky Sports F1: "No, both Mattia and Maurizio have been involved in this process. I don't think we need to overhaul the team.
"Picking one or the other is a bit idiotic," he added. "They were both at the table when the operation was going on and technically I'm involved too, I was the chairman. But that's not going to solve the issue. We need to win, that's the more important thing. I don't think it's attributable to a single guy. Processes may have not helped and those things are being addressed."
Sergio Marchionne is refusing to pin the blame on team principal Maurizio Arrivabene following Ferrari's recent failures. Sutton Images
Ferrari's reliability troubles in Malaysia prompted Marchionne to carry out a reshuffle to the team's engine department, before a further technical issue -- caused by a spark plug costing just 59 Euros -- forced Vettel into a costly retirement in Japan.
Marchionne admits Ferrari needs to manage its quality processes better to avoid similar problems occurring in future, but remains confident the Maranello-based squad can recover from its recent setbacks.
"The things that have happened in the last three Asia races have really been a collection of the most unfortunate events. With the exception of the technical failures we've had, which are quality driven, everything else was just a fluke and it happened. The likelihood of us repeating those errors is hopefully very small.
"We've made one change to the organisation by bringing in someone who's got experience on the quality side to try and strengthen our skills. The rest of it I think is within the way in which we manage.
"I think we'll be alright, I don't think we need to overhaul the team, I don't think we need to make changes. This team knows how to win and knows how to get it done, just give them the space."A spokesperson for Hillary Clinton's campaign said Sunday that if Wikileaks were to publish a bombshell email in the final two days of the election, it would likely not be authentic.
“Friends, please remember that if you see a whopper of a Wikileaks in next two days - it’s probably a fake,” tweeted Jennifer Palmieri, the communications director for the Clinton campaign.
For the past several weeks, WikiLeaks has published emails obtained from a hack on campaign chairman John Podesta’s personal account. Many messages published have included exchanges that have caused headaches for the Clinton campaign.
The Clinton campaign has repeatedly declined to say whether any of the emails are authentic, but most reporters and political analysts have reported on them as such.
Now the Clinton campaign is trying to pre-discredit further WikiLeaks revelations Interesting strategy. They haven't denied anything that has come out, but they're denying the legitimacy of something that may not even exist. Translation: it's real, it's coming, and it's bad enough to convince her supporters to refrain from voting for her.In the meantime, people appear to have translated the meaning of the 14 and Fish inscribed on the mutilated hands of John Podesta.From Infogalactic In other words, it's more occult sex magick, in this case, Egyptian. These are seriously creepy, seriously disturbed people. Whether we believe it has any basis in material reality or not is irrelevant, the salient point is that these are people who belong, at best, in lunatic asylums, not the halls of power.
Labels: media, politicsIn order to run mod, copy all files from archive to Diablo 1 game folder. Modification requires openAL library installed which is included in the archive. To start game run Belzebub.exe file. Remember that mod requires mounted Diablo 1 cd in virtual drive or diabdat.mpq copied to it's root folder
Features:
Increased resolution and support for panoramic screens
Fully integrated with new windows systems
Many user interface improvements
New hero classes Barbarian and Assassin
All quests which were missing from original game are now implemented
Four difficulty levels available in single player
New locations
New special and randomly generated bosses
New spells
New character skills
New item types and affixes
204 unique items
28 sets with 105 set items
170 crafting recipes
Great number of minor gameplay changes
And many more... Website
Wojtek25, that guy from Diablo, has once again given us the prod to take a look at probably the best HD mod of Diablo you'll ever see. Titled "Diablo 1 HD MOD", codenamed Belzebub, overhauls many aspects of the Action RPG hit, that had gamers glued to the screen killing horrific beasts, collecting loot and levelling up as you take control of a hero battling to rid the world of Diablo. Featuring increased resolutions, new locations, new items and much more, there is no doubt that if you try this mod, you won't go back to the original Diablo. Read on for the change logImagine how fragile these poor dears are — the sight of a pork sausage can give them the vapors! Unfortunately, all too many of them find jihad suicide bombings far less upsetting. In any case, this is the same old story: when in Muslim countries, one should adapt one’s behavior to suit Muslim sensibilities. And when in non-Muslim countries, one should adapt one’s behavior to suit Muslim sensibilities.
“Schleswig-Holstein CDU fights to keep pork on canteen menus,” DW, March 1, 2016 (thanks to Pamela Geller):
The CDU’s Schleswig-Holstein division wants to ensure that pork stays on menus at workplace and school canteens, arguing the meat “belongs to German culture.” The idea has been mocked on social media.
The regional arm of Chancellor Angela Merkel’s CDU announced plans on Tuesday to ensure that pork continues to be available at public canteens, as well as child daycare centers and schools across the north German state.
The proposal is due to be presented by the CDU’s group in parliament at next week’s regional parliamentary session.
CDU parliamentary group leader, Daniel Günther, bemoaned on Tuesday that an increasing number of canteens, nurseries and schools are removing pork from their menu due to religious considerations.
“The protection of minorities – including for religious reasons – must not mean that the majority is overruled in their free decision by ill-conceived consideration,” Günther said, arguing that tolerance also means “the appreciation and sufferance of other food cultures and lifestyles.”
Günther told local German newspaper “Lübecker Nachrichten” that at least one nursery in every voting district had stopped serving pork after taking Muslim children into consideration.
“The consumption of pork belongs to our culture,” he argued, adding that those who didn’t want to eat pork didn’t have to.
“No one should be obliged to do so,” he said. “But we also don’t want the majority having to refrain from pork.”
Pork consumption and breeding play a particularly important role in Schleswig-Holstein. According to the state’s Chamber of Agriculture, around 17 percent of revenues originate in agriculture.
‘Wurst case scenario’
The CDU’s proposal was met with a wave of mockery on Tuesday, particularly on Twitter where the hashtag #schweinefleischpflicht – meaning “pork duty” – became Germany’s top trending hashtag by late Tuesday afternoon.
Accompanied with an image with the words “Wurst case scenario” – wurst being the German word for sausage – Germany’s Green party tweeted: “Now we finally know what the CDU meant with dominant culture.”….Sarah Huckabee Sanders opened up this year’s White House press briefing by recapping the Year in Trump, but one reporter brought up the president’s low approval numbers.
Huckabee Sanders listed everything President Donald Trump’s administration has gotten done over the past year, up to today’s tax reform vote.
The current RCP poll average has Trump’s approval rating at 38.4%.
When asked why — despite the touted accomplishments — Trump’s numbers are that low, Huckabee Sanders said this:
“While the President and this administration has been very focused on how we can better help the American people, I think oftentimes the media is focused on other things, certainly not talking about the growing economy, certainly not talking about the crushing of ISIS, not talking about the creation of jobs. If you look at the amount of time that is spent on negative coverage of this President, 90 percent of the coverage is negative about this President when, as you just said, I listed off a number of things that have been pretty historic in nature in this first year. And if people were focused a lot more on those things in the media, I think that his numbers would be a lot higher. We anticipate that they’re gonna go up as more and more of these things continue to happen.”
Watch above, via Fox News.
[image via screengrab]
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Follow Josh Feldman on Twitter: @feldmaniac
Have a tip we should know? tips@mediaite.comShowing a new work at the Istanbul Design Biennial. Islam, Republic, Neoliberalism comprises of three network maps where mosques, republican monuments/ museums and shopping centers dispersed throughout Istanbul connect to each other within their areas of influence. These maps present a comparative display of network patterns that are formed through associations linking those architectural structures that represent the three dominant ideologies –Islam, Republic, Neoliberalism– in Turkey.
Scroll down for the catalogue text.
Network of Mosques connected through overlapping call to prayer sounds of 3000+ mosques in Istanbul (image below is an excerpt, click on the image to enlarge).
Network of Republic Monuments connected through physical proximity of the republic monuments/museums in Istanbul (image below is an excerpt, click on the image to enlarge).
Network of Shopping Malls connected through overlapping range of reach of the shopping malls in Istanbul (image below is an excerpt, click on the image to enlarge).
Islam, Republic, Neoliberalism
Zeynep Gökay Üstün
Mosques, the monuments and museums of the republic, and shopping malls… These constructions are physical spaces that surround us through the axis of contemporary Turkey and the city; that signal us where we are, where we were born, what to value and believe in, what to appreciate and who we are as agents; that constantly invite us to articulate with and experience them.
Even if we do not engage in every urban space in the city, we encounter invitations that we cannot dismiss. As the republican monuments that rise in every square and the museums of the republic that frequently come in our way remind us the concept of nation and keep a certain rhetoric alive, monumental shopping malls invite us to become relentless consumers. And we encounter the mosques, perhaps most frequently. With their highly familiar forms and by triggering our audial and visual senses, they somewhat remind us how strong and deeply rooted they are. Beyond their functional and physical value and as symbols of the ideologies that they sustain, these constructions remind us their existence and power within our urban life in various ways and remain eternal and fresh in our daily lives.
Despite the fact that their reflections in urban architecture are relatively humble and low-paced |
such statements. I can say “For any x it’s always x+1=5” which obviously is completely wrong (false for all values of x other then 4) yet nonetheless I can easily write it down. Logical syntax allows us to write down any sort of statement – incomplete, meaningless and false – as well as few statements that are actually true provable deductions of the system. How to differentiate between nonsensical statements and actual proofs?
When I was writing that wrong statement above, I had broken certain rules of deduction in our logical system. To be a real proof I need to start from axioms, build immediate consequence of these axioms, and finally after correct use of all rules of inherence arrive at whatever statement I’m trying to prove. True proof cannot be just written down as lone statement. It’s always a strict sequence going all way back to initial axioms of the system. Turns out all the steps to verify that specific sequence is a real correct proof can be checked and verified by purely mathematical function! With no less then 45 intermediate results Gödel arrives at that function number 46: provable(x)2
provable(x) is similar to an English teacher grading papers. When writing in English (just like in logical syntax) you can write any sort of nonsense, texts full of misspellings and grammatical mistakes – A Good teacher will have none of it. Well-written texts will get passing grades, while texts with nonsense or mistakes will be rejected. provable(x) does the same for proofs written in syntax of logic. If “x” is correct sequence of logical deductions, in which all axioms and rules are properly followed, provable(x) will confirm that such (x) is a valid proof. If x is instead nonsense or a wrong proof it will get rejected. Obviously provable(x) relies heavily on every single other function Gödel defined in steps 1 to 45. It is a massive amount of work of mind-bending complexity. Yet all that complexity is expressed and encoded in pure symbols of mathematical logic.
The self-referential nature of any logical system is becoming exposed again. From pure mathematical perspective provable(x) is just a function like any other. Its certainly a very complicated function, yet beside the requirement of doing many complicated steps to arrive at the result there is nothing “magical” about it on the surface. It takes one argument and returns certain result. It’s like any other function you can find in a math reference book. Yet at same time the purpose of that one function is certainly “magical” for the formal system it belongs to. That very formula describes what can and cannot be proven in that very system. That function gives the system a voice, and system starts to speak about itself to tells us what is possible inside it. Things certainly are getting “curiouser” and “curiouser”.
Einstein, Gödel & The Constitution of the United States Like many of us in Silicon Valley Gödel was an immigrant and had to prepare for a citizenship test. Naturally when this mastermind of logic started to study the Constitution of the United States it wasn’t long before he spotted a problem. According to Gödel, he found an inconsistency in the Constitution that would allow democracy to deteriorate to the tyranny. Gödel’s friends, knowing full well that no social protocol would ever stop Gödel from speaking against perceived logical violations, decided to dispatch handlers to make sure Gödel actually passes his citizenship exam. One of the handlers was Albert Einstein himself. Despite handlers best effort to distract Gödel he still managed to present his findings to the judge officiating the ceremony. Thankfully it was the same judge who administered the oath to Einstein few years earlier and Gödel passed his exam without an incident. Not bad having Einstein as your sidekick when you decide to tell the judge you had found a logical error in nation’s ultimate legal document!
Diagonal Lemma
Here is unavoidable yet very simple math. Diagonal lemma wasn’t initially part of the proof; using his sheer brainpower Gödel just implicitly worked it out inside his overall proof. The lemma states that in given system of Gödel-numbering there always will be at least one number f for any logical formula F that f = Gödel-Number (F(f)).
Intuitively such proof can be grasped that if we start graphing such y=Gödel-Number (F(x)) on a piece of paper starting from x=0, x=1, x=2 and putting dots where we get corresponding G-numbers. We keep increasing x and keep moving along the axis to the right. The lemma proves that sooner or later that graph will intersect the diagonal where y=x. Therefore3 we get at least one number that remains itself when it passes through function F and result is converted to final G-number.
The Proof
Now Gödel has all pieces of puzzle together to bring biggest surprise in history of mathematics. The “Theorem VI” in his paper is very complicated. Here is the sketch proof that is traditionally used to describe its key finding.
As we discussed provable(x) is designed in many complicated steps to be a function that checks if x is provable statement. We can define another function, NP(x) = NOT provable(x). “NOT” is simple operation of logic. It reverses what’s given to it. provable(x) can be only true or false – either x is the proof or it is not. “NOT” will reverse true to false and vice versa. Since NP(x) is also a function of a single number we can use diagonal lemma on that particular function. Thus there must exist such number g such that g = Gödel-Number (NP(g)). So far it’s pretty straightforward. We plot NP(x) as a function, find where it will intersect diagonal line of its y|x plot, and mark the number g of that intersection.
Lets construct a logical statement G = NOT provable(g). In this case G is no longer a function – since we plugged in specific number g –now it’s just very long logical expression expanded according to the complicated logical syntax contents of provable(x) – where our specific number g takes place of free variable x. Is that specific logical statement true and can it be proven?
Lets think about this for a moment. provable(x) is designed so that it can tell us “true” or “false” about any given x. Therefore NOT provable(x) can only be true or false as well. Now we take that specific number g and need to figure out what would be G = NOT provable(g) evaluates to? There are only two answers: true or false, which one it’s going to be?
G is false
Lets consider what happens if G is false. Well, we defined G as “NOT provable(g)”. If G is false, then provable(g) is true. Because we used diagonal lemma to figure out value of number g, we know that g = Gödel-Number(NP(g)) = Gödel-Number(G). That means that provable(g)=true describes proof “encoded” in Gödel-Number g and that proof is correct! We got correct proof g of false statement G. Ka-boom! The whole consistency of our system just went down in big nuclear explosion: we got specific proof of G that actually is a false statement! Your system just became inconsistent: you can prove a false statement, meaning you can prove anything and everything. Not good. Not good at all.
G is true
Ok, so making G false is not a good move, which immediately leads to an inconsistent system. Then lets consider what happens if G is true. We obviously would prefer our system to remain consistent – otherwise it utterly useless – so our only option left is to assume G is true. Back to definition G=NOT provable(g). If G is true, then provable(g) is false. Our strict logical bookkeeper that lives inside provable(x) tells us “g doesn’t not contain any sequence I would accept as valid proof. Among all possible proofs you can encode in your system, g is just not one of them”. Therefore there is no such sequence of logical deductions; there is no text that can be put on paper that will prove G.
G is true. And at same time there is no proof of G. G is unprovable in our logical system. If proofs are villages in big network of roads, then all roads leading from our initial axioms will never arrive at G. G exits and its apparently true – yet there is just no logical road on our map that will start at axioms and arrive to the point G. All deductions you can make about your system wont include G, so your system will be incomplete.
And that’s exactly what Gödel is telling you: “Any … formal system capable of expressing elementary arithmetic cannot be both consistent and complete”
If you want to keep consistency of your system you will have to accept there are such G-statements that are true yet unprovable in your system – your system will always be incomplete. Or you can insist on making them provable, which will immediately make such system inconsistent. You can take one or the other, but you cannot have both at same time for any formal system rich enough to express simplest axioms of arithmetic4.
There is something very amazing about Gödel proof. We used to think about logical systems as dry and boring sequence of strange symbols written on paper. Yet suddenly it’s as if these symbols got a life of their own. As if the system itself got intelligence and started to describe to us what is its own axiom, what is the correct deduction of a theorem, what is provable statement. And finally the mind-bending G-statement is constructed showing there are true statements that can be written down … yet they will never be proven inside that system. The truth is out there… and totally out of your reach!
How much of that hidden knowledge is out there? Apparently an infinity. Here is why. Gödel made his proof even harder then necessary because he wanted to demonstrate one interesting consequence. What if we add G as a new axiom to our system? After all we know its true, since otherwise the system would be inconsistent. Would it make our system complete? It turns out that adding a new axiom to the system, changes the system! Remember all the steps to define provable(x)? Since now we added new axiom to list of all original axioms, we would need to retrace our steps we took in defining provable(x) to account for the new axiom we just added. So now we are dealing with a new system, in which it will be new function provable’(x) that in turn will create new statement G’. And G’ is a different statement then the first G we already added as an axiom. So now you have a second unprovable statement for an expanded system. You can repeat same process to get G’’, then G’’’ and get an infinity of true yet unprovable statements for a sequence of ever expanding formal systems.
If some of you are totally confused at that point, I wont blame you. G-statement is a highly abstract construct. So all formal systems are incomplete, but how can we practically use that fact? For all its unrivaled mathematical brilliance Gödel’s proof leaves us pretty much where we started.
Before making our own deductions about real world applications, let’s actually build out more insights about that strange world of formal systems. Just like billiard balls hitting each other at an angle to go into different directions, to understand the full implications of Gödel’s result lets review a few other important mathematical results closely related to his work. The first of these is Turing’s Halting Problem.
Halting Problem
Turning’s famous Halting Problem is well known by software developers. In simple language Halting Problem states the following:
Let suppose I will give you the source code of a computer program. I will also give you all the data used by that program, files, hard drives or DVDs it will process. Can you tell me if that program will eventually print some sort of results we expect it to produce and HALT having accomplished its job, or it will run forever unable to finish it? In other words by looking at program and its data can you give me quick “yes/no” answer will it ever stop?
Turing had proven decisively that Halting Problem is impossible to solve. It’s impossible to write software that will take a look at source code of another program and make a determination if such program will ever stop running (halt) or will be running forever. It’s a restatement of Gödel proof for more specific domain of software. The proof is largely the same as Godel’s just easier to grasp it can be formulated as simple software code rather then mind-bending functions operating on syntax of logic5. Halting’s Problem proof is very easy to understand for software developers and not very useful for everyone else so we will not cover it here unless you want to read it on your own.
Instead of providing a dry proof, lets demonstrate it with a practical example. Say I ask you to give me your prediction: will such program ever halt and stop working?
Start at x=4. Get me first prime number p that is less then x. Check if x-p is prime number too. If yes, increase x by 2 and repeat. If not, make p the next smaller prime and check again. Repeat that until you check for p=2. If x-p is still not prime number,print out x and then HALT
This description is not very complicated and would be trivial in any modern computer language. Assuming we do not know the Halting Problem it would be tempting to think such a simple program would be certainly easy to predict.
The trick here is that I did not specify just any random program. The statements above describe famous Goldbach’s conjecture that have been utterly impossible to prove for almost 300 years. The software above just checks if the statement “Every even integer greater than 2 can be expressed as the sum of two primes” is true, and then moves on to the next even integer. The conjecture is totally true for all first 4 000 000 000 000 000 000 numbers checked so far, yet what we don’t have is hard mathematical proof.
The key insight here is that knowing if these few simple lines of computer code will ever halt is equivalent to having proof of Goldbach’s conjecture! If the conjecture is true the software will never halt, it will check all numbers to the infinity, never finding one that breaks the rule. If conjecture is wrong then software will stop as soon as it finds the first number that breaks the rule.
Something very interesting is going on. Software obviously is just another way to write down syntax of logical formal systems. We could use English or software code or even go low level with pure Gödel-style logical operators if we wish. Yet fundamentally in just few lines we can write down a statement that represents one of most fundamental problem of mathematics. Knowing when such program will halt – gives us the result we want to know – is the same as having proof of that incredibly hard problem. We can even rewrite the software above as Gödel recursive function and make a statement “will it be true that such function will halt on at least one number?” Yet again proving that statement is the same as proving Goldbach’s conjecture.
Goldbach’s conjecture is currently considered one of the big unsolved problems in math. Maybe someday someone will actually find the proof; but it is just as likely someone will prove that conjecture is undecidable without additional axioms. Such proofs are incredibly hard, yet such things have been proven before.
Even the simplest expressions in a formal systems, such as a few lines of software code, can represent incredibly hard statements, some of which will be un-decidable with all our current mathematical knowledge. Software cannot be “bound” by another software. Software is so universal6 that its behavior can be totally unpredictable. Another piece of software can not tell you “in advance” what’s going to be the result. The only way to obtain the result is to run original software for as long as needed – it could be a few hours till “halt”, or it might be an infinity of time.
The Halting problem shows the other side of the same coin. If a statement is un-decidable you cannot “cheat”, and just write software that will test that statement for you. Software can easily express that statement, but it might take infinite time for that software to finish working. And as long as you don’t have the proof of the statement neither can you prove if such software will ever stop working. There is infinitely more knowledge out there, more proofs: yet all this knowledge is unreachable to you as long as you are bound by the limits of your current system.
Since we are dealing with infinities now, its time to understand them better. Almost 40 years before Gödel made his entrance, another brilliant mind was analyzing first problems related to infinity.
The First Look At Infinity
When we think about infinity, the first thing that comes to mind is infinity of numbers. Yet it turns out that infinity is much more interesting that a simple every increasing row of numbers. Lets look at difference between natural numbers and real numbers. As we know natural numbers are simple numbers like 1, 2, 3 etc. that we use to count things. Real numbers are what we use to measure elements of the real world—i.e., the distance between two points is 1.23 miles. There is obviously an infinity of natural numbers like 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 and as obviously there is an infinity of real numbers like 1.23, 2.345, 3.123 etc.
Georg Cantor proved astonishing result – called Cantor’s Diagonal proof – even when using an infinite number of natural numbers you still can not count even infinite number of real numbers! Somehow infinity of natural numbers is just not “infinite” enough! There are different types of infinities; Infinity consisting of real numbers is more “powerful” then an infinity consisting of simple natural numbers. The proof is actually surprisingly simple.
1 ⇔ 1.1000… 2 ⇔ 1.2000… 3 ⇔ 1.3000… … 10 ⇔ 1.01000… 11 ⇔ 1.11000… 12 ⇔ 1.21000 … later in the sequence … 123 ⇔ 1.321000… … much later in the sequence … 12345678910 ⇔ 1.01987654321 … infinity later … Infinitely long
row of 9 ⇔ 1.999…(infinite 9)
Lets pretend the truth is actually the opposite: that we in fact can count all the real numbers. Lets start with counting all real numbers between 1 and 2. To make matters even simpler, we will count just by moving the increasing natural number to the right after “1.” and reversing the order of natural number digits7. You will get something like table on the left.
Whew, we are done. That table is obviously infinitely long, but now we used 100% of all natural numbers and got a corresponding real number. Now, did we actually count all the real numbers just between 1 and 2?
Lets construct the following number: we will go along the diagonal of our table and construct a number where each digit is +1 higher then what we see in the table. If digit to increase is 9 we will make it 0. I will mark the diagonal digit in color and and then we pick each digit and increase it by 1:
1 ⇔ 1.1000… 2 ⇔ 1.2000… 3 ⇔ 1.3000… 4 ⇔ 1.4000… 5 ⇔ 1.50000… …
New Real Number = 1.211… (infinitely more digits)
So do we already have that “new number” in our table, is that a duplicate? Obviously not – since we specifically constructed it to be different in at least one digit from every single line in the table. This number doesn’t match any of our real numbers directly associated with natural numbers. But the table is natural-numbers-infinity long! We are out of natural numbers at this point – every natural number we could use is already in the table and associated with certain real number. We just constructed a new real number and have no space (among natural numbers) to associate it with.
Let me offer another example, which might help you grasp why infinity of real numbers, is called “continuum” it is so much more dense and powerful then infinity of countable numbers. Pick any two numbers you think are very close, much closer then our example of range from 1 to 2.
Lets pick 1.001 and 1.002. We made the range 1000 times smaller. Or we could have made it million times smaller. Then repeat the argument above trying to count all the real numbers in between. Obviously you would start with 1.0011, then 1.0012, 1.0013, etc. Your final number will be 1.001999…(infinity of 9), which actually rounds up to 1.002. So have you counted all the real numbers between 1.001 and 1.002? And you can repeat same diagonal argument to construct a new number between 1.001 and 1.002 that was not counted since it differs in at least one digit from all other numbers. Apparently even tiny segments between two real numbers have “more” infinity between them then all the infinity of natural numbers!
Apparently continuum infinity is very powerful. That’s the infinity that belongs to the real world around us – everything in our world is described by a real number. Yet we never know any of these real numbers exactly right. We are always limited by error of our instruments. At certain point our measuring tools will round up the result, and infinite sequence of digits of real number will be truncated. If you measuring distances with say tunneling microscope, you will round up the measurement to the nearest atom size. Such precision may create an illusion the world is fully measurable using scientific instruments. That is not true: rounded up final measurement no matter how precise, even if it’s to the limit of atomic sizes, is just simpler rational number. These rational numbers are countable with our familiar infinity of natural numbers. Yet the real world remains a continuum infinity never fully reachable to our tools.
That concludes our mathematical session. Now lets apply that hard earned knowledge to practical matters of startups & innovation. Lets return to our main essay.Interested in coding on Tor and getting paid for it by Google? If you are a student, we have good news for you: We have been accepted as a mentoring organization for Google Summer of Code 2012 together with The Electronic Frontier Foundation! Woo!
Here are the facts: The summer of code gives you the opportunity to work on your own Tor-related coding project with one of the Tor developers as your mentor. You can apply for a coding project related to Tor itself or to one of its many supplemental projects (as well as for an EFF-related project). Your mentor will help you when you're stuck with your project and guide you in becoming part of the Tor community. Google pays you 5,000 USD for the three months of your project, so that you can focus on coding and don't have to worry about how to pay your bills.
Did we catch your attention? These are your next steps: Go look at the Google Summer of Code FAQ to make sure you are eligible to participate. Have a look at our ideas list to see if one of those projects matches your interests. If there is no project on that list that you'd want to work on, read the documentation on our website and make up your own project idea! Come to #tor-dev on OFTC and let us know about your project idea. Communication is essential to success in the summer of code, and we're unlikely to accept students we haven't heard from before reading their application. So really, come to the IRC channel and talk to us!
Finally, write down your project idea using our template and submit your application to Google until April 6, 2012.
We are looking forward to discussing your project idea with you!Rep. Jackie Speier, a Democrat from California’s 14th district, discussed ways to ease the transition for former service members into civilian life during a meeting with UC Berkeley student-veterans Monday.
Speier, whose district includes localities such as South San Francisco and San Mateo, spoke to about 30 people in a question-and-answer event sponsored by the Cal Veterans Group. The event, located in the Cesar Chavez Center, was centered on ways to reintegrate student-veterans into campus life, according to UC Berkeley senior and the organization’s Vice President Mike Drake.
“Once you leave the military, you’re on your own,” Drake said before the event. “Less than 20 percent of veterans are utilizing all the benefits available to them. Hopefully, this event will show vets that the situation is improving, that Congress is getting things done.”
Speier opened the discussion by highlighting some ways in which her work has helped veterans. Such efforts include her collaboration with Rep. Barbara Lee, D-Oakland, to increase access to medical resources and answer requests for benefits at the regional veteran affairs office in Oakland.
“In my opinion, if you come back from war with a disability, we should cover it, and that’s it,” Speier said. “We’re fast to go to war, to place men and women in the front lines, but then we don’t do so well when they come back.”
Speier also heard suggestions from the audience to improve accessibility to higher education for veterans, such as extending military tuition assistance from four to five years and offering more advising opportunities for those looking to transfer from community colleges to universities.
“Ours is a good story, and I want it to be known,” said UC Berkeley senior Tiffany McKinley, a U.S. Navy veteran. “But there needs to be support for us (in higher education) as well.”
In response to concerns from the students about job prospects after graduation, Speier said her office is working to help veterans translate their skills developed in the military to civilian life as well as link them with companies sympathetic to their experience.
Richard Steffen, an employee in Speier’s office and a veteran of the Vietnam War, said one way to do this is to connect student-veterans with employers who have former military experience.
Speier said creating a positive image of veterans in the minds of employers and the public is also key to their success.
“If the public perception is that veterans are associated with suicide, mental health problems — that’s not good,” she said. “They have to see you all at Cal, see that’s it not all that bad. You have a great story to tell.”
Contact Savannah Luschei at [email protected] and follow her on Twitter @savluschei."100 Hour War" redirects here. The term "100 Hour War" may also refer to the 1991 Gulf War
The Football War (Spanish: La guerra del fútbol; colloquial: Soccer War or the 100 Hours War) was a brief war fought between El Salvador and Honduras in 1969. Existing tensions between the two countries coincided with rioting during a 1970 FIFA World Cup qualifier. The war began on 14 July 1969, when the Salvadoran military launched an attack against Honduras. The Organization of American States (OAS) negotiated a cease-fire on the night of 18 July (hence "100 Hour War"), which took full effect on 18 July. Salvadoran troops were withdrawn in early August.
Context [ edit ]
Although the nickname "Football War" implies that the conflict was due to a football match, the causes of the war go much deeper. The roots were issues over land reform in Honduras and immigration and demographic problems in El Salvador. Honduras is more than five times the size of neighboring El Salvador, but in 1969 the population of El Salvador (3.7 million) was some 40% higher than that of Honduras (2.6 million). At the beginning of the 20th century, Salvadorans had begun migrating to Honduras in large numbers. By 1969 more than 300,000 Salvadorans were living in Honduras. These Salvadorans made up 20% of the present population of Honduras.[1]
In Honduras, as in much of Central America, a large majority of the land was owned by large landowners or big corporations. The United Fruit Company owned 10% of the land, making it hard for the average landowner to compete. In 1966 United Fruit banded together with many other large companies to create la Federación Nacional de Agricultores y Ganaderos de Honduras (FENAGH; the National Federation of Farmers and Livestock-Farmers of Honduras). FENAGH was anti-peasantry (against the campesino) as well as anti-Salvadoran. This group put pressure on the Honduran president, Gen. Oswaldo López Arellano, to protect the property rights of wealthy landowners.[2]:64-75
In 1962 Honduras successfully enacted a new land reform law.[3] Fully enforced by 1967, this law gave the central government and municipalities much of the land occupied illegally by Salvadoran immigrants and redistributed it to native-born Hondurans as specified by the Land Reform Law. The land was taken from both immigrant farmers and squatters regardless of their claims to ownership or immigration status. This created problems for Salvadorans and Hondurans who were married. Thousands of Salvadoran laborers were expelled from Honduras, including both migrant workers and longer-term settlers. This general rise in tensions ultimately led to a military conflict.
Buildup [ edit ]
In June 1969, Honduras and El Salvador met in a two-leg 1970 FIFA World Cup qualifier. There was fighting between fans at the first game in the Honduran capital of Tegucigalpa on 8 June 1969, which Honduras won 1–0. The second game, on 15 June 1969 in the Salvadoran capital of San Salvador, which was won 3–0 by El Salvador, was followed by even greater violence.[4] On 27 June 1969, the day the play-off match took place in Mexico City,[5] El Salvador dissolved all diplomatic ties with Honduras, stating that in the ten days since the game in El Salvador 11,700 Salvadorans had been forced to flee Honduras. It said that as Honduras had "done nothing to prevent murder, oppression, rape, plundering and the mass expulsion of Salvadoreans", there was little point in maintaining relations.[6] It further claimed that "the government of Honduras has not taken any effective measures to punish these crimes which constitute genocide, nor has it given assurances of indemnification or reparations for the damages caused to Salvadorans".[2]:105 El Salvador won the decisive third game 3–2 after extra time.
War [ edit ]
Late in the afternoon of 14 July 1969, the concerted military action began. El Salvador was put on a blackout and the Salvadoran Air Force, using passenger airplanes with explosives strapped to their sides as bombers, attacked targets inside Honduras. Salvadoran air-raid targets included Toncontín International Airport, which left the Honduran Air Force unable to react quickly. The larger Salvadoran Army launched major offensives along the two main roads connecting the two nations and invaded Honduras. The invasion phase was perpetrated by three main contingents: the Chalatenago Theater, the North Theater, and the East Theater. The Chalatenango Theater was based on the northwest side of El Salvador, including the departments of Santa Ana and Chalatenango, across the mountain range close to the border, and the Sumpul River. This was a strategic region due to its rich soil and climate; however, this Theater would not see any fighting as it was to deploy only in case of Honduran penetration into El Salvador. The North Theater was composed of a small unit of armored vehicles and a large amount of manpower. The East Theater was to deploy in the departments of La Unión and Morazán. This Theater was composed of a large mechanized division, armored fighting vehicles such as the M3 Stuart and a large amount of artillery such as the 105mm M101.
Nicaraguan dictator Anastasio Somoza Debayle helped Honduras by providing weapons and ammunition.[citation needed]
Initially, rapid progress was made by the Salvadordoran army within striking distance of the Honduran capital Tegucigalpa. The momentum of the advance did not last, however.
The Honduran air force reacted by striking the Salvadoran Ilopango airbase. Honduran bombers attacked for the first time in the morning of 16 July. When the bombs began to fall, Salvadoran anti-air artillery started firing, repelling some of the bombers. The bombers had orders to attack the Acajutla Port, where the main oil facilities of El Salvador were based. Honduran air-raid targets also included minor oil facilities such as the ones in Cutuco [es; ceb]. By the evening of 16 July, huge pillars of smoke arose in the Salvadoran coastline from the burning oil depots that had been bombed.[citation needed]
Honduran Air Force Vought F4U-5NL No. FAH-609 Corsair flown by Cap. Fernando Soto when he shot down three Salvadoran planes. Now on display at the Museo del Aire in Tegucigalpa
Both sides deployed World War II era design aircraft.[7] All planes in the engagement were of U.S. origin. Cavalier P-51D Mustangs, F4U-1, -4 and -5 Corsairs, T-28A Trojans, AT-6C Texans and even C-47 Skytrains converted into bombers saw action.[8] On 17 July Honduran Air Force Corsair pilots Captain Fernando and his wingman Captain Edgardo Acosta Soto engaged two Salvadoran TF-51D Cavalier Mustang II who were attacking another Corsair while it was strafing targets south of Tegucigalpa. Soto entered a turning engagement with one mustang and blew off its left wing with three bursts of 20 mm AN/M3 cannon, Killing pilot Captain Douglas Varela when his parachute did not fully deploy. Later that day the pair spotted two Salvadoran FG-1D Goodyear Corsair. They jettisoned hard point stores before climbing and made a diving attack, Soto set one Corsair on fire only to find its wingman on his tail. An intense dogfight between them ended when Soto entered a Split-S giving him a firing solution which he used to shoot down Captain Guillermo Reynaldo Cortez who died when his Corsair exploded.[9] El Salvador continued to fly its surviving Corsairs into 1975; Honduras didn't retire its fleet until 1979.[10] The war was the last conflict in which piston-engined fighters fought each other.
The Honduran government called on the OAS to intervene, fearing that the nearing Salvadoran Army would invade the capital Tegucigalpa. The OAS met in an urgent session on 18 July and called for an immediate cease-fire and a withdrawal of El Salvador's forces from Honduras. El Salvador resisted the pressures from the OAS for several days, demanding that Honduras first agree to pay reparations for the attacks on Salvadoran citizens and guarantee the safety of those Salvadorans remaining in Honduras. A cease-fire was arranged on the night of 18 July; it took full effect only on 20 July. El Salvador continued until 2 August to resist pressures to withdraw its troops. Then a combination of pressures led El Salvador to agree to a withdrawal in those first days of August. Those persuasive pressures included the possibility of OAS economic sanctions against El Salvador and the dispatch of OAS observers to Honduras to oversee the security of Salvadorans remaining in that country. The actual war had lasted just over four days, but it would take more than a decade to arrive at a final peace settlement.
Withdrawal [ edit ]
El Salvador finally withdrew its troops on 2 August 1969. On that date, Honduras guaranteed Salvadoran President Fidel Sánchez Hernández that the Honduran government would provide adequate safety for the Salvadorans still living in Honduras. Sánchez had also asked that reparations be paid to the Salvadoran citizens as well, but that was never accepted by Hondurans. There were also heavy pressures from the OAS and the debilitating repercussions that would take place if El Salvador continued to resist withdrawing their troops from Honduras.
Consequences [ edit ]
Both sides of the Football War suffered extensive casualties. Some 300,000 Salvadorans were displaced, many had been forcibly exiled or had fled from war-torn Honduras, only to enter an El Salvador in which the government was not welcoming. Most of these refugees were forced to provide for themselves with very little assistance. Over the next few years, more Salvadorans returned to their native land, where they encountered overpopulation and extreme poverty.[2]:145-155
El Salvador suffered about 900 mostly civilian dead. Honduras lost 250 combat troops, and over 2,000 civilians during the four-day war. Most of the war was fought on Honduran soil and thousands more were made homeless. Trade between Honduras and El Salvador had been greatly disrupted, and the border officially closed. This damaged the economies of these nations tremendously and threatened the Central American Common Market (CACM).
The war resulted in a 22-year suspension of the CACM, a regional integration project that had been set up by the United States largely as a means of counteracting the effects of the Cuban Revolution.
The political power of the military in both countries was reinforced. In the Salvadoran legislative elections that followed, candidates of the governing National Conciliation Party ( Partido de Conciliación Nacional, PCN), were largely drawn from the ranks of the military. Having apologized for their role in the conflict, they proved very successful in elections at the national and local levels. In contrast to the gradual democratization process that had characterized the 1960s, the military establishment would exercise increasing control.
, PCN), were largely drawn from the ranks of the military. Having apologized for their role in the conflict, they proved very successful in elections at the national and local levels. In contrast to the gradual democratization process that had characterized the 1960s, the military establishment would exercise increasing control. The social situation in El Salvador worsened, as the government proved unable to satisfy the economic needs of its citizens deported from Honduras. The resulting social unrest was one of the causes of the El Salvador Civil War, which followed approximately a decade later.
Aftermath [ edit ]
El Salvador was eliminated from the World Cup after losing their first three matches.[11]
Eleven years after the war the two nations signed a peace treaty on 30 October 1980[12] and agreed to resolve the border dispute over the Gulf of Fonseca and five sections of land boundary through the International Court of Justice (ICJ). In 1992, the Court awarded most of the disputed territory to Honduras, and in 1998, Honduras and El Salvador signed a border demarcation treaty to implement the terms of the ICJ decree. The total |
tools available to us and how we might go about testing a simple React component.
Testing Tools for React
In many ways, testing front-end applications is no different from testing server-side, or other types of software. Like always, there exists a spectrum of testing types, and a well-tested application will be tested across the applicable types. Generally, the two “ends” of the spectrum are unit and end-to-end or system testing, with unit testing being the most “low-level” or specific, and end-to-end being the most integrated and “high-level”.
For example, more integrated, high-level tests for a back-end application might involve interacting with other applications across the network barrier, or mutating data in a test database. With front-end applications, an end-to-end test will be more focused on user interaction and dealing with inputs, events, and the like. Unit-testing in front-end applications is more similar to unit-testing in general, as it focuses on the smallest units of an application, and generally aims to determine correctness, e.g. “does a function return the right value and type?”.
Jest
One of the main source of challenges for testing front-end applications is sometimes the nature of advanced technologies like Angular, Ember, and React. It is not enough to simply document.getElementById('myElement'), run some assertions against it, and move on. Most modern JavaScript application technologies are doing far more advanced things than jQuerying-up otherwise-static web pages. For example, React implements a virtual DOM as one of its key components. So, ensuring that your components are rendering, receiving props and state, and updating properly means end-to-end tests need to be suited to React.
Specialized testing tools often need to be created for these sorts of specialized frameworks and libraries. For example, you might have used or heard of Protractor, the end-to-end testing tool from the Angular.js team. While it can be used for a wide variety of projects, it takes special care to be oriented towards testing Angular applications.
As it turns out, the “standard” tool for testing React applications, Jest, is still evolving along with the rest of the React ecosystem, making it a somewhat difficult tool to teach and recommend to those who want to learn about React and front-end testing. It also brings with it some features — for instance auto-mocking —, that are a little too heavy for the purposes of a tutorial, and might hinder our progress while learning about testing React components.
Enzyme + Mocha
We will move forward with what is likely to be a familiar tool to JavaScript developers — Mocha, and a well-developed new React testing library called enzyme.
Mocha is a well-known and flexible test runner that you can use to run your JavaScript tests on the server or in the browser. Enzyme, created by engineers at Airbnb, is “a JavaScript Testing utility for React that makes it easier to assert, manipulate, and traverse your React Components’ output.”
One of the nice things about this pairing is that you can substitute your favorite testing framework for Mocha (tape, AVA, Jasmine, etc.), and still be able to test your React application. Furthermore, because of the way that React-Native is currently built with a dependency on the actual React library, you can use Enzyme to test your React Native applications, too.
Getting Set Up
To keep up with the latest ECMAScript standard, we will be writing nearly all of our code in the ES6 manner. Many aspects of the new ES6 specification do not yet have native support, so we will use the popular Babel transpilation tools to ensure our code is able to run in browsers today. We will also use Webpack to ensure everything gets properly bundled together and can run in the browser in a single file. Babel and Webpack are extremely flexible and complex tools in their own right, so we will only be covering a very basic setup and usage of them.
Before we start, make sure that you have all the needed prerequisites installed and have run git init in your directory. The directory structure we will use will look like this:
├── LICENSE ├── README.md ├── dist ├── lib ├── package.json ├── test └── webpack.config.js
Babel
The Babel transpilation toolset lets you turn your ES6 code to ES5. To get it working, first we will need to install some libraries:
$ npm install --save babel-core babel-loader babel-preset-airbnb babel-preset-es2015 babel-preset-react babel-preset-stage-0
Note: Feel free to refer to this package.json to make sure all your npm modules are installed or see the full list of modules used throughout this tutorial.
We can break down the modules we just installed a little further:
The key one is babel-core, which as you might guess is the core babel library.
, which as you might guess is the core babel library. babel-loader is a loader plugin for Webpack.
is a loader plugin for Webpack. The rest of the libraries are presets for Babel that allow tuning and customization.
We also need to create a.babelrc dotfile in the root of your repository:
{ "presets": ["airbnb", "es2015", "stage-0"] }
Configuring Webpack
Now that we have Babel set up and installed some of the presets will need, we can configure Webpack. Webpack is a module bundling tool that we can use to ensure all of our different files get combined into one meaningful file we can use in the browser. As with Babel, Webpack is also a tool that deserves an entire tutorial in its own right, so we will not be going through every aspect of how it works or how to configure it.
First, let’s ensure we have installed Webpack and the Webpack development server:
$ npm install --save-dev webpack webpack-dev-server
Next, we need to create a configuration file for Webpack. It will contain options that will tell Webpack how to bundle our files, where the output should go, and other customizations.
webpack.config.js
const path = require ('path'); const webpack = require ('webpack'); // env const buildDirectory = './dist/'; module. exports = { entry : './lib/main.jsx ', devServer : { hot : true, inline : true, port : 7700, historyApiFallback : true, }, resolve : { extensions : ['', '.js ', '.jsx'], }, output : { path : path. resolve (buildDirectory), filename :'app.js ', publicPath :'http://localhost:7700/dist ', }, externals : {'cheerio':'window ','react/lib/ExecutionEnvironment': true,'react/lib/ReactContext': true, }, module : { loaders : [{ test : / \. jsx? $ /, exclude : / (node_modules | bower_components) /, loader :'babel ', query : { presets : ['react ','es2015 ','stage-0'], }, }], }, plugins : [], };
A few sections are worth looking more closely at to ensure we understand the general idea of what we are telling Webpack to do.
This section is simply how we tell Webpack to create the final output of our application script. We are also telling Webpack that we will make our script publicly available at http://localhost:7700/dist :
output : { path : path. resolve (buildDirectory), filename :'app.js ', publicPath :'http://localhost:7700/dist ', },
This part of webpack.config.js will configure webpack-dev-server, which is an extremely helpful tool that will serve up and help recompile our script for us as we work:
devServer : { hot : true, inline : true, port : 7700, historyApiFallback : true, },
The last part of the webpack configuration we will spend some time on is externals. These will help enable enzyme to work properly.
externals : {'cheerio':'window ','react/lib/ExecutionEnvironment': true,'react/lib/ReactContext': true, },
Creating Our Index.html
Next, we need to create a simple index.html file that we can open in a browser to see what our component looks like. This file will only do a few things: include our script, provide a render target, and include some boilerplate CSS.
index.html
< html > < head > < title >Fun with react testing!</ title > < meta charset = " utf-8 " > < meta http-equiv = " X-UA-Compatible " content = " IE=edge " > < meta name = " viewport " content = " width=device-width, minimum-scale=1.0 " > < meta name = " author " content = " Mark Thomas " > < link rel = " stylesheet " href = " https://maxcdn.bootstrapcdn.com/bootstrap/3.3.6/css/bootstrap.min.css " > </ head > < body > < div id = " root " > < h1 > Loading! </ h1 > </ div > < script src ='http://localhost:7700/dist/app.js'></ script > </ body > </ html >
After creating this file, your project directory should look like this:
├── LICENSE ├── README.md ├── dist ├── index.html ├── lib ├── package.json ├── test └── webpack.config.js
Mocha and Company
The last setup we need to do before we are ready to start writing our tests is install mocha and some other modules to ensure we have everything ready for it to run our enzyme tests.
We will install rest of testing tools: Mocha, jsdom, and react-addons-test-utils. Enzyme needs ‘react-addons-test-utils’ and ‘jsdom’ for some of its functionality in the way we will be using it.
$ npm install --save-dev mocha jsdom react-addons-test-utils
Lastly, we will create a setup file that will ensure we can test our components in a realistic browser environment using jsdom.
test/helpers/browser.js[^1]
require ('babel-register')(); var jsdom = require ('jsdom'). jsdom ; var exposedProperties = ['window ','navigator ','document']; global. document = jsdom ('' ); global. window = document. defaultView ; Object. keys ( document. defaultView ). forEach (( property ) => { if ( typeof global [property] ==='undefined') { exposedProperties. push (property); global [property] = document. defaultView [property]; } }); global. navigator = { userAgent :'node.js'}; documentRef = document ;
Our setup is now complete. We can run our tests with npm test and run our dev server with npm run dev:hot by adding these scripts to our package.json :
" scripts " : { " test " : " mocha -w test/helpers/browser.js test/*.spec.js ", " dev:hot " : " webpack-dev-server --hot --inline --progress --colors --watch --display-error-details --display-cached --content-base./ " },
When you run npm run dev:hot, you will see Webpack bundling up all your assets together into different chunks. Any errors in importing or exporting data will cause it to throw an error and report it to you in the terminal.
Testing Components
Now that we have completely finished setting up our tools, we can get to writing some tests. We will be creating a very simple component that will grab a profile image from Gravatar when a user puts their email in and clicks a “fetch” button. Our tests will need to reflect these external requirements and will serve as a guide once we start building the actual components. One great thing about letting tests guide our development is that when all of our tests pass, we can be fairly confident in our code and we know we are done.
Our main component will have two sub-components that we want to test individually. We will create one for the avatar image that will be displayed, and one for the email input. If we were working on a full React application, we might find other places to reuse and repurpose these components, or find that they already existed in some form.
This is the test for the avatar component. avatar.spec.js
import React from'react'; import { mount, shallow } from'enzyme'; import { expect } from'chai'; import Avatar from '../lib/avatar'; describe ('<Avatar/> ', function () { it ('should have an image to display the gravatar ', function () { const wrapper = shallow ( < Avatar / > ); expect ( wrapper. find ('img')). to. have. length ( 1 ); }); it ('should have props for email and src ', function () { const wrapper = shallow ( < Avatar / > ); expect ( wrapper. props (). email ). to. be. defined ; expect ( wrapper. props (). src ). to. be. defined ; }); });
Take note of this line, which you will see repeated in one form or another in our other tests:
const wrapper = shallow ( < Avatar / > );
The shallow method from enzyme will allow us to “shallowly” render a component. This type of rendering is used to isolate one component for testing and ensure child components do not affect assertions. You can think of it as rendering “just” the component you want it to.
Enzyme gives us several ways to render components for testing: using shallow, mount, and static. We have already discussed shallow rendering. Mount is “real” rendering that will actually render your component into a browser environment. If you are creating full React components (and not just stateless components), you will want to use mount to do testing on the lifecycle methods of your component. We are using jsdom to accomplish rendering in a browser-like environment, but you could just as easily run it in a browser of your choosing.
The last major top-level rendering method enzyme gives us static, which is used for analyzing the actual HTML output of a component and will not be used in our tests. Both shallow and mount return wrappers that give us many helpful methods we can use to find child components, check props, set state, and perform other testing tasks. We will use chai‘s expect assertion-style on these methods in our tests.
Now that we know a little bit more about how to use enzyme, we can finish up our tests:
email.spec.js This is the spec for the email component
import React from'react'; import { mount, shallow } from'enzyme'; import { expect } from'chai'; import Email from '../lib/email'; describe ('<Email> ', function () { it ('should have an input for the email ', function () { const wrapper = shallow ( < Email / > ); expect ( wrapper. find ('input')). to. have. length ( 1 ); }); it ('should have a button ', function () { const wrapper = shallow ( < Email / > ); expect ( wrapper. find ('button')). to. have. length ( 1 ); }); it ('should have props for handleEmailChange and fetchGravatar ', function () { const wrapper = shallow ( < Email / > ); expect ( wrapper. props (). handleEmailChange ). to. be. defined ; expect ( wrapper. props (). fetchGravatar ). to. be. defined ; }); });
Lastly, we need to create tests for the main component that will utilize the other two components. Gravatar’s API uses an MD5 hash to obscure email addresses, so we will use the md5 module to create a hash of the email.
gravatar.spec.js This is the main component we are building, and it should contain the other two components we will create:
import React from'react'; import { mount, shallow } from'enzyme'; import { expect } from'chai'; import md5 from'md5'; import Gravatar from '../lib/gravatar'; import Avatar from '../lib/avatar'; import Email from '../lib/email'; describe ('<Gravatar /> ', () => { it ('contains an <Avatar/> component ', function () { const wrapper = mount ( < Gravatar / > ); expect ( wrapper. find (Avatar)). to. have. length ( 1 ); }); it ('contains an <Email/> component ', function () { const wrapper = mount ( < Gravatar / > ); expect ( wrapper. find (Email)). to. have. length ( 1 ); }); it ('should have an initial email state ', function () { const wrapper = mount ( < Gravatar / > ); expect ( wrapper. state (). email ). to. equal ('someone@example.com'); }); it ('should have an initial src state ', function () { const wrapper = mount ( < Gravatar / > ); expect ( wrapper. state (). src ). to. equal ('http://placehold.it/200x200'); }); it ('should update the src state on clicking fetch ', function () { const wrapper = mount ( < Gravatar / > ); wrapper. setState ({ email :'hello@ifelse.io'}); wrapper. find ('button'). simulate ('click'); expect ( wrapper. state ('email')). to. equal ('hello@ifelse.io'); expect ( wrapper. state ('src')). to. equal ( http://gravatar.com/avatar/ ${ md5 ('markthethomas@gmail.com') }?s=200 ); }); });
Wrapping Up Our Tests
Once you have finished writing your tests, your project directory should look something like this:
├── LICENSE ├── README.md ├── dist ├── index.html ├── lib ├── package.json ├── test │ ├── avatar.spec.js │ ├── email.spec.js │ ├── gravatar.spec.js │ └── helpers │ └── browser.js └── webpack.config.js
Testing User Interactions
Now that we have our tests set up and can run them via npm test, we can work on building out our component. First, we need to create our sub-components: avatar and email.
First, we can create the avatar component:
avatar.jsx
import React, { PropTypes } from'react'; export default class Avatar extends React. Component { render () { return ( < div className = " avatar " > < p > < em > { this. props. email } </ em > </ p > < img src = { this. props. src } className = " img-rounded " /> </ div > ); } } Avatar. propTypes = { email : PropTypes. string, src : PropTypes. string, };
Next, we will create our email component.
Email.jsx
import React, { PropTypes } from'react'; export default class Email extends React. Component { constructor ( props ) { super ( props ); } render () { return ( < div className = " form-group " > < input onChange = { this. props. handleEmailChange } className = " form-control " style = { { width : 200 } } type = " text " /> < button onClick = { this. props. fetchGravatar } className = " btn-success btn " >Fetch</ button > </ div > ); } Email. propTypes = { handleEmailChange : PropTypes. func, fetchGravatar : PropTypes. func, };
Lastly, we will create our main <Gravatar/> component that makes use of the others we have created so far. It also uses a few simple functions to listen for state changes and user click events. Note that these functions are passed as props to our child components, keeping the view logic contained in our parent component.
Gravatar.jsx
import React, { propTypes } from'react'; import md5 from'md5'; import Avatar from './avatar'; import Email from './email'; export default class Gravatar extends React. Component { constructor ( props ) { super ( props ); this. state = { email :'someone@example.com ', src :'http://placehold.it/200x200'} } updateGravatar () { this. setState ({ src : http://gravatar.com/avatar/ ${ md5 ( this. state. email ) }?s=200 }); } updateEmail ( event ) { this. setState ({ email : event. target. value }); } render () { return ( < div className = " react-gravatar " > < h4 >Avatar for:</ h4 > < Avatar email = { this. state. email } src = { this. state. src } /> < Email fetchGravatar = { this. updateGravatar. bind ( this ) } handleEmailChange = { this. updateEmail. bind ( this ) } /> </ div > ); } }
If you run your tests again using npm test, you should get green results. Our component is relatively small, but even at this scale you should be able to notice that enzyme is a fairly speedy tool for testing components. End-to-end tests or any that require a browser-like environment can often be slow to spin up. While full integration tests will still likely be somewhat slower, enzyme’s shallow rendering allows for speedy unit-testing of components.
Wrapping Up Creating Components
At this point, your directory should be looking something like the following:
├── LICENSE ├── README.md ├── dist ├── index.html ├── lib │ ├── avatar.jsx │ ├── email.jsx │ ├── gravatar.jsx │ └── main.jsx ├── package.json ├── test │ ├── avatar.spec.js │ ├── email.spec.js │ ├── gravatar.spec.js │ └── helpers │ └── browser.js └── webpack.config.js
Summary
We have worked through creating a simple component that will display the gravatar image for a user based on the email they put in. We looked at testing some static properties of components, hierarchy and existence of children, as well as simulating some more integrational events like user clicks. Hopefully, your appetite for writing elegant, testable React applications has been whetted, and you are on your way to becoming a master of writing elegant, testable code applications.
[^1]: See https://github.com/lelandrichardson/enzyme-example-mocha for more informationThere will be no wardrobe malfunctions in Springfield, Missouri, if the city council has its way.
The city council rewrote the city’s indecency law to ban breastfeeding in public of children over 1 year old after two protests were staged in August by Free the Nipple, a group that advocates for gender equality. During the protests women and men appeared without their tops, but covered their nipples with tape, which was allowed under the old law.
Councilmembers then adopted a new law in September making it a crime to show “the female breast below a point immediately above the top of the areola, for the purpose of sexual arousal or gratification or which is likely to cause affront or alarm.” They said they changed the law because Springfield is “a ‘family friendly’ tourist spot, and the breasts of women undermine this mission.” Springfield is an hour away from the folksy tourist town Branson in the Missouri Ozarks.
The law exempts adult entertainment businesses and breastfeeding of infants, which are defined as less than 1 year old.
Free the Nipple and local residents are now suing the city with the help of the American Civil Liberties Union.
The plaintiffs claim the new law violates the First Amendment, due process, equal protection, and conflicts with state law: It treats women differently than men, subjects them to an inferior legal status and criminalizes breast-feeding in public, Courthouse News Service reported.
“It feels like I’m committing a crime when my daughter’s supposed to eat,” Jessica Lawson, one of the plaintiffs in the suit, told Fusion. Her daughter Xena is 16 months old, and when she needs to be fed, Lawson goes into her car and tries to cover herself with her shirt.
“There’s this stigma about breastfeeding in general—people tell you to cover up or give you dirty looks or just whisper and point,” Lawson said. “I don’t want to make trouble…but it’s not fair.”
-Noel Brinkerhoff, Steve Straehley
To Learn More:
Free the Nipple Fights Missouri City Hall (by Deb Hipp, Courthouse News Service)
ACLU Sues Missouri City over Indecent Exposure Law that Could Criminalize Breast-Feeding (by Casey Tolan, Fusion)
Springfield City Council Approves Tougher Indecent Exposure Standards (by Brian Vandenberg and Paula Morehouse, KY3)
The Battle over Nipple Exposure in North Carolina (by Matt Bewig, AllGov)Police Commissioner Ray Kelly's tepid response to allegations that the NYPD has leaked damaging information about the sexual assault case of International Monetary Fund leader Dominique Strauss-Kahn is so out of character it makes one wonder.
"I certainly hope that's not the case," Kelly said of the alleged police leaks, after Strauss-Kahn's lawyers complained that the disclosures were damaging his right to a fair trial.
Such a meek response from the police department's micromanaging commissioner raises this question: could Kelly be deliberately seeking to discredit Strauss-Kahn?
While this column disdains conspiracy theories, we might point out that Kelly has been known to do a favor or two for powerful and influential people who he feels can be useful to him.
And one of those people -- who has been especially useful to Kelly in the past -- has a tremendous interest in Strauss-Kahn's fate.
That person is Strauss-Kahn's political rival, French President Nicolas Sarkozy.
Kelly and Sarkozy? Hold on, readers. Don't laugh.
Here is some background. Both Kelly and his wife Veronica are Francophiles. Veronica Kelly travels regularly to France on business. Ray Kelly has traveled to France more than most people are aware.
Interpol, the international police force, is based in Lyons, France. Kelly does anti-terrorism business there.
In 2006 Kelly was awarded France's Legion of Honor, an order established in 1802 by Napoleon Bonaparte. This is considered France's highest decoration.
Who awarded Kelly the honor? Nicolas Sarkozy, then France's Interior Minister.
It's rare for Americans to receive this honor. Those who have are very distinguished. They include Julia Child, Walt Disney and Dwight D. Eisenhower. That's pretty impressive company.
Kelly was inducted at the French consulate here in New York. Sarkozy, who did the honors, said France was honoring Kelly for his contributions to fighting terrorism.
Over the years, their relationship has apparently thrived.
Last summer, Sarkozy invited Kelly to Paris to celebrate Alain Bauer's induction into the Legion of Honor. Bauer is a French criminologist and national security expert.
According to the N.Y. Post, Bauer paved the way for NYPD detectives to be permanently assigned to Paris police headquarters to guard against terror threats.
Until Strauss-Kahn was accused of trying to rape a hotel maid, a 32-year-old single mother from the African country of Guinea, he was considered the only man in France capable of defeating Sarkozy for the French presidency.
Those alleged NYPD leaks about him to the media were devastating. They involved reports that Strauss-Kahn supposedly attempted to flee to France after the alleged rape and other reports that his DNA matched semen found on the maid's clothing.
While this column would never suggest that Kelly might do anything unethical or improper (other than accepting hundreds of thousands of dollars in freebies from the non-profit Police Foundation or having detectives from his detail chauffeur his wife around town), it is interesting to contrast his response to the Strauss-Kahn leaks with his draconian reaction to leaks in another high-profile sexual assault case, which occurred a few months before he received his Legion of Honor award.
That was the murder of Imette St. Guillen, a graduate student found raped and bound off the Belt Parkway in Brooklyn after she left a Soho bar.
Then, Kelly was so disturbed over leaks that he launched a sweeping probe of the NYPD's entire Detective Bureau.
Unprecedented in scope, the investigation became a witch hunt and reached the highest levels of the department.
Kelly approved the "dumping" of detectives' cell phone records so that he could learn of their contacts with reporters.
Internal Affairs questioned at least two dozen detectives under oath, including the number two man in the Detective Bureau as well as Detective Borough Brooklyn's entire top command, including a deputy chief, an inspector and two captains.
At the time, many saw the investigation as evidence that Kelly sought personal control over all information the department releases.
More than ever, that's the case today. That's why his mild response to the Strauss-Kahn leaks seems so curious.
MAKING MOVES. Has Ray Kelly, the boy from Hell's Kitchen on the West Side of Manhattan, become so overwhelmed by his associations with the rich and famous that he has lost all sense of responsibility and public service?
How else to explain his dumping of Deputy Chief James Shea from the Joint [FBI and NYPD] Terrorist Task Force.
Two months ago, Shea, the NYPD's Number One gun on the JTTF, refused a possibly unlawful order from his NYPD superior, Deputy Commissioner for Counter Terrorism Richard D'Addario, to remove classified FBI documents.
Kelly ordered Shea transferred but later changed his mind and kept him there.
Until this week.
Last Thursday, Kelly included Shea in a department shake up. Instead of heading the hard-charging JTTF, he will now head the Police Academy, which is something of a department backwater.
His transfer follows that of the JTTF's Number Two, John Nicholson, who earlier this month also refused a possibly unlawful order from Deputy Commissioner of Intelligence David Cohen. Cohen's order was to remove classified FBI documents concerning the killing of Osama bin Laden.
Kelly can, no doubt, claim that Shea's transfer puts him on a promotion track to Assistant Chief as the head of the Police Academy has become a two-star position. (In the NYPD, Assistant Chief is a rank above Deputy Chief, which is a one-star spot.)
In addition, Kelly solves an internal problem as the past head of the academy, George Anderson, had some absentee problems with subordinates, most notably at the pistol range. Furthermore, Shea is long known to be a favorite of Anderson's boss, Deputy Commissioner for Training, Wilbur Chapman, with whom Anderson had been feuding.
Still, what about the "It's okay to break the law" message that Kelly's transfer of both Shea and Nicholson sends to the FBI, it's so-called partner in fighting terrorism, which is Kelly stated top priority?
Put another way, how do these two transfers help the fight against terrorism when it further damages the relationship between the NYPD and the FBI?
Deputy Chief Matthew Pontillo, the Intelligence Division's executive officer, will succeed Shea at the JTTF.
This will ensure that Cohen has someone he knows and trusts in this key spot. The question is whether Pontillo is pliable enough to get Cohen the information he wants, even if it involves breaking the law.The biggest mistake one can make, when on a remote trek, is to not bring a large variety of music. A paucity of music leads to repeating the same albums over and over again, which can have disastrous consequences for one’s mental health. Luckily my choice in music is excellent. I had the Rolling Stones’ “Some Girls” album to accompany me, with such gems as “When the Whip Comes Down,” “Respectable,” “Far Away Eyes” (my personal favorite), and “You Win Again.” Almost as good is my childhood love, Green Day’s American Idiot.
When the album came out ten (10!) years ago, in 2004, I was in 7th grade. That is, I was a complete political incubus. Like an amoeba, my political instincts were reflexive, I loved the gods the city worshipped, and I hated the gods the city did not worship. I hadn’t listened much to the lyrics then or later, but now that I was repeating the album constantly, as an accompanying refrain on my mountain ascents, I had cause to examine what the singer was actually singing about.
The titular song, “American Idiot,” is a triumphalist left wing punk ballad. The singer does not come right out with his political affiliations, but his statement: “well maybe I’m the faggot America/I’m not part of a redneck agenda” seem to put him on the left side of the aisle, right in the middle of the Kulturkampf. He has reason to celebrate, for although the issue of gay acceptance was up in the air until quite recently, it seems to have been decisively settled: gays are accepted now, get over it, it’s only a matter of time until the law catches up.
Perhaps on this issue he may be pleased, but overall, he should be appalled. Behold the following:
“Don’t want to be an American idiot.
One nation controlled by the media.
Information age of hysteria.
It’s calling out to idiot America.”
He meant this to be an indictment of right wing types, idiots who watch Fox News and vote Republican and wave the flag and all that jazz. Such a criticism may, indeed, apply to them. However, it seems to apply much more to the left wing today, than to the right.
Case in point. A scientist lands a rocket on a comet, millions of miles away. Technically this is a stroke of brilliance, and deserves all the hearty praise we can offer. However, instead of focusing on this grand achievement, the moment was hijacked by the social justice warriors. The team leader’s shirt was deemed sexist, and the incident labelled #shirtgate. Gasp! faint! He then recorded a groveling apology for the jackals. When I see Nepalis plowing their fields with the same tools the Sumerians developed, and then consider what some of us in the West consider problems, I almost weep for our decline. I find cackling to be much more appropriate, however.
This sort of model happens all the time. Someone says something that is offensive to the gods the city worships, social media or the MSM whips up a frenzy, and the offending party either capitulates immediately or is attacked until he (almost always a man, it seems) issues some sort of apology. The jackals are satisfied, or more likely, they simply become angrier. This happens so frequently that it is redundant of me to even describe the cycle. Brandon describes it well in his excellent article on the cannibalization of the left.
Green Day caused a big ruckus when their album came out. But now, ten years on, it is interesting to see that the new* American idiots aren’t Bible-thumping, faggot-hating rednecks from Georgia – they’re young millenials, smug in their moral superiority, tearing people down with the virtual power of social media. What’s funnier, or perhaps sadder, is that these same people are, like me, kids who grew up listening to this album. Happy trails!
*A better word, in light of comments.Survival Live: Reality TV a form of Hunger Games? SARAH THOMAS
TAKING IT TOO FAR? Survival Live is a mix of The Hunger Games and Lord of the Flies. Relevant offers
Reality TV is to descend down a new warped path by stranding eight contestants in the wilderness for 42 days for the show Survival Live.
In a mix of The Hunger Games and Lord of the Flies, viewers will be able to monitor the survivalists' progress on a website that tracks their biometric data, revealing who is suffering the most, according to The Hollywood Reporter.
The weakest contestant will leave the show at the end of each week.
Contestants are encouraged to build up a social network and, based on their popularity rankings, will be able to ask viewers for help with things such as phone calls, food and clothing.
Survival Live will be broadcast twice per week - one live episode and one pre-recorded - and produced by the Discovery channel.
Producers have said they will run background and psychological checks to make sure contestants can withstand the demands of the program.
Survival Live follows other hugely successful reality adventure shows such as Survivor, The Amazing Race and Naked and Afraid.
- FFX Aus
CommentsFree agency starts at 4pm. Will the Eagles be active? Will they be aggressive? Howie just emailed me their plans, but made me promise not to reveal the amazing plans he has for the greatest offseason in the history of mankind.
Okay, so that’s not exactly true. Would be nice, though, huh?
I’m excited for today for a couple of reasons. First, we get to start fixing the Eagles. God knows that is going to take more than a little work. Second, we get to start seeing what Chip Kelly wants to do, in regard to the season and in regard to what types of players he wants. Every move/non-move can be a clue as to what he’s thinking and what he’s hoping for.
Adam Caplan tweeted last night about the Eagles making a FA move involving a “joker”. This is a term that has changed over the years. Jim Johnson used it to refer to a DE/LB that he would move around on 3rd downs. Jevon Kearse was great in that role in 2004. Now joker is also used on offense. It generally applies to a TE type that can also play FB/H-back or WR. The player can line up in a variety of places on the field and perform a variety of roles.
I think the player that Caplan expects the Eagles to sign is James Casey, the TE/FB/H-back from the Houston Texans.
team bio
stats
We all know that the Eagles biggest needs are on defense. I think Caplan is talking about this move because he feels it is likely to happen. On defense, the Eagles will be bidding for potential impact starters and you don’t know who will end up where. Casey is more of a niche player that only a few teams will have interest in.
Chip Kelly doesn’t use a traditional FB. He wants a player who can do that role and also do some TE/H-back stuff. Casey is perfect for this. He can be a lead blocker on 3rd/1 and line up in the slot on 3rd/10. That’s the kind of versatility Kelly loves. Casey is 6-3, 240 and that size plus his skill set makes him a valuable role player.
* * * * *
The Eagles will add at least a pair of defensive starters, but we don’t know the timeline for that. Could be the Eagles bring someone in as early as tonight for a visit or that they give this thing a couple of days to let other teams throw big money around.
We’ve seen the Eagles be aggressive and passive in FA. They adjust their style of business to the market and own team needs. This year they have a lot of needs, but the lack of premium talent may cause them to sit tight for a day or two.
Be patient. The Eagles know they need defensive help. They’ll make moves. I just don’t know if they’ll start at 4:01pm.
* * * * *
If the Eagles do sign James Casey, that doesn’t rule out another TE move. They could even still go after Jared Cook. Casey would be replacing the FB. Cook would be a WR/TE hybrid. Those are different roles.
Andy Reid didn’t do a lot with TEs in recent years. He fed the ball to Celek, but that was about it. Chip Kelly is going to be different. He |
-gapped).
The system requirements document for the software state that WiFi should be turned off on the computer, but nowhere it’s mentioned that the internet cable should be unplugged from the computer. This omission made me giggle, but when reality kicked back in, I was shocked.
Unsecured HTTP connection used
The browser for the election software connects to a local host via an unsecured HTTP connection (risk #5 medium). Since the browser-traffic doesn’t leave the computer it is not an immediate threat. Even so, this introduces various security risks, such as:
Possibly leaking HTTP referrer headers to other websites when the voting web portal contains links to other external sites. Creating a cyber attack surface between web browser and server. This can be intercepted and altered by other malicious software which could already be active on the computer on which the software is installed. If an HTTPS connection is active, the web browser activates several additional security measures such as tightening web page cache settings.
In conclusion: even HTTP traffic that only travels on a local host should be secured with HTTPS.
Instruction manual doesn’t enforce hash check and bad crypto
I am now two-and-a-half minutes into the instruction video (02:41) when I see the following screen:
The instructor remains quiet and quickly clicks the ‘yes’ button to proceed to the next screen. Hey, hold on – what did I see there? I rewind the video and see a very important security question being asked by the voting-software in which the user has to manually compare a 40 character code to see if the election has been tampered with. Yet the instructor does not mention this important security check at all (risk #6 high). Worse, the voting-software doesn’t even force the user to enter the hash code (risk #7 high). Shockingly they seem to use the insecure, old and deprecated SHA1 hash algorithm RTL told me already about (risk#8 high).
Usage of SHA1 seems to be only a small problem in comparison about what comes next.
Hash codes sent together with data files
At 02:52 into the instruction video I see the following screen:
The PDF files contain the SHA1 hash code which protects the XML files. The XML files contain important data from the election. It’s of utmost importance that the XML files are of high integrity because these can contain voting totals on election day. To protect the integrity of the XML files, a SHA1 hash code is generated so the XML file can later be checked on generating this same SHA1 code. Manipulating the XML file by hacking, results in the generation of a completely different SHA1 code.
Creation process of PDF and XML file
The moment the voting software generates XML files containing the voting totals, an accompanying PDF file is created with a specific SHA1 code (this PDF file is probably created for print use). The (paper) printed SHA1 code cannot be remotely changed by hackers.
These files are subsequently copied onto an USB stick. This USB stick is then physically transferred to a higher election district. This higher district collects all the USB sticks from the lower election districts and loads all the XML files into the voting-software.
Unprotected XML files
The XML file generated by the voting-software is not encrypted. Basically anybody can change the contents during transit (risk #9 high).
Generated PDFs should be deleted after printing
The user of the voting-software should print the PDF files, then immediately delete them. Unfortunately the video-instructor did not find it necessary to do so, and even leaves them sitting next to the XML files (risk #10 medium). The computer system does not mention this step nor enforces you to delete the PDF files (risk #11 medium). Printing the PDF files is optional so might not be done. Instead, users can open the PDF files on the USB stick while importing the XML files on to the next computer. After all, who wants to handle paper prints if there is a digital option?
When explaining the SHA1 check, the instructor even shows how you can validate the SHA1 hash by showing the PDF file in a PDF reader:
I think the instructor doesn’t know that the architect of the OSV software probably wants users that they print the PDF file. The architect designed the system, but it seems that this person doesn’t review the generated (YouTube) documentation about it (risk #12 medium).
Transferring the XML file from one vote-counting computer to the next raises a critical cyber security risk as it is almost certain that non-encrypted USB sticks are being used (risk #13 high). These USB sticks carry non-encrypted XML files and the only protection lies in the apparent security of the SHA1 code. But that code is also transferred via a PDF file on to the USB stick.
The fact that USB sticks are used in the process is a serious shortcoming in the security of the voting-software as you should never insert an unknown USB stick into your computer. Doing so can result in your computer getting hacked via:
Malicious software on the USB stick that is automatically executed by the computer (via AutoRun technology). A BadUSB attack.
Even if the cryptographic signing was implemented well, it all can be bypassed if malicious software is loaded on an USB stick (risk #14 high).
Instructor uses short password and auto-completes it
At 03:07 minutes the voting-software login screen shows:
The instructor types ‘OSV’ and hits the TAB key. His web browser then auto-completes the password (risk #15 medium), yet the instructor does not notice this and manually enters his three letter password (risk #16 medium). This is funny, I bet his password is also ‘OSV’ …
Apparently a non-personal account is being used (risk # 17 low) and the computer-system allows weak passwords to be configured (risk #18 medium).
The USB stick is very vulnerable to manipulation during the time it travels all those kilometers to a higher election district.
Secret identification code put into address bar
After having passed the login screen the instructor hovers over a link in the web portal and Internet Explorer shows its internet address:
Look closely and you’ll notice the Java session identifier is visible in the internet address (risk #19 low). This is an important token that should only be stored safely in a well protected cookie (that is, with HttpOnly, Secure and SameSite options set):
When a hacker is able to copy the token he/she can bypass the login screen. As the web portal runs over an non-secured HTTP connection, this token can also leak to other websites. Also, the token will be saved in the browser history.
Running software under administrator privileges
I am now at 03:44 minutes into this epic instruction video and I notice that the instructor seems to be running Windows via an administrator account:
The software writes user files in its installation directory: C:\Program Files (x86)\OSV\
This is possible only if the instructor has administrative rights on Windows (risk #20 medium). It is really not a good idea to run a daily task with high-privilege access. The instructor should instead have used a low privileged account to run this software.
The makers of this voting-software don’t seem to be familiar with the concept of user isolation or hardening. Thus the voting-software saves user files by default into the normally restricted C:/Program Files/ directory (risk #21 medium).
Malware can easily tamper with votes
The instruction video is now at 04:08 minutes and shows a generated XML file. The instructor again has to import the file via the user interface:
Since the file has just been generated on the very same computer no automatic SHA1 hash check is in place (risk #22 high).
The computer running the vote-counting software can easily be infected with malware during daily use while browsing the internet or reading mail. If indeed the computer contains malware which specifically targets the election, then it only has to change the XML file in the C:\Program Files (x86)\OSV\ directory. Because the XML file is not encrypted, no automatic hash check is in place. Changing the XML files is extremely easy to do once a hacker has managed to gain remote access to the computer.
XML files are being mailed during use of voting-software
At 04:45 minutes into the instruction video the voting-software tells the user to mail XML files with voting-results to the central electoral council:
E-mail is not encrypted and therefore a very insecure medium (risk #23 high). What were these software developers even thinking? Doesn’t security matter? How can you send voting results via unsecured e-mail? It is unbelievably easy to intercept and alter e-mail messages.
No printing instructions for PDF file
After finishing this five minute YouTube instruction video, I start the second one:
This two-minute video gives instructions on finalizing vote counting totals. It instructs on how to generate PDF and XML files with vote totals. The instructor mentions that you should save the PDF and XML file on an USB stick and transfer it to the next computer; but printing the PDF file is never mentioned once. Apparently this is how our vote-counting process is performed!
Implemented crypto system is getting worse
After finishing the second instruction video I start the third one. It’s about configuring the election data. Here you first have to understand that the electoral council has implemented additional security measures in the original specification, and then, this specification was realized by a German software development company.
When importing an XML file from another computer, the user is normally shown a 40 character SHA1 code in the web portal. Below to this code you see a ‘next’ button. Only if the user finds it necessary to do so, does he/she compares the SHA1 code in the web portal with the SHA1 code in the PDF file (which in turn is on the USB stick).
Because configuring election data requires additional security, the German developer came up with a solution that the user has to enter the first four characters of the SHA1 code that’s visible in the PDF-file into the web portal. Meanwhile the 36 remaining characters remain visible on the screen:
The instructor explains how to use this screen
“[…] You will be prompted to enter the hash code from the uploaded candidate list. This hash code can be found on the website of the Kiesraad (electoral college), or possibly in the file [..] that is located in the same folder where you found the candidate file. […]”
Both screen and instructions limit the strength of the SHA1 key to 2^16 combinations. That’s just 65,536 possibilities and delivers almost zero cryptographic strength (risk #24 high). A normal SHA1 key provides 160 bits strength and that’s 2^160 possibilities – a vastly larger number. This means the additional security requirements caused exactly the opposite: almost no security at all! And, unfortunately, this additional requirement is in place in many more XML import routines.
Additional vulnerabilities
I can go on and on listing additional insecurities in this voting system, such as:
Internet connected computers. No IT security expert was consulted when building this software. It’s partly open source. About a cross-site scripting vulnerability I found. Logs are not collected on a central server and thus easy to tamper with. No intrusion detection systems are active. No experienced ethical hacker has reviewed the software. No security test reports are available. The integrity of the software is hard to validate, and even optional. Etc.
To save time, I hope I made my point already and thus will not write about further vulnerabilities in this horribly insecure voting software.
Nowhere in the hundreds of pages of documentation I read about the software, mention the fact that a hacker might tamper with the election results. It seems the Election Council and the hired software development company simply forgot about the hacker threat. This is almost unbelievable, but then again: my security research proves it’s very easy for just one person to manipulate the election results on so many levels.
Conclusion
Will we ever learn that our important voting process simply cannot be trusted when critical elements are outsourced to software? Our Dutch democracy has been in the hands of very badly protected software since 2009. We’ve run already ten elections with it and in March 2017 we’ll use it again if nothing changes.
I could already find security holes by doing nothing more than watching a few YouTube instruction videos and reading some system documentation. And this only took me one evening to do so (!).
If I can find these security holes this easily, others can as well. This means no proper IT security specialist was consulted for the development of the voting-software. Instead, some incompetent German software development company was hired to build the digital voting system and no proper oversight was conducted by our Electoral Council. Apparently nobody thought about hiring an ethical hacker or security specialist to see if the system could be hacked. This is pure madness and far beyond what I had ever expected to find.
I hope that with this publication we will finally realize that voting should never be fully performed digitally since software can so easily be manipulated. Pencil-and-paper voting should be the only option. Furthermore, strict audits should be enforced, six-eyes procedures deployed as standard, with regular and obligatory consultations of senior IT security specialists and cryptography experts.
In conclusion, it is not hard to make the voting-process secure. But only the right experts should be involved.
An in-depth forensic research should be conducted to check if our elections have been manipulated since 2009. I hope our Electoral Council keeps logs so that investigators can review these. This probably won’t be the case since almost all the log files are stored on the individual desktop computers of all the people using the voting-software. Thus, unfortunately, we may never know if our elections have been hacked in the past.
I truly hope that from this moment on the Dutch government will take election security way more seriously. Because the status quo is totally unacceptable!
Overview of all identified risk
Critical : Optional final paper audit. Very low : Eight internal network shares (from an internal server called Amsterdam) are visible in a YouTube video Medium : The voting-software initial installs a web server on the user’s computer. Users have to open a web browser before they can use the voting-software. High : The voting software-application can be installed on any computer. Medium : The browser for the election software connects to a local host via an unsecured HTTP connection. High : Instructor skips important SHA1 check in YouTube video. High : Voting software allows skipping SHA1 check. High : The insecure, old and deprecated SHA1 hash algorithm is used everywhere in the software. High : The voting software stores voting results in an unencrypted XML file. Medium : PDF file with SHA1 hash code is stored next to corresponding XML file it has to protect. Medium : The voting software / instructor does not mention that PDF files should be printed, nor enforces you to manually delete generated PDF files. Medium : The architect designed the system, but it seems that this person doesn’t review the generated (security) documentation about it. High : Non encrypted USB sticks are used. High : Custom USB sticks can be used and these sticks can be loaded with malicious software. Medium : Web browser automatically completes user passwords on a shared computer. Medium : Instructor uses three letter password. Low : A non personal user account is used. Medium : No password strength policy is in place. Low : The Java session identifier is visible in the internet address. Medium : Instructor uses Windows administrator account instead of low privileged account. The software allows this. Medium : Software saves high integrity XML files into a public location on the computer. High : No automatic SHA1 hash check is in place for XML files stored on the computer. High : Voting results are sent via an unencrypted e-mail over the internet. High : Most sensitive operations in voting software have least SHA1 protection. Etc. etc.
Update January 30, 2017: RTL News TV broadcast
I’ve worked together with the RTL News research redaction when writing this story. They contacted additional security experts, such as Rop Gonggrijp, Ger Schinkel and Herbert Bos who validated my research. RTL News went live with the story on Dutch TV:
Update January 31, 2017: NOS TV broadcast
NOS about the story and a reaction from the responsible minister:
Update January 31, 2017: Election Council ignores security vulnerabilities for years
It appears that six years ago, university student Maarten Engberts already found out that this voting software was insecure. He confronted the Election Council in 2011, but they ignored all his findings.
Update February 1, 2017: Dutch minister responds
Two days after publication of this article, the responsible Dutch minister Ronald Plasterk ordered the dismission of electronic vote count machines in the upcoming election in March 2017.
Update February 3, 2017: USA Today made an overview
After publication of this article, a lot has happened. The USA Today may a quick overview:
Update February 4, 2017: Overview of Tv coverage
Someone combined Tv coverage of the last few days about this research. Includes reactions from Alexander Pechtold (D66), Sybrand Buma (CDA) and Ronald Plasterk (VVD):
Update March 2, 2017: Fox-IT confirms my research
The Electoral Council hired the well respected Dutch cyber security firm Fox-IT to investigate the security of the current election process. In their detailed analysis (PDF 90 pages, recommended read), Fox-IT confirms almost all my findings.
Update March 3, 2017: AFP video interview
Journalists from AFP took the following video interview, and released it in raw stock material on GettyImages for others to take over:
Update March 9, 2017: Vlog from Michael Hilberer about German election security
The vulnerable vote count software in The Netherlands is made by a German company. That same company used a modified version of the Dutch software for use in German elections. More about it in the vlog from Michael Hilberer:
Update March 9, 2017: South American TV broadcaster (teleSUR) about Dutch election hacking
Today South American TV broadcaster teleSUR brought my research about how I could hack the Dutch elections under attention via their news update:
Update March 10, 2017: Former chairman Electoral Council Henk Kummeling
Former chairman Electoral Council Henk Kummeling thinks the official voting results will be delayed:
Update March 14, 2017: Dutch regional TV: ‘Manual counting is an enormous operation’
Dutch TV broadcast from RTV Rijnmond about the new manual counting process:
Update March 15, 2017: Dutch regional TV: ‘Volunteers help at voting offices’
Dutch TV broadcast from RTV Oost:
Update June 20, 2017: Evaluation of the voting process in Dutch parliament
Today the Dutch parliament evaluated the election that was held in March. The transcript of the discussion is in Dutch.
International news sites that link to this article
BBC.com: ‘Dutch to hand count votes over hacking fears’ NYtimes.com: ‘Fearful of Hacking, Dutch Will Count Ballots by Hand’ WashingtonPost.com: ‘Dutch ballots to be counted by hand amid hacking fears’ TheGuardian.com: ‘Dutch will count all election ballots by hand to thwart hacking’ Spiegel.de: ‘Niederlande: Stimmenauszählung bei Wahlen – Zurück zum Taschenrechner’ ComputerWorld.com: ‘iPads ‘more secure than voting systems’ — claim’ RT.com: ‘Dutch to hand-count ballots in March vote amid ‘hacking & fake news’ fears’ InfoSecurity-Magazine.com: ‘Dutch Minister Ditches Election Software Over Hacking Fears’ TheRegister.co.uk: ‘Netherlands reverts to hand-counted votes to quell security fears’ MacDailyNews.com: ‘iPads ‘more secure than voting systems’ — claim’ TechGig.com: ‘iPads ‘more secure than voting systems’ — claim’ Elmundo.es: ‘Holanda contará a mano los votos de las elecciones de marzo para evitar a los hackers’ Atlantico.net: ‘Holanda contabilizará votos a mano contra los ciberataques’ Egazette.eu: ‘Dutch go old school against Russian hacking’ Antena3.com: TV news item and web article: ‘The Netherlands will avoid computing in elections for fear of a cyber attack and will count the votes manually’ 521gxw.com: Overview of election hacking news stories of last year
Dutch sites that link to this articleHalf a day is all you need to get into business. As per the Ministry of Corporate Affairs, which is leaving no stone unturned to improve the ease of doing business, it will now become possible to reduce the time to reserve the name of company to half a day, and incorporate it in one third of a day.
As per the Ministry’s website, simplified procedures and a reduction in time and fees, through the successful implementation of e-governance initiatives such as the MCA21 portal and SPICe (Simplified Proforma for Incorporating Company Electronically) forms, will make this feasible.
The effectiveness of the policy can be judged from the fact that the time taken for company incorporation was two days in February 2016 and reduced to just about a day in March. Also, the average time for company incorporation along with getting PAN and TAN has been reduced to 1.1 days.
As many as 26 rules have been automated, five procedures for starting a business clubbed into one and many rules deleted to make sure that about 98,000 companies were incorporated from April 2016 to March 2017. Using the newly launched integrated e-Form SPICe, stakeholders now apply for Company Name, Company Incorporation, DIN of the directors, PAN and TAN for the newly incorporated company, and avail all five services simultaneously.
Related Article: MCA Announces Zero Fees For The Incorporation Of A Company
As per the Ministry, these reforms that have been undertaken have helped in reducing the procedures for starting a business in India and provide Ease of Doing Business. This marks almost 60% approximate increase as compared to 2015-16 numbers.
Also, the fee for incorporation (of the integrated e-Form SPICe /INC-32) has been reduced from INR 2,000 to INR 500. The cost incurred by a company for a company seal is also eliminated as the requirement for a company seal has been removed vide amendment to the Companies Act, 2013.
The website further says that the “The time taken for processing company incorporation applications ) (has been reduced drastically from between 5 to 15 working days in June 2014, to an average of 0.6 working days in March 2017.”
“Similarly, the processing time for name availability applications has been brought down significantly from between 5 to 6 working days in June 2014, to an average of 0.4 days in March 2017.”
It further claims that more than 90% applications are being approved within one working day.
Additionally, ever since the Ministry of Corporate Affairs (MCA) tied up with the Central Board of Direct Taxes (CBDT) in February 2017, over 20,000 companies have received a Certificate of Incorporation within a day, including their Corporate Identity Number (CIN), Permanent Account Number (PAN) and Tax Deduction Account Number (TAN).
These improving statistics are a testimony to the government’s commitment to improve ease of doing business in India. As per a Mint Report, India is targeting an ambitious 40-notch jump in the World Bank’s Doing Business survey this year.
Last year, its rank rose to 130 in the survey that measures the ease of doing business in various countries. According to an output-outcome framework document prepared by the government, India wants to reach number 90 in 2017-18 and rise to number 30 by 2020.
(This development was first reported in ET.)“I’ll be back.” When Arnold Schwarzenegger delivered that iconic line in the first Terminator movie during the Reagan years, little did he know it would mean in 2015. But here we are with the second trailer for Paramount and Skydance’s summer tentpole Terminator: Genisys, with the first having hit the field during the Super Bowl. The machines have sent a Terminator back in time to before the war to kill Sarah Connor (if you don’t know who she is, we’re surprised you’re reading this). Her son John (Jason Clarke) sends Sgt. Kyle Reese (Jai Courtney) back to 1984 to protect her, and the rest of humanity, and keep the future intact. When Reese arrives, he meets the bad-guy-broke-good Terminator/Guardian (Schwarzenegger) and learns that they all have been preparing for his arrival. Then John Connor shows up in that past, much to Mom’s delight — but there’s a little something different about Johnny Boy.
There are huge set pieces, ace molten-metal FX and even a few of the signature Ahneld one-liners that padded the Judgment Day enjoyment level. A young Mr. Olympia also makes an appearance. Emilia Clarke plays Sarah, and the cast also includes newly minted Oscar winner J.K. Simmons. Alan Taylor directed from a script by Laeta Kalogridis and Patrick Lussier. The film bombards a megaplex near you on July 1.German six-part thriller “The Valley” has been picked up by Shudder, the horror SVOD service run by AMC Networks, Variety reports.
The show was the first original one-hour drama for TNT in Germany, as the Turner channel pushed into local production.
The deal will see the thriller carried on Shudder in North America and the U.K. “The Valley” follows events after a girl’s body is discovered and then disappears. Friedrich Muecke (“Friendship”) plays the lead.
The series was produced by Bantry Bay Productions and Twenty Four 9 Films. Germany’s Beta Film distributes the drama and struck the Shudder deal.
Critical Content, which was formed out of Relativity Television, has the remake rights to the show and is looking to set up local versions in the U.S. and internationally.This is the 2017 guide. Looking for this year’s Folsom party guide? Right here, stud.
tl;dr/summary: Folsom weekend is like a big gay leather prom. I’m going to Brut, Big Muscle, Aftershock, Real Bad, and Nocturnal. See you there.
I did a write up for some friends on what parties to consider for Dore a month ago and then for our Folsom houseguests and figured might as well spin it out into a blog post (here’s my account of Folsom 2014).
First: Know Your History
Photo above from the June 1964 isssue of Life magazine profile Homosexuality in America, a landmark in LGBT visibility.
I’d be remiss if I didn’t include some history. It’s hard to convey how much leather and fetish culture is woven into the fabric of San Francisco and how that libertine spirit has grown to include all sexualities and genders and types of people and expanded across the world.
SFTravel’s article Behind the Harness: The Extraordinary History of the The Folsom Street Fair.
Found SF’s article Changes and Continuities in the Leather Community.
I think it’s also important to know the context of Folsom because so many people have a knee-jerk conservative reaction to this collection of people and behaviors. Numerous religious right websites choose photos from the street fair to depict all queer people. If you don’t like, it isn’t for you, and isn’t intended for you and it’s completely fine if you stay away. For some people leather and fetish is a core part of their identity and their peer groups. For others it’s a fun weekend to get a little wild, experiment with different dress or style, and push your own boundaries of what you like and who you are.
You can see this history in action as the entire week kicks off with:
San Francisco Leather Walk on Sunday September 17th
Hundreds of people dressed in their streetfair-Sunday best walk together to celebrate leather, kink, chosen family, and community while raising funds for three local agencies. They stop at several local watering holes ending up at The Eagle where the leather pride flag is raised (know your flags!). Full map and event details and event on Facebook.
When someone asks me about Folsom weekend I usually say:
It’s like a big gay leather prom.
Sure there’s gonna be Mean Girls or Mean Bears or Mean Muscle Queens or Mean Belligernet Twinks that you want to kick in the face – let it slide. Any time you get more than a dozen gay men in one space, a few decide they are the fairest of them all, and that others should give them deference and act generally like tween girls. As I tell my sister in recounting these antics, “Yes, these are grown men.” You can usually find these guys because they are standing outside the dance floor not moving at all, just posing. They look amazing and they’ve worked hard all year to look this good – and they are starving. Give them a quick high-five and then go to the opposite space in the club where people are actually having fun.
Anyway.
But generally the San Francisco crowd is warm and friendly to a fault and the general etiquette is such that everyone introduces everyone to everyone else. I describe it to my folks as it’s like a really slutty adult Halloween. Everyone is dressed to impress (an undress).
I’ve included links to photo galleries for most of the events so you can get a sense for the mix of the crowd is like and what to wear.
Here’s a list of many of the events of the weekend. I’ll call out the ones I’m going to but keep in mind this is just one guy’s opinion on what to do and where to go and be sure to ask other friends and acquaintances for their must-do events if this is your first Folsom weekend.
Friday, September 22
Friday night I’m one of your persuadable hosts for:
Brüt at The Great Northern, produced by Dan Darlington with DJs Peter Napoli, Manny Ward, and Dan Darlington
Two of my favorite moments of Folsom weekend last year were at the Brüt party at Great Northern (formerly the old Mighty space). One was when Brüt proudcer and DJ Dan Darlington slowed down the beat and mixed in Nine Inch Nails’s “Closer” and you had hundreds of rutting leather-clad men chanting “I want to fuck you like an animal!” and then as the song ended, Dan kept repeating the Downward Spiral descending motif from the classic album as he brought the beat back up. That and the remix of DMX’s “It’s All Right” featuring the rap, “It’s all good, it’s alright, fuck all day, fuck all night.”
Photo of Ron and I with our Orlando husbands. Photo by Marques Daniels.
Brüt always attracts some of the die-hard leather and fetish crowd but also the Brooke & Meagans like us who just like to dress like fuckbots from time to time or others who are more mainstream circuit queens but giving the leather thing a spin. In the bear/muscle spectrum, it’s more on the muscle side.
Here’s the Facebook event and details you can get tickets at the Brüt Party website.
Photo gallery of last year’s Folsom Brüt from Joe Pessa.
If you want something more on the bear side, might I suggest:
Bearracuda at Public Works, with DJs Tony Moran, Ryan Jones, and Freddy King of Pants
Bearracuda will always have a special place in my heart as the first place I ever gogo danced. It was New Year’s Eve and we knew one of the dancers scheduled and we get to the club and he said, “The other dancer didn’t show! It’s either you or Ron.” It was a great way to start 2016 and forecasted the year to come.
Bearracuda is what it says on the tin: A dance party for the big boys. Many of which have beards. And are hairy. We had a great time at the Pride Bearracuda and if you’re into big cubs and thick daddies, this is where you want to be. We last heard Tony Moran at Sunsation Sundays (next one is September 10 with Jesus and Mohammad at the Chapel) and every time we’ve seen him spin he’s fantastic.
Learn more about Bearracuda from this interview at Unicorn Booty as they celebrate their 11th year of producing events around the world.
I didn’t find a gallery for the Folsom Bearracuda but here’s the photos from this year’s SF Pride event and a bonus photo of me on the prowl at the New Years event this year.
Folsom Sunset Cruise, produced by Brian Kent with DJs The Perry Twins
Leaving from Pier 40 (to the north of AT&T park). The Pride Friday and Folsom Friday sunset cruises have quickly become some of the most popular events of the season – and they always sell out, so get your tickets now. Join a couple hundred of your new best friends on a cruise sailing under the Golden Gate Bridge, Alcatraz, The Bay Bridge, and watching the city come alive as the sun sets. DJs The Perry Twins will spin you into the night from the moment you board the boat and are handed a glass of champagne through to the return to the pier. The revels include a bon voyage toast, drink specials all night, and just about the friendliest crowd you’re going to find in the city. Tickets are on sale now – and this event *will* sell out. Bring a coat or jacket (or wear your leathers). It can get blustery out there in the water.
Photos from last year’s event by Mr. Pam.
Full event details on Facebook and tickets on Eventbrite.
Friendly Fire at Danzhaus, produced by Gage Lennox
And Gage Lennox’s Friendly Fire event for Fancy Fellas that need a helping hand. Ahem. Full event details and tickets on Eventbrite and if this is your kinda thing, add Gage as a friend and then join their private Facebook group.
Recon San Francisco Party at DNA Lounge
Recon.com’s party promises this is “where all the geared-up men come meet, dance and get ready for the oncoming carnage of Folsom. This is a men only event where you can find the guys you’ll be playing with all weekend long!”
Details on the Recon site.
FLSM Friday Fetish Ball at Club Six produced by Gus Presents with DJ Russ Rich
The first of Gus’s trio of events for the weekend with local favorite Russ Rich who is always wonderful whether he’s spinning at a bar on Sunday Funday or at larger warehouse spaces. Ron and I usually end up down front clapping and queening out with each new track he plays.
Full event details on Eventbrite details about Gus’s entire weekend of events. Didn’t find a photo gallery from last year.
Earthquake on Folsom at Raunch Afterhours produced by Francisco Tolentino with DJ Alex Ramos
Francisco Tolentino is bringing his Raunch Afterhours to the weekend. We went to one of these once and had a great time. It’s a Friday night afterhours so should be a relatively big crowd I reckon. I think the address listed is DNA Lounge.
Details on Facebook and tickets on Eventbrite.
DILF San Francisco Meat & Greet Fundraiser by MAN UPP at Lookout benefitting Lyric Bay Area Center for LGBTQQ Youth
Joe Whitaker brings the DILF crew to Lookout on Friday night with DJ Max Bruce spinning. Jockstraps encouraged with clothes check available. Details on Facebook. $10 donation at the door.
Saturday, September 23
We’re going to wake up, brunch up, gear up and go to:
BigMuscle Meet & Greet at DNA Lounge, benefiting AIDS Emergency Fund with DJ Jesus Pelayo
I always like taking friends to this event because if you don’t know it’s happening, you don’t know what you’re missing. Several hundred muscle guys of all sizes and stripes, and their admirers pack into DNA Lounge to have cocktails and dance and make Mary. It’s got a fantastic vibe whether you’re in the mood to dance on the main floor, hang out and chit-chat or people-watch from the wraparound balcony. Keep mind that DNA Lounge is much bigger than you think. If you’re new to the space, go upstairs and do a promenade all the way around and through – I totally missed the far back back lounge all these years until we were there for Dore. Relaxed and fun with lots of hot guys and not everybody is a total mess just yet. Also a cheap ticket. $10 on DNA site I think (with suggested $15-$20 donation at the door the day-of). If you wanted to go to a mild but fun event and still be in (someone’s) bed at a reasonable hour, I’d say go to this one. You’ll be blind for the first few minutes you enter the club since it’s so bright outside and so dark inside. Ron and I have always had a great time at this event. The DJ is Jesus Pelayo who was the main DJ for last year’s Real Bad event. More on Real Bad in a bit.
Photos from last year’s event.
Event details on Facebook and tickets available on DNA Lounge website.
I’m hoping we relax after that but a lot of folks will probably go to:
Magnitude at The Armory, produced by Folsom Street Events with DJs Ralphi Rosario, Alex Acosta, and Nick Bertossi
Photo of Magnitude from last year, photo by lighting/visual designer William Brown.
Magnitude is huge. Massive. I mean that’s why it’s called Magnitude. You don’t know how big it is until you walk in the venue. They’ve moved to the Armory this year (part of the Kink.com studios complex) which is absolutely cavernous and if you can fill the space (and I know they will) it’ll be a fantastic event. There was a scandal this year when it was announced the event would not have the usual fully outfitted dungeon/demo area (bigger SF venues aren’t willing to risk their liquor license blah blah techies ruin everything blah blah). The line to get in should go fast this year if it is anything like how the Armory operated for Pride this year (last year’s Magnitude at Midway we stood in line for more than an hour before getting in, not a fan). The DJ lineup is amazing with Ralphi Rosario, Alex Acosta, and Nick Bertossi.
Magnitude event page and some photos.
We’re going to skip Magnitude this year. One reason is because is last year we overslept. We got home from Magnitude and decided we’d just take a brief nap and neither of us set an alarm. I woke up at 8:30am and thought, “Oh shit. Do I tell him?”
So yeah this year, no Magnitude, snuggle and sleep until 3am and then rinse off and gear up for:
Aftershock at City Nights produced by Frisco Disco and The Disco Cherry, with DJ Abel
It’s hard to say why Aftershock is one of our favorite events of the year. It’s got the perfect |
checked for measles should call the facility ahead, so that they can prepare to avoid exposing others at the facility.
Most children are vaccinated, something that is required by law to enter Miami-Dade Schools. However, religious exemptions can be made, although health experts have said that’s not safe.
“The main thing to keep your children safe from these infectious diseases is to give them the vaccine,” said Echeverry. “That’s an act of love, and it’s an act of social responsibility.”
For more information, visit www.floridahealth.gov.
Copyright 2018 Sunbeam Television Corp. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.Last Friday, moments after the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) formally published its Clean Power Plan, which regulates carbon dioxide emissions from the power sector, opponents of the rule filed suit to strike it down, and, in the meantime, to stay its application. In the press and in last week's congressional hearing (disclosure: one of us was a witness at this hearing), the EPA's critics continued to make unwarranted claims about overreach, economic catastrophe and unconstitutionality. They're hoping that this clamor will provide cover for state policymakers who want to resist complying with the rule.
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But these claims should be taken for what they are: noise. The EPA's flexible, cost-minimizing approach to reducing carbon pollution from existing power plants is consistent with the Clean Air Act and the Constitution. It is not, as opponents argue, an unprecedented approach that will wreck our economy, but rather just another example of the EPA doing its job to ensure that polluters account for the cost of their pollution, resulting in substantial net economic benefits to the public.
The industry groups and fossil-fuel-heavy states attacking this rule want to preserve the status quo, which ignores dangerous carbon pollution and the costly threat of climate change. Since Congress amended the Clean Air Act in 1990, every president — whether Democratic or Republican — has worked to modernize flawed policies from the 1970 Clean Air Act that allow excessive pollution from existing power plants. The Clean Power Plan is the latest step in this methodical process. Along the way, industry opponents have sued to stop nearly every new environmental regulation, but they've failed to halt this progress. Opponents of the Clean Power Plan have already sued twice before to strike down this rule, only to have their challenges thrown out as premature. This time, judges will hear their arguments, but the arguments hold little legal merit.
Those challenging the rule will make complicated claims about EPA overreach, playing fast and loose with the language of the Clean Air Act. When Congress passed the 1990 amendments to the act, the House and Senate used different language in the section that governs regulations for existing power plants. Both amendments were approved by both chambers and signed by President George H.W. Bush, and both amendments appear in the U.S. Statutes at Large, making them both the law of the land.
Opponents of the rule claim, without plausible support, that the Senate amendment should be ignored. They cite the actions of an obscure bureaucrat who included only the House-originated amendment in the U.S. Code. But the Supreme Court has made clear that allowing an action of this sort to supplant the will of Congress and the president would violate the Constitution. Furthermore, Clean Power Plan opponents argue that the ambiguously worded House amendment should be interpreted in a specific manner that disallows the rule. But legal precedent dictates that the EPA should have deference to interpret a statutory ambiguity of this sort. Opponents are asking the courts not only to ignore this precedent, but also to overlook several other interpretations of the text in favor of the single reading they choose.
Lawsuits against the rule will also claim that the Clean Power Plan's flexible design, which allows states to reduce emissions through any manner they choose, is invalid because the EPA considered pollution reductions "outside the fenceline" of power plants when setting emissions-reduction targets. But the plan does not require any power plant to reduce emissions that it cannot control. Moreover, the rule focuses on reducing emissions from the production of electricity, not just electricity from coal. Decades of agency practice have shown that EPA performance standards can involve shifting from a dirtier method of producing a product to a cleaner method of producing the same product. Consistent with this longstanding approach, the EPA rule requires a shift from more carbon-intensive to less carbon-intensive ways of producing electricity.
With the costs of natural gas and renewables falling significantly, dozens of outdated coal plants have been closing independently of the Clean Power Plan. The energy sector is evolving rapidly, and the EPA designed this rule so that states can harness these changes and reduce emissions cost-effectively. Far from hampering our economy, the plan will create incentives for energy efficiency programs that save consumers money and boost the clean energy sector, which continues to create jobs around the country.
Conservative politicians and coal companies also regularly claim this rule is unconstitutional. Their most frequent argument is that the rule runs afoul of the 10th Amendment's prohibition against the commandeering of state institutions by the federal government. This flawed argument would also invalidate many of the core provisions of the Clean Air Act, which have saved hundreds of thousands of lives over a 45-year period, not just the section on which the Clean Power Plan rests. The standard approach of the Clean Air Act is for the federal government to establish statewide pollution reduction requirements, and for states to then allocate reductions among sources in their jurisdiction. And if a state declines to take action, the federal government imposes requirements directly on polluters within the state. As a result, no state institution is commandeered. This is textbook "cooperative federalism," not some unconstitutional invention of the Obama administration.
It is no surprise that those with a financial stake in protecting retrograde policies are grasping at straws to fight this rule in the courts. But it is telling that most electric utilities, and many major corporations, are embracing the plan rather than suing to stop it. The United States and other countries are making significant progress toward cleaner energy, and the Clean Power Plan has helped pave the way for a potential international climate change agreement in Paris this December. The legal and public battles against this rule are a cynical attempt to undermine this progress.
Grab is a senior attorney at the Institute for Policy Integrity at New York University School of Law. Revesz is dean emeritus and Lawrence King Professor of Law at New York University School of Law, and director of the Institute for Policy Integrity. He is the co-author of the forthcoming book Struggling for Air: Power Plants and the "War on Coal."This article is about the leader of the band Jethro Tull. For other people with the same name, see Ian Anderson (disambiguation)
Ian Scott Anderson MBE (born 10 August 1947) is a Scottish musician, singer, songwriter and multi-instrumentalist best known for his work as the lead vocalist, flautist and acoustic guitarist of British rock band Jethro Tull. Anderson plays several other musical instruments, including keyboards, bass guitar, bouzouki, balalaika, saxophone, harmonica, and a variety of whistles. His solo work began with the 1983 album Walk into Light, and since then he has released another five works, including the sequel to the Jethro Tull album Thick as a Brick (1972) in 2012, entitled Thick as a Brick 2.
Early life [ edit ]
Ian Anderson was born in Dunfermline, Fife, Scotland, the youngest of three siblings. His father, James Anderson, ran the RSA Boiler Fluid Company in East Port, Dunfermline.[1] Anderson spent the first part of his childhood in Edinburgh. He was influenced by his father's big band and jazz records and the emergence of rock music, but was disenchanted with the "show biz" style of early American rock and roll stars like Elvis Presley.[2]
His family moved to Blackpool, Lancashire, England, in 1959, where he was educated at Blackpool Grammar School.[3] In a 2011 interview, Anderson stated that he was asked to leave grammar school for refusing to submit to corporal punishment (still permitted at that time) for some serious infraction.[4] He went on to study fine art at Blackpool College of Art from 1964 to 1966 while living in Lytham St Annes.[5]
Career [ edit ]
Early career [ edit ]
While a teenager, Anderson took a job as a sales assistant at Lewis's department store in Blackpool, then as a vendor on a news stand.[citation needed]
In 1963, he formed The Blades from among school friends: Michael Stephens (guitar), John Evan (keyboards), Jeffrey Hammond (bass) and Barriemore Barlow (drums). This was a soul and blues band, with Anderson on vocals and harmonica – he had yet to take up the flute. They played their first show at the Holy Family Church Hall in North Shore.[5]
In late 1967, Anderson was still holding down a day job, namely cleaning the Ritz Cinema in Luton, including the toilets, in the mornings, "which took me half the day" he said in a later interview. He took an old, chipped urinal from the cinema storeroom and had it for a time after leaving the job. It was not, however, the urinal which "was bolted to the side of John Evan's Hammond organ on stage" and figured in early 1970s Tull performances.[6]
Anderson performing with Jethro Tull, Maple Leaf Gardens, Toronto, Canada 24 March 1977
At this time Anderson abandoned his ambition to play electric guitar, allegedly because he felt he would never be "as good as Eric Clapton". As he himself tells it in the introduction to the video Nothing Is Easy: Live at the Isle of Wight 1970, he traded his electric guitar in for a flute which, after some weeks of practice, he found he could play fairly well in a rock and blues style. According to the sleeve notes for the first Tull album, This Was (1968), he had been playing the flute only a few months when the album was recorded. His guitar practice did not go to waste either, as he continued to play acoustic guitar, using it as a melodic and rhythmic instrument. As his career progressed, he added soprano saxophone, mandolin, keyboards and other instruments to his arsenal.
His tendency to stand on one leg while playing the flute came about by accident, as he had been inclined to stand on one leg while playing the harmonica, holding the microphone stand for balance. Anderson was known for his famous one-legged flute stance, and was once referred to as a "deranged flamingo".[7] This stance is on many album covers of Jethro Tull. During a long stint at the Marquee Club, a journalist described him, wrongly, as standing on one leg to play the flute, when in fact he was originally playing the harmonica on one leg.[8] He decided to live up to the reputation, albeit with some difficulty. His early attempts are visible in The Rolling Stones Rock and Roll Circus (1968) film appearance of Jethro Tull. This was referenced in the facetious liner notes for Thick as a Brick in a quote about "the one-legged pop flautist, Ian Anderson".
Later career [ edit ]
Anderson with Jethro Tull at London's Hammersmith Odeon, March 1978
Anderson already wished to start a solo career in 1980, when Jethro Tull was going to take a hiatus, occasioned by John Glascock's death. He wrote the album A as a solo record, but Martin Barre and Dave Pegg's participation led the album to be released under the Jethro Tull name, causing the old band to split. His first official solo album was Walk into Light, in 1983, in which Peter-John Vettese played an important role in the electronic direction of the music.
In the 1990s he began working with simple bamboo flutes. He uses techniques such as over-blowing and hole-shading to produce note-slurring and other expressive techniques on this otherwise simple instrument. In 1995, Anderson released his second solo album, Divinities: Twelve Dances with God, an instrumental work composed of twelve flute-heavy pieces pursuing varied themes with an underlying motif. The album was recorded with Jethro Tull keyboard player Andrew Giddings and orchestral musicians. Anderson released two further song-based solo albums, The Secret Language of Birds in 2000 and Rupi's Dance in 2003. In 2003, Anderson recorded a composition called "Griminelli's Lament", in honour of his friend, the Italian flautist Andrea Griminelli.
In 2011, with the end of Jethro Tull touring, and the question of his friend Derek Shulman (whatever happened to Gerald Bostock?),[9] Anderson begun to produce a sequel to Thick as a Brick (1972), entitled Thick as a Brick 2 or TAAB2, was released on 3 April 2012. It is billed as being performed by Jethro Tull's Ian Anderson instead of being a Jethro Tull album proper. Anderson toured performing both albums in their entirety. A trailer for TAAB2 was posted on YouTube.[10]
Anderson released a new album, Homo Erraticus, in May 2014. He described it as a progressive rock concept album blending rock, folk, and metal music.[citation needed] Peaking at No. 14 in the UK Albums Chart it is his most successful ever solo album.
In September 2017, Anderson announced plans for a tour to commemorate the fiftieth anniversary of This Was, and a new studio album in 2019. The band line-up includes Anderson, Hammond, Opahle, O'Hara, and Goodier (all musicians of Anderson's solo band since 2012),[11] with Barre absent from the lineup.
On 2 January 2018, Ian Anderson published a New Year post on jethrotull.com, including a picture of Anderson with the caption "IA in the studio working on a new album for release March 2019. Shhhh; keep it a secret..."[12]
On 1 June 2018, Parlophone Records released a new (50-track) career collection celebrating the Jethro Tull's 50th anniversary featuring all 21 Tull albums, named 50 for 50. In the notes of the 50 for 50 booklet it is said that the new album scheduled for 2019 will be a solo record by Ian Anderson and not a new album by Jethro Tull.
Recognition [ edit ]
In 1973, Anderson appeared, along with several other artists, on the cover of Time, for an article about new directions in early 1970s music.[13]
In recognition of his lifelong contribution to popular music, Anderson received two honours in 2006: the Ivor Novello Award for International Achievement and an honorary Doctorate of Literature at Heriot-Watt University, on 11 July 2006 [14]
Anderson was appointed Member of the Order of the British Empire (MBE) in the 2008 New Year Honours for services to music.[15]
He was awarded an Honorary Doctorate (Doctor of Letters) from Abertay University in July 2011.[16]
At the 2013 Progressive Music Awards, Anderson was presented with the "Prog God" award by fellow musician Rick Wakeman.[17]
Musical collaborations and other work [ edit ]
Anderson produced Steeleye Span's 1974 album Now We Are Six, as well as appearing on and producing Steeleye Span member Maddy Prior's first solo album Woman in the Wings (1978), for which Jethro Tull made most instrumental contributions.
Ian Anderson plays the Orchestral Jethro Tull – in Butzbach (Germany) 6 June 2007.
Anderson appeared as a guest on the song "All Along You Knew" from The Big Prize (1985), the second album by Canadian rock band Honeymoon Suite. This followed Jethro Tull's 1984 tour, on which Honeymoon Suite was one of the opening acts. Also in 1984, Anderson, along with Martin Barre, Dave Pegg and Peter-John Vettese recorded album A Classic Case with the London Symphony Orchestra, performing a selection of music from Jethro Tull. He was also a DJ on radio station Planet Rock, presenting his own two-hour show Under the Influence. He also appeared on stage with Joe Bonamassa playing Jethro Tull song "A New Day Yesterday" at the Hammersmith Apollo in May 2010.
Anderson plays flute on the Men Without Hats song "On Tuesday" from their album Pop Goes the World (1987), and on the Blackmore's Night song "Play, Minstrel, Play" from their debut album Shadow of the Moon (1997).
Anderson plays flute on the 1998 Roy Harper album The Dream Society. Anderson has acknowledged Harper as having a strong influence upon him.[18]
Ian Anderson performing 2016 at the blacksheep festival, Germany
Anderson performs as a special guest on two Uriah Heep live albums: Acoustically Driven (2001) and Electrically Driven (2001), on both performing the same two songs of Uriah Heep repertoire: "Circus" and "Blind Eye".
Anderson plays flute on the track "Portmeirion" on Fairport Convention's 2001 album XXXV. Anderson has performed with Fairport Convention at their annual Cropredy Festival on several occasions since the mid-1980s, when their bass player Dave Pegg was also a member of Jethro Tull.
Anderson played flute and sang lead vocals on a version of "The Thin Ice" for the 2005 album Back Against the Wall, an all-star tribute album covering Pink Floyd's The Wall in its entirety.
In April 2011, Anderson performed a flute duet with astronaut Cady Coleman, during her mission aboard the International Space Station, in honour of the 50th anniversary of the first manned spaceflight by Yuri Gagarin.[19]
Anderson played the flute on the track "Cannonball" by The Darkness on their 2012 album, Hot Cakes. He played the flute on the track "Cry to the World" by Renaissance on their 2013 album, Grandine il vento. He also played the flute on "The Ocean at the End", the title track from The Tea Party's 2014 album.
Anderson plays flute in Zagreb Croatia, on 13 October 2018.
He contributed flute on the song "Black Cherry Pie", the third single from JEFF the Brotherhood's 2015 album, Wasted on the Dream.[20]
On 24 March 2017 the studio album Jethro Tull – The String Quartets by Ian Anderson was released, featuring the Carducci String Quartet, conducted by John O'Hara.
Family and personal life [ edit ]
Anderson is the youngest of three brothers. The oldest of the three, Robin, became administrator of Scottish Ballet in 1973.[1]
From 1970 to 1974, Anderson was married to Jennie Franks, a photographer who is credited with some of the lyrics to the first couple of verses of the song "Aqualung".[21]
Anderson married Shona Learoyd in 1976, described by Rolling Stone magazine as a "beautiful convent-educated daughter of a wealthy wool manufacturer".[22] She had studied ballet for 10 years, though when Anderson met her she was working as a press officer at Jethro Tull's record label at the time, Chrysalis Records. She later became involved with the band's on-stage special effects.
The couple have lived in a 16th-century redbrick farmhouse on the 500-acre (2.0 km2) Pophleys Estate in Radnage, England, in Kilmarie House on their Strathaird Estate on the Isle of Skye in Scotland, as well as a short time in Montreux, Switzerland. They currently live in Wiltshire, England, and have a house again in Switzerland, near Montreux. They have two children: James Duncan Anderson, also a musician; and Gael, who works in the film industry and is married to actor Andrew Lincoln, star of the US TV drama series The Walking Dead.[23]
Anderson is a survivor of deep vein thrombosis, and has done several public service announcements to raise awareness of the disease.[24]
Among his interests Anderson lists protecting wild cats, especially those that have been rescued from harsh captivity; cameras, chiefly Leicas; and Indian cuisine – he has written a beginner's guide, thus far published only on the internet.[25]
Anderson describes himself as being "somewhere between deist and pantheist" religiously, according to his foreword to the pamphlet for his 2006 St Brides charity concerts for the homeless.[26]
Other business activities [ edit ]
Anderson has owned several salmon farms in the UK. His Strathaird concern,[27] based on his estate on the Isle of Skye, operated until the late 1990s, when parts of it were sold off.[28]
Anderson is a director of four companies: Jethro Tull Production Limited, Calliandra Productions Limited, Ian Anderson Limited, and the Ian Anderson Group of Companies Limited.[29]
Solo discography [ edit ]
Studio albums [ edit ]
Live albums [ edit ]
Collaboration [ edit ]
As guestPhoto by Joe Tangari
Ben Wheatley's film adaptation of J.G. Ballard's 1975 novel High-Rise, which tells the story of class struggles and violent intrigue in an apartment building, is currently making the festival rounds. (It screens this weekend at the London Film Festival). It stars Tom Hiddleston, Jeremy Irons, Sienna Miller, and Elisabeth Moss. Today, Portishead announced their contribution to the film: a cover of the ABBA song "SOS". (The film was scored primarily by Clint Mansell.)
In other Portishead-related film news, Beak>–Geoff Barrow's not-Portishead band—have soundtracked Couple in a Hole, an upcoming movie directed by Tom Geens. It stars Kate Dickie and Paul Higgins as a couple who begin living in a cave in the woods. The movie premiered at the Toronto Film Festival, is also screening at the London Film Festival, and will be released in April 2016, as will the soundtrack. Below, watch a trailer that includes some music.0 Rae Carruth moved to lighter-security prison in NC
STORY HIGHLIGHTS:
Former Panthers player Rae Carruth orchestrated murder of pregnant girlfriend in 1999
Carruth was moved to a new, lighter-security prison in NC this week
Carruth's son turns 16 next month, now attends high school
Channel 9 has learned that former Carolina Panther Rae Carruth, who is in prison for orchestrating the murder of his pregnant girlfriend, has been moved to a new, lighter-security prison in North Carolina.
Related Headlines IMAGES of Chancellor and Cherica Adams
Carruth, whose real name is Rae Wiggins, was convicted in the 1999 murder of Cherica Adams.
Adams was eight months pregnant with his child.
He was convicted of first degree murder and was sentenced to 24 years in prison, but he is scheduled to be released in 2018.
Carruth, 41, had been at the Harnett Correctional Institution, a medium custody facility in Lillington, North Carolina.
On Tuesday, he was moved to the Tyrell Prison Work Farm, a minimum custody facility in Columbia, North Carolina, near the Albemarle Sound.
The lower-security facility offers dormitory-style housing and additional privileges and freedoms.
Carruth currently works as a prison barber, making $1 per day.
He could choose to work on a road crew and he could eventually qualify for a work-release program outside the facility.
There are three levels of minimum custody:
Minimum Custody Level 1 - Inmates may work on the grounds or away from the prison facility as long as a correctional officer or agent is with them.
Minimum Custody Level 2 - Inmates may work on the grounds or away from the prison facility with an assigned supervisor from another government agency. They may be eligible for short-term community passes with a trained volunteer who is certified to work with inmates.
Minimum Custody Level 3 - Inmates may be away from the prison facility for specific programs such as work release, home leave, jobs, school or other kinds of training. Inmates are not supervised by correctional staff during these activities.
Carruth is currently at Level 1 of minimum custody. Over time, with good behavior, he could work his way up to Level 3, which could allow him to work outside the prison facility, without any supervision whatsoever.
Carruth's son Chancellor raised by grandmother
After Cherica Adams was shot, her son Chancellor was delivered by emergency C-section.
She died a month later.
Her mother Saundra Adams is raising Chancellor, who was born with cerebral palsy.
Several weeks ago, the two visited Channel 9 to tape a segment for the "Stand Up to Domestic Violence" special.
Click to watch raw video of Saundra Adams
Channel 9 saw firsthand just how well Chancellor is doing.
“Raising Chancellor is truly a blessing to me. I had no idea that I would be thrust into this role, but Chancellor has done more than just survive, he has definitely thrived,” Saundra Adams said.
Chancellor is now a freshman in high school and turns 16 next month. His grandmother said he is very involved in school and social activities.
READ OUR PAST COVERAGE:
© 2019 Cox Media Group.The St.George Queensland Reds have announced a strong 23-man line-up for their historic tour match against The British & Irish Lions at Suncorp Stadium on Saturday night.
Despite being without seven current Wallaby squad members, the Reds team still boasts plenty of international strikepower with nine capped Wallabies chosen in the starting line-up and a further three on the bench.
Their experience combines for a total of 127 Austalian caps while each member of the starting team for Saturday’s blockbuster clash has also commenced a Super Rugby match for the Queensland Reds in 2013.
Of those, five players have featured in all 15 regular season Super Rugby matches to this point, including hooker James Hanson, prop Greg Holmes, backrowers Eddie Quirk and Jake Schatz, and flyhalf Quade Cooper.
Two players are in line to make their Queensland debuts on Saturday with Super Rugby capped prop Jono Owen and Reds College member Sam Denny chosen on the bench.
“Playing against The British & Irish Lions is a once in a career type opportunity, so to be running out in front of a sold-out Suncorp Stadium crowd on Saturday night will be an experience these 23 players will never forget,” Reds Director of Coaching Ewen McKenzie said.
“Our approach was always going to be to field as strong a line-up as possible and I’ve got every confidence in the group we’ve chosen to go out and compete against a very talented Lions squad.”
The Reds will on Saturday be aiming to become the first Australian provincial team to beat The British & Irish Lions in a tour-game since Queensland famously defeated their rivals 15-11 in their opening tour game of 1971.
The loss was only one of two experienced by The British & Irish Lions during their 26-game 1971 tour with the All Blacks also successful in their second Test match as part of a four-game series.
The British & Irish Lions Lions rebounded against Queensland twice in 1989 (19-15 v Queensland and 30-6 v Queensland B) before also recording two victories in 2001 (42-8 v Queensland and 83-6 v Queensland President’s XV).
“We’ve spoken as a group about the significance of these opportunities and there isn’t a player out there who wouldn’t want to replicate the heroics of the 1971 Queensland side,” McKenzie said.
“History suggests that’s a mammoth challenge, but we’ll go out there on Saturday with plenty of good intentions and with a commitment to giving a strong account of ourselves across the entire 80 minutes.”
Saturday’s match represents a rare opportunity for the Reds to take on the Northern Hemisphere giants, who boast a combination of the best players from England, Ireland, Scotland and Wales, during just their third visit to Australia in 24 years, and first since 2001.
The match forms the basis of what will be a nine-game tour for The British & Irish Lions, which also includes three headline Test matches against the Wallabies, beginning with the highly anticipated opening match at the Reds fortress, Suncorp Stadium, on June 22.
Never playing at home, and only assembling for overseas visits, the The British & Irish Lions travel to Australia, New Zealand and South Africa on a rotational basis every four years.
They are one of sport’s most celebrated international teams and are expected to have the support of up to 40,000 travelling fans during their time on Australia shores.
All nine-game Queensland Reds Members in 2013 have already purchased a ticket for this match and are simply required to bring their 2013 Reds Membership card on gameday to gain entry. This card also allows nine-game Members free public transport to and from the event.
Members with further enquiries should contact the Reds Membership Team on 1300 733 899.
St.George Queensland Reds team to play The British & Irish Lions
1. Ben Daley (58 Reds - 3 Wallabies)
2. James Hanson (50 Reds - 1 Wallabies)
3. Greg Holmes (103 Reds - 13 Wallabies)
4. Adam Wallace-Harrison (32 Reds)
5. Ed O’Donoghue (40 Reds)
6. Eddie Quirk (27 Reds)
7. Beau Robinson (35 Reds - 1 Wallabies)
8. Jake Schatz (47 Reds)
9. Nick Frisby (16 Reds)
10. Quade Cooper (87 Reds - 38 Wallabies)
11. Luke Morahan (44 Reds - 1 Wallabies)
12. Anthony Faingaa (58 Reds - 23 Wallabies)
13. Ben Tapuai (38 Reds - 7 Wallabies)
14. Rod Davies (43 Reds - 1 Wallabies)
15. Ben Lucas (60 Reds)
16. Albert Anae (15 Reds)
17. Sam Denny (Queensland debut)
18. Jono Owen (Queensland debut)
19. Radike Samo (32 Reds - 23 Wallabies)
20. Jarrad Butler (12 Reds)
21. Jono Lance (18 Reds)
22. Mike Harris (30 Reds - 8 Wallabies)
23. Dom Shipperley (33 Reds - 8 Wallabies)
Unavailable for selection: Chris Feauai-Sautia (hamstring), Saia Faingaa (Wallabies), Will Genia (Wallabies), Liam Gill (Wallabies), James Horwill (Wallabies), Digby Ioane (Wallabies), Rob Simmons (Wallabies), James Slipper (Wallabies)# Content
Christmas event with bandit Santa Phorus
# Event
12 25 Christmas Event starts
(2014 12 23 ~ 2014 12 30)
1. Santa Phorus that appear randomly in dungeons will drop up to maximum of 3 Treasure Chests
There are cool Christmas accessories and other prizes in the Treasure Chests
2. Chance to become couples for those who are not. Check your mailbox when you log in.
# Cash Shop
[New]
1 ‘Christmas Bunny Girl’ avatar. Show off your fashion sense and dance skills in Christmas parties with this avatar.
– 2014 12 23~ 2014 12 30
2. ‘Christmas Bunny Girl’ custom skill cut-ins. Get the cool character illustrations wearing bunny girl costumes.
– 2014 12 23 ~ 2014 12 30
3. Custom ‘Heart Eye’. Show your love struck expression to those you love.
– 2014 12 23 ~ 2014 12 30
[End]
1. Darkness Feather avatar ends on 12/23.
# Changes
[Character]
1. There was a problem where Luciel’s ‘Soul Infest’ skill’s tracking souls weren’t too smart and the skill wasn’t effective on single targets. They were properly educated and it should now be more effective on single targets.
2. Fixed problem where afterimages would appear oddly on Ciel when using ‘Sprinter’s potion’
3. Fixed problem where sound effect would cut off when using XXXZ(hold) command on Lu.
4. Fixed problem where Luciel’s Triple Shot skill was reflect able.
[Dungeon]
1. Dungeon revamp completed up to Sander.
2. Scenario scenes added to some dungeons and Sander clear video added.
[Item]
1. Chemi reaction material(milk bottles) will be deleted on 12/23
2. Fixed problem where some accessories wouldn’t appear properly and would make Luciel look scary(?). Luciel should always be cute and cool.
3. Fixed problems where Luciel couldn’t open event and coupon IB cubes.
However, it’s still impossible for Luciel to open costume cubes if the costumes do not exist for Luciel. There’s currently only Archdevil(Lu) and Archangel(Ciel) costumes for Luciel.
[Other]
1. Fixed problem where Luciel’s magic wardrobe’s effects not showing on character select screen.
2. Fixed problem where Luciel would look scary(?) when equipping bleach black hair and band suit.
3. Fixed problem where player would enter wedding as Ciel but would look to bride as Lu and other participants.
This was quickly fixed and we are sorry if this might have caused misunderstandings and breakups in weddings that should be a happy occasion.
4. Bleached Lu’s hair to make her look more fashionable.
<Update Item Preview>
– Christmas Bunny Girl –
All character’s Bunny Girl package comes with a cool jacket top so the characters do not get cold during this winter.
– Custom Heart Eye –
Lu and Ciel’s heart eye excluded.• Striker fumes after last-minute penalty allows Foxes to equalise • ‘It is a bad decision - it is bad decisions he has given all game’
The West Ham striker Andy Carroll has lambasted the referee Jon Moss for an unacceptable performance, even accusing the official of trying to even things up by awarding Leicester a stoppage-time penalty.
Much of the focus during a thrilling if fractious contest was on the officials, with several penalty appeals overlooked before the opening goalscorer, Jamie Vardy, was shown a second yellow card having been adjudged to dive in the 56th minute.
Christian Fuchs: ‘Claudio Ranieri came to my birthday party twice … he’s a great character’ Read more
Anger grew when the referee decided to punish Wes Morgan’s pressure on Winston Reid from a corner, allowing the substitute Carroll to strike home a spot-kick followed up minutes later by a wonderful goal from Aaron Cresswell.
However, the match would end 2-2 thanks to a last-gasp Leonardo Ulloa penalty awarded after Jeffrey Schlupp went down under pressure from Carroll – something which infuriated the Hammers striker.
“It is the same week-in, week-out,” Carroll said. “The same decisions, bad decisions costing us games. It is eight points now that we’ve dropped. It is not acceptable, to be honest. I know that, the manager knows that, all the players know that and a lot of the people standing around, like yourself, know that.
“I mean, it is a bad decision – it is bad decisions he has given all game. It’s not the first time and probably won’t be the last.”
Leicester’s captain Morgan said he was not allowed to speak after the match, seemingly in a bid to stop him expressing his thoughts about the officials.
However, Carroll had no problem letting rip, especially when it came to the penalty which allowed Leicester to level.
“I think it was a poor decision,” he said. “I think he’s trying to even it up and I think a lot of people have said that. It’s not acceptable. Week-in, week-out we’ve had bad decisions.”
It was a display which will no doubt bring Moss’s position under scrutiny for the remainder of the campaign and underlined Carroll’s belief that officials “need help”.
“Whether they’ve got the camera, whatever you need – something needs to happen,” he said. “We could have been third in the league now if we had eight points. Third – and now we’re still fighting for fourth, fifth spot and we’re slipping down by losing these points. We could be third and flying, and probably could still be in the cup. It is just disappointing and there’s nothing we can do about it when others are making the decision.”
It is thought likely the Football Association will write to Carroll for his observations in the wake of his comments.A group of bioengineers led by Dr Manu Prakash of Stanford University has developed a synchronous computer that operates using the physics of moving water droplets.
Because of its universal nature, the water-droplet computer can theoretically perform any operation that a conventional electronic computer can crunch, although at significantly slower rates. Dr Prakash’s team, however, has a more ambitious application in mind.
“We already have digital computers to process information. Our goal is not to compete with electronic computers or to operate word processors on this. Our goal is to build a completely new class of computers that can precisely control and manipulate physical matter at the mesoscale (10 microns to 1 millimeter),” Dr Prakash explained.
The ability to precisely control droplets using fluidic computation could have a number of applications in high-throughput biology and chemistry, and possibly new applications in scalable digital manufacturing.
In a new paper published online in the journal Nature Physics, Dr Prakash’s team describes the fundamental operating regime of the system and demonstrates building blocks for synchronous logic gates, feedback and cascadability – hallmarks of scalable computation. A simple-state machine including 1-bit memory storage (known as ‘flip-flop’) is also demonstrated using the basic building blocks.
“Our platform uses a rotating magnetic field that enables parallel manipulation of arbitrary numbers of ferrofluid droplets on permalloy tracks.”
“Through the coupling of magnetic and hydrodynamic interaction forces between droplets, we developed AND, OR, XOR, NOT and NAND logic gates, fanouts, a full adder, a flip-flop and a finite-state machine. Our platform enables large-scale integration of droplet logic, analogous to the scaling seen in digital electronics, and opens new avenues in mesoscale material processing.”
“The current chips are about half the size of a postage stamp, and the droplets are smaller than poppy seeds, but the physics of the system suggests it can be made even smaller,” said team member Georgios Katsikis of Stanford University.
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has also achieved a major breakthrough in the government. Some commentators have warned that their level of representation in the new Ukrainian government is unparalleled in Europe. The xenophobic Svoboda party controls the posts of deputy prime minister, ministers of defence, ecology, agriculture and the prosecutor general's office. Andriy Parubiy, one of the founders of the Social-National Party of Ukraine and a former leader of its paramilitary youth organisation, who later joined the moderate Batkivshchyna party and efficiently commanded self-defence forces in Maidan, is now the head of the national security and defense council.
At the same time, the protest badly fits into the coup label of a well-planned armed seizure of power. The Maidan movement, particularly its paramilitary arm, was hardly controlled by the parliamentary parties. In fact, these parties were regularly trying to pacify the movement, urging compromises with Yanukovych, albeit without much success.
What is most worrying is that the new government cannot control the infamous Right Sector. Its members are now popular heroes, the vanguard of the victorious "revolution". They have guns captured from police departments in the western regions and now, after Yanukovych's toppling, are demanding that the revolution needs to continue against "corrupt democracy" and liberalism. The liberals celebrating their decisiveness and crucial role in the Maidan movement are now discovering the right's reactionary ideas. Recently, the press secretary of the Right Sector gave an interview saying "we need to tell Europe the right way to go" and save it from the "terrible situation" of "total liberalism", when people don't go to church and are tolerant of lesbian, gay bisexual and transgender rights.
It is too soon for the Right Sector to move against the new government – it lacks the support. But the group may lead a new insurrection in the event of a rapid and deepening economic crisis. In the absence of any strong leftist force in Ukraine, social grievances will be whipped up by rightwing populists.
At the same time, the leading role of radical Ukrainian nationalists in potential new "social Maidan" will preclude any all-national movement against the ruling class, with mass participation from the east and the south of culturally divided Ukraine. Moreover, they even amplify separatist attitudes and attempts of pro-Russian provocations, as we have seen in Crimea. The full-scale civil war, although not inevitable, is a real threat now.
In this situation, the best policy for the west would be to insist on the peaceful resolution of the interregional conflicts in Ukraine, taking a strong position against participation of the far right in the new government and uncontrolled rightist paramilitaries on the streets. Last but not least, the west could offer unconditional help to Ukraine by cancelling its foreign debt – a popular demand raised by many progressive movements all over the world.A veteran Philadelphia police officer has been arrested for allegedly lying about an assault.
This stems from an incident on the afternoon of March 4, 2010 in the 7700 block of Roosevelt Boulevard.
Investigators said Officer Aleksande Shwarz, 54, was on duty at the time and arrested a man Shwarz claimed assaulted him.
However, Internal Affairs and the D.A.'s office concluded Shwarz made the story up.
It was not known why Shwarz allegedly fabricated the story.
The man who was arrested was released a short time after the arrest, and the District Attorney's Office declined charges in the case.
Shwarz, a 21 year veteran assigned to the 2nd District, was charged with simple assault, unsworn falsification to authorities and abuse of office.
Commissioner Ramsey has suspended Shwarz for 30 days with the intent to dismiss.A matter of trust by Evan Leybourn on
Can your customer trust you to act in their best interest?
There is a fundamental element that distinguishes between successful and unsuccessful agile engagements; trust. Because software development is fundamentally unpredictable, bordering on chaotic (as per the complexity theory definition), customers (whether external or internal) traditionally try to bring control through contracts and fixed scope. Agile, on the other hand, is successful because it leverages (rather than controls) this unpredictability.
However, if we are trying to “be” agile and leverage this unpredictability, we come up against the natural concerns and fears our customers hold. Can they trust us to act in their best interest? Can they trust us to fail fast? If we can’t guarantee exactly what they’ll get, can they trust us to deliver something of value? The less trust our customers have in us, the less agile we can be.
A quick aside: This does not mean that contracts are unnecessary. Trust is not blind, nor is it stupid.
As I mentioned in my book, the form and flexibility of both the relationship, and associated contract, between parties depends on the level of trust that exists between them. I define this across four distinct levels (in my book, I described 5 layers (Reference, Contract, Knowledge, Identification, Team), however the distinction between knowledge and identification was confusing, so I merged them into one).
Reference: This is the lowest form of trust and exists where trust between the parties is based on the reference of a mutually trusted third party. Contract: This is the most common level of trust, and the majority of relationships do not extend beyond this. This exists where parties create legally binding contracts (potentially with penalty clauses) as the core mechanism to enable trust between them. Identification: This level of trust is created over time and exists where parties have the opportunity to work together and build trust based on personal experiences. This is where we can really start to “be” agile. Partnership: This is the highest level of trust and exists when both parties share the same goals and outcomes. This may take the form of a strategic partnership or similar structure.
How do you build trust? Being trustworthy is a good start :-) Acting with fairness & integrity, sharing knowledge, being transparent and of course performing competently. Within teams, leaders who delegate outcomes (rather than actions), explain why, seek & value opinions, celebrate success, and give everyone opportunities to contribute (but still consider group, rather than individual, interests) build trust with their teams. It’s also worth mentioning that trust is based on perception, rather than reality. In an ideal world they should be the same, but acting with confidence and displaying concern or empathy are good ways of building trust at the start of a relationship.
What do you think? Let me know in the comments below?One t-shirt purchase buys school supplies for 10 women. $100 pays the montly salary of a kindergarten teacher or defense attorney. Your tax-deductible donations immediately improve the lives of these women and children.
YOU CAN HELP THESE WOMEN AND CHILDREN BY PURCHASING THIS TSHIRT!
Imagine being sent to prison for leaving your home without your husband's permission, refusing to marry your rapist or running away from an abusive husband with your child, then being sent to prison for kidnapping—with your child.
Today, the US State Department confirms 920 women, 760 girls between the age of 12 and 17, and 291 children are currently behind bars in Afghanistan. 95% are convicted of "moral crimes."
In Afghanistan, an ancient code of Islamic honor called Shuria, proclaims any two men can accuse a woman of a crime. Case closed. No burden of proof or defense. A group of male elders, the local jirga, serves as jury and judge. The accused and her children are unquestionably shamed by the entire community and sentenced to prison—or death.
The fall of the Taliban initiated new political, legal and educational freedoms for women in Afghanistan, but centuries of patrilineal tradition can't be eradicated by bombs or in one decade.
Billions of dollars have been spent on military efforts and infrastructure building, yet Afghan women lack the most basic equal rights. Last year, President Karzai signed the "Shia Personal Status Law", requiring women to ask permission before leaving their homes.
Afghan women still have the highest maternal mortality rate. (1 in 7)
82% are illiterate
90% are subjected to domestic abuse
70% of all marriages are forced with 60% of brides under 16, some as young as 6.
Women are considered the property of fathers, husbands and brothers—often abused, traded and enslaved to repay family debt and even forced to commit self-immolation – or setting themselves on fire.
Learn why Marie Claire Magazine partnered with AWJP to help these women and children.
SIGN THE PETITION!
Our Mission: To demand and provide humane treatment and legal defense for Afghan women and children incarcerated for the gender-based inequality and injustice.
Our Method: Funding defense attorneys, literacy teachers and medical services for the imprisoned women and children in all 34 provinces of Afghanistan.
Our Goal: Working with the US and Afghan Justice Departments to implement change and support culturally-appropriate alternatives to incarceration for “moral crimes” such as parole and work-based vocational training programs for accused women.Hampshire College in Amherst, Massachusetts, has become the first of any college or university in the US to divest from companies on the grounds of their involvement in the Israeli occupation of Palestine.
This landmark move is a direct result of a two-year intensive campaign by the campus group, Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP). The group pressured Hampshire College’s Board of Trustees to divest from six specific companies due to human rights concerns in occupied Palestine. More than 800 students, professors and alumni have signed SJP’s “institutional statement” calling for the divestment.
The proposal put forth by SJP was approved on Saturday, 7 February 2009 by the Board. By divesting from these companies, SJP believes that Hampshire has distanced itself from complicity in the illegal occupation and war crimes of Israel.
Meeting minutes from a committee of Hampshire’s Board of Trustees confirm that “President Hexter acknowledged that it was the good work of SJP that brought this issue to the attention of the committee.” This groundbreaking decision follows in Hampshire’s history of being the first college in the country to divest from apartheid South Africa 32 years ago, a decision based on similar human rights concerns. This divestment was also a direct result of student pressure.
The divestment has so far been endorsed by Noam Chomsky, Howard Zinn, Rashid Khalidi, Vice President of the EU Parliament Luisa Morganitini, Cynthia McKinney, former member of the African National Congress Ronnie Kasrils, Mustafa Barghouti, Israeli historian Ilan Pappe, John Berger, Nobel Peace Laureate Mairead Maguire and Roger Waters of Pink Floyd, among others.
The six corporations, all of which provide the Israeli military with equipment and services in the occupied West Bank and Gaza Strip are: Caterpillar, United Technologies, General Electric, ITT Corporation, Motorola and Terex. Furthermore, our policy prevents the reinvestment in any company involved in the illegal occupation.
SJP is responding to a call from Palestinian civil society for boycott, divestment and sanctions (BDS) as a way of bringing nonviolent pressure to bear on the state of Israel to end its violations of international law. SJP is following in the footsteps of many noted groups and institutions such as the National Association of Teachers in Further and Higher Education in the UK, the Israeli group Gush Shalom, the Congress of South African Trade Unions, the Canadian Union of Public Employees and the American Friends Service Committee.
As well as voicing our opposition to the illegal occupation and the consistent human rights violations of the Palestinian people, we as members of an institute of higher education see it as our moral responsibility to express our solidarity with Palestinian students whose access to education is severely inhibited by the Israeli occupation.
SJP has proven that student groups can organize, rally and pressure their schools to divest from the illegal occupation. The group hopes that this decision will pave the way for other institutions of higher learning in the US to take similar stands.
Related LinksThe Apache Tomcat team announces the immediate availability of Apache Tomcat 9.0.0.M21. Apache Tomcat 9 is an open source software implementation of the Java Servlet, JavaServer Pages, Java Unified Expression Language, Java WebSocket and JASPIC technologies. Apache Tomcat 9.0.0.M21 is a milestone release of the 9.0.x branch and has been made to provide users with early access to the new features in Apache Tomcat 9.0.x so that they may provide feedback. The notable changes compared to 9.0.0.M20 include: - Update the default URIEncoding for a Connector to UTF-8 as required by the Servlet 4.0 specification. - Various improvements to the handling of static custom error pages - Update to Eclipse JDT Compiler 4.6.3 Please refer to the change log for the complete list of changes: http://tomcat.apache.org/tomcat-9.0-doc/changelog.html Downloads: http://tomcat.apache.org/download-90.cgi Migration guides from Apache Tomcat 6.x, 7.x and 8.x: http://tomcat.apache.org/migration.html Join us at TomcatCon in Miami for 3 days of Apache Tomcat content: https://tomcat.apache.org/conference.html Enjoy! - The Apache Tomcat teamJust as the coffee giant announced its employees would be educating their customers about race relations, (Hash tag: #RaceTogether) large-scale episodes of black mob violence were breaking out across the country.
If you need a conversation starter with your Starbucks’ barista, try this: What’s up with all the black mob violence?
Starting in Minneapolis, where public officials get very, very testy during the rare occasion when anyone asks about black violence in their tolerant city.
“We don’t keep track of arrestees by race,” said police spokesman William Palmer, which of course is not true. Not even close. “And frankly, no, it doesn’t matter. We arrest and prepare criminal cases for consideration of prosecution for those people who choose to break the law. Race has nothing to do with it.”
This is the opposite of what police say on their web site, where “protected minorities” are promised special treatment to enter, remain and graduate from the police academy.
Police also brag about their special relationships with black groups, including the Black Story Tellers Alliance, African Community Services, Minneapolis Urban League, Minnesota Multicultural Development Center, and other race-based groups.
So after several years of regular and frequent and intense large-scale black mob violence throughout Minneapolis -- documented in that scintillating best seller, Don’t Make the Black Kids Angry -- police and reporters are finding it increasingly difficult to pretend this is something other than a black thing.
Though they try and try and try.
The kabuki theater of racial denial was on full display on St. Patrick’s Day: Hundreds of “troublesome teens” rampaged through downtown Minneapolis, punching white people, firing guns, destroying property, defying police, stopping traffic and menacing parade-goers. Some of it on video.
Police even held a news conference during the riot, where a spokesman assured reporters that a “majority” of the downtown was under control. And with the assistance of at least three other police agencies, they expected to regain full control at any time.
Reporters seemed oddly reassured by that. Not one asked “What’s up with all this black mob violence in Minneapolis?” Maybe they can ask their baristas.
People who were actually in the middle of the violence were a lot less squeamish about reporting some of the details:
Seth Kaplan, a member of the NE Minneapolis Crime Watch, posted a video on that group’s Facebook page of hundreds of black people rampaging through the downtown. “It's a mess downtown,” Kaplan said. “Just utter disaster.”
One reader of the KARE news web site who identified himself as John Smith chipped in: “It was NOT a bunch of teens fighting each other. It was black thugs shoving and sucker punching white people. Left a mess behind. I WAS THERE.”
His comment drew dittos from Nicole Besos. “I was there tonight with my 4 yr old daughter. It was so scary.”
“I work security downtown in a building on Nicollet Mall, I can't share what building but, it is located right in the middle of it all,” said Mark Dahl. “I would just like to add, that the entire thing was disgusting, embarrassing, scary, chaotic, and insane. I estimated probably 200 young teens running around like animals.”
At the end of the festivities, “approximately” six black people were arrested. The rest were put on buses and sent home.
It also happened in Kansas City: large groups of black people were destroying property, confronting police, creating chaos, all near the St. Patrick’s Day parade.
“It’s almost an annual ritual, just like the parade nearby” said Eli Rosenberg of KMBC TV in Kansas City. “Just like the chaos that follows. One local business had to lock its doors when things got a bit crazy.”
Rosenberg convinced Joe Schooley to go on camera and talk about what he saw in front of his business: “Some of the young ones were unruly,” Schooley said. “They were jumping on cars, running from one car, jumping on the next. Cops were trying to disperse them, they would not listen and were giving them a hard time. Cops started bear-macing them.”
Bear mace: The chemical repellant used on large, angry carnivorous animals.
“Bricks and rocks were also thrown until police moved in to break up the gathering,” said the station. Some of it on video: the violence and denials and aftermath.
Black mob violence is also a regular feature of life in Kansas City. So much so, the city council imposed a curfew to quell similar disturbances at the city’s upscale County Club Plaza entertainment district.
Rosenberg reminded viewers of the curfew, but he did not mention the prophetic words of former Mayor -- now congressman -- Emanuel Cleaver, who warned against curfews because “all we are going to do is make a lot of black kids angry.”
Not to worry, Congressman Cleaver. Public school officials in Chicago have found a way to deal with the whole black anger and violence thing in a way that seems to make them less angry and violent. At least for a while.
A large group of black students recently gathered there to talk about how black people are relentless victims of relentless white racism, all the time, everywhere and that explained everything. They did it during a “Black Lives Matter” assembly, without the presence of another troublesome group: White people.
The local papers were happy to go along with the school superintendent who said excluding white students would make it easier for black students to express their racial resentment and hostility. “Principal Nathaniel Rouse, the assembly's organizer, said he thought black students would speak more freely among members of their own race, a model known as affinity grouping,” said the Pioneer Press.
Voila!
A new euphemism is born: Affinity grouping!
For anyone complaining about this separate but equal affinity, school officials have answers for that too: "Not everything is about us,” English teacher Paul Noble told the Pioneer Press. “Not everything needs to have our stamp of approval, much less our participation. Can we just check our white privilege for a minute? I don't know why a white affinity group is necessary to make a black affinity group palatable."
One white parent, Karen Steward-Nolan, made bumper stickers in support of the racially segregated assembly: “She understands some parents felt their children were aiding the cause of black students by wanting to participate in the assembly,” said the Pioneer Press. "The important part of being a white ally is to know when to be quiet and listen," she said.
Give that woman a press credential.
Meanwhile on St. Patrick’s Day in St. Louis, another center of regular and frequent black mob violence and denial, police met with property owners to “look for answers to teen violence downtown.”
“We’ve made arrests every weekend for the last couple weeks,” said police Captain Karen Arnett, she said to a local TV news operation. “We’ve banned kids, too, but they will still come down here and they will still behave in an unruly manner.”
It is unknown whether the grinders at Starbucks in Stamford will talk about the five black people who attacked a Hispanic immigrant, stabbing him to death. Also on St. Patrick’s Day, the local papers said the immigrant bumped into the group of black people and spilled coffee on them. There’s that coffee thing again.
In Chicago also on St. Patricks’ Day, columnist Clarence Page proudly wrote that the recent case of the college students singing racist songs is proof that young white people are just as racist as their relentlessly racist parents. And that explains everything, all the time, everywhere.
Including Starbucks.
Colin Flaherty is an award winning reporter, and best selling author of Don’t Make the Black Kids Angry: The hoax of black victimization and those who enable it. He prefers a nice cup of Starbuck’s French Roast blend.Lady bank robbers are adding an unhappy statistic to the advances in gender equality.
The latest FBI crime stats show that women are pulling off nearly one in 10 bank heists in the U.S., almost double the rate of a decade ago.
“Now it’s ‘Bonnie Without Clyde,’” says forensic sociologist Rosemary Erickson. “They aren’t just accomplices anymore.”
Erickson is a researcher who has been following the phenomenon of such ladies in recent years. She prefers to call them “female bank robbers.”
“If she robs a bank, she’s no lady,” Erickson says.
Erickson suggests there are two primary reasons for the growth in female bank robbers.
“One is more independence on the part of women, a general cultural thing,” Erickson says. “The other, more important thing: it’s a function of the economy.”
She reports that female robbers generally maintain several fundamental distinctions from their male counterparts.
“Women have always been more likely to rob for need and not for the thrill,” Erickson says. “It’s more likely they’re going to be robbing for diapers for the baby or something.”
She adds, “For females, it tends not to be a profession. It tends not to be what they do.”
And, with a few notable exceptions such as an Ohio robber whose couture favors what has been called “high heels and a handgun,” women largely eschew weapons.
“Violence is still a male purview,” Erickson says.
Women favor using notes, which have become increasingly popular with bank robbers in general.
“When women enter any vocation, that vocation changes in some way,” Erickson says.
One of the more recent female robbers strode into a North Community Bank branch in Chicago last month wearing a hat and a dark jacket and pants. She was typical of a female robber from the start, acting alone and producing not a pistol but a note that she set down in front of a teller along with a plastic bag.
“Put money in the bag now!” the note commanded.
The teller turned to a second teller and asked her in Spanish if she should give money to the robber.
“Teller B responded affirmatively in Spanish,” the criminal complaint reports.
That might have been that, but the robber apparently didn’t speak Spanish. If she did, she likely wouldn’t have snapped at the person who had urged just the first teller to just fork over the cash.
“Shut up!”
Offended, the second teller strode into the employees’ room, found the manager, and announced that the bank was being robbed. The manager went up to the robber more gingerly than he might have with a male.
“Can I help you?” he asked, according to the criminal complaint.
The robber could have sought to take advantage of the manager’s gentility and say it was all just a big misunderstanding. She instead repeated her previous mistake.
“Shut up!”
The manager responded by directing the first teller to call the police and activate the alarm. The robber at least thought to retrieve the note and the plastic bag before fleeing. Both items were later recovered outside the bank, along with the hat.
The next day, police arrested 47-year-old Regina Gillon, who lives just a block from the bank.
Detectives subsequently conducted a photo lineup in which both tellers and the manager picked Gillon’s picture from among those of five other women. She was advised of her rights before being questioned by Dominick Ciccola of an FBI task force.
According to the criminal complaint, Gillon identified herself in still images taken from the bank surveillance camera, signing each. She said to have also identified the handwriting in the note as her own.
As for motive, she appeared to fit Erickson’s profile of a typical female bank robber.
“Gillon stated that she became desperate because she previously lost her job and her unemployment benefits recently ceased,” the criminal complaint reports.
Gillon entered a not-guilty plea and now awaits trial for a single robbery that netted not a penny. Other female robbers are considerably more prolific, including the Bad Hair Bandit, so dubbed because of the variety of ratty wigs the suspect sported in robbing as many as 20 banks in California, Oregon, Washington, and Montana. In August, police announced the arrest of a suspect, 48-year-old Cynthia Holland. She had been nabbed shortly after a heist.
There is also the Starlet Bandit, who may in fact be two different women who robbed at total of 10 banks in the Los Angeles area, including eight in a fortnight in 2010 and two in one day, all while sporting “movie star” sunglasses and chatting on a cellphone.
Female robbers presently doing time include the Church Lady Bandit, 36-year-old Sylvete Phylis Gilbert, so named because she dressed as if for church during 12 robberies between 2006 and 2010. There is also the Beauty Salon Bandit, 46-year-old Norma Bladeras-Dehernandez, a mother of three who explained at her sentencing that she had gone into the bank-robbery business in 2009 after she separated from her husband, her beauty salon faltered, and she was hounded by creditors. Then there is the Mama Bandit, 37-year-old Erica Anderson, a mother of five who pleaded guilty to having robbed a bank in 2010 on the way to picking up two of her kids at their elementary school.
Among the most recent cases is a tenacious woman in Boston who is suspected of robbing five banks since last month. Three were in one day, the first ending unsatisfactorily when a dye pack exploded, the second aborted when a teller simply refused to hand over the money, and the third ending with $1,300.
On Tuesday, police arrested 45-year-old Johanna Quish and charged her in one of the robberies while she is being investigated for the others. She entered a not-guilty plea at her arraignment. She had reportedly expressed a desire to turn herself in after her boyfriend recognized her from a bank-surveillance photo aired on local TV news.
One robber who is definitely not a lady went into the MB Financial Bank in Broadview, Ill., wearing a flower-print dress, sunglasses, and baseball cap stitched with the word “Obama” early Monday afternoon. The individual is alleged to have announced to the manager that he had a bomb and wanted $70,000.
The manager went off as if to fetch the cash, but instead alerted police. The responding cops arrested a suspect outside the bank in the flower-print dress and the rest. He was identified as 51-year-old Donald Sherman.
“During a pat-down of Sherman, officers recovered from Sherman’s person two blue balloons that were in the vicinity of Sherman’s chest,” the criminal complaint notes.
Sherman reportedly confessed, but entered a not-guilty plea at his arraignment. The balloons were vouchered as evidence of a Clyde’s attempt to be one of the growing number of Bonnies.Election season in the city kicked off strong with a mayoral poll from Church Hill People's News which showed Stoney and Baliles as early front runners. Soon to follow were polls from CNU, Richmond Realtors and ChamberWorks RVA. Each poll has it's criticisms, but with Vote Together movements surfacing to avoid a Joe Morrissey outcome, the question remains- which candidate will step up? News outlets report this as a two person race between Berry and Morrissey; however, that does not mean a 3rd candidate can't pull out a win. How many votes would need to be pooled together for an alternative candidate to pull out the vote?
There are two parts to this article. The first is looking at some comparisons between the four polls with graphs and comments. The second is a case study trying to predict how many votes need to go where based on the ChamberWorks RVA poll.I did not think that Congress could do anything more craven than granting immunity to gun manufacturers for certain types of lawsuits. With all of the persons, companies and institutions engaged in curing illness and saving lives, Congress chose (out of the myriad entities which contribute to the well-being of our country) to immunize an industry that manufactures a product that kills people. But now along comes the revelation that the Oil Pollution Act of 1990 granted a liability limitation of 75 million dollars to the oil industry for spills by offshore facilities.
The statute talks in terms of $75 million per spill "plus removal costs." I did some preliminary research as to what was included in the limitation, but I remain uncertain as to what is or is not covered, and frankly, I don't care. A bill to increase the limit from $75 million to $10 billion was defeated. My question is: Why should there be any limit?
Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska) argued in opposition to the increase in limits that it would injure the smaller companies engaged in offshore drilling and affect their ability to obtain financing and insurance for exploration. So let me see if I understand this. A company which causes damage from an oil spill which exceeds the value of the company (plus insurance) should somehow receive protection from the U.S. Congress. As Sen. Robert Menendez said, these small independent companies are not "mom and pop groceries stores." Why, as in the case of the gun industry, has the oil industry been singled out for protection, and if the cap is not sufficient to pay all of the damages, who pays the difference?Where did our species come from, and how did we get from there to everywhere?
Genetic studies have supplied a convincing answer to the first question: Our modern human ancestors evolved in Africa, then swept across Eurasia beginning some 60,000 to 50,000 years ago. Now, a pair of American archaeologists claim to have uncovered the route those early Homo sapiens took on their way to populating the planet.
By following the broken trail of stone tools that modern humans left behind like bread crumbs marking their path, researchers propose that our ancestors took a circuitous path through Arabia, pausing there for some 50,000 years when it was a green oasis. Then they journeyed on to the Middle East, where they first encountered Neanderthals.
View Images Early Homo sapiens, known from fossils found at Omo and Herto in Ethiopia, began making stone tools in the Nile Valley of Egypt some 150,000 years ago. Previous studies have traced their path out of Africa through Sinai to the Levant. New research reveals a second, more southerly route through Arabia, where modern human populations lingered for some 50,000 years before migrating north to the Levant. There they interbred with Neanderthals—and perhaps borrowed some of their tool-making techniques.
Stylistic and manufacturing similarities, the archaeologists say, connect the dots between tools made first in the Nile Valley of Egypt, then in the Arabian Peninsula, and, finally, in Israel. Those tools became progressively smaller and more sophisticated, similar to the evolution of mobile phones today.
"Archaeologists have always focused so much on 'out of Africa and into the Middle East' that we've missed an entire chapter of the human expansion in Arabia," says archaeologist Jeffrey Rose of the Ronin Institute, based in New Jersey, co-author of a new report published this month in Quartär.
Our species' birthplace was in Africa about 200,000 years ago, according to fossils from sites such as Omo and Herto Bouri in Ethiopia. While these fossils look modern, however, the populations they represent didn't begin to act fully modern until later.
A tool kit known as the Emiran, dated to almost 50,000 years ago, defines the transition between archaic and modern human behavior—at least as far as tool-making goes. But since the discovery of the first Emiran tools—points, blades, and scrapers found in a cave near the Sea of Galilee in Israel in 1951—archaeologists have puzzled over where this more advanced way of making tools began.
"The Emiran is the bridge technology," says Rose, who is also a National Geographic Emerging Explorer. "But where did these guys come from?"
Out of... Arabia?
Working with his former thesis adviser, archaeologist Anthony Marks of Southern Methodist University in Dallas, Rose studied all of the stone tools he could get his hands on in Arabia, northeastern Africa, and the Middle East.
In their new report, the pair says the evolution of stone tools in the region began in the Nile Valley of Egypt 150,000 to 130,000 years ago. These Nilotic hunter-gatherers in Egypt made Nubian tools by chipping away edges of a stone core in a systematic way to produce a single triangular point, which could be attached to a spear, for example.
While other researchers have proposed that the Egyptian Nubian toolmakers moved rapidly to the Middle East, where they invented the Emiran, Rose and Marks argue that they went to Arabia first—and that it was their Arabian descendants who would later develop the Emiran.
In their report, the researchers describe two different types of tool kits that appear to be offshoots of the Egyptian Nubian in Arabia and were developed 110,000 to 50,000 years ago: the Dhofar Nubian and the Mudayyan industries of the Nejd Plateau of Oman.
From the Dhofar Nubian to the Mudayyan, stone points get smaller and more elongated over time, becoming more similar to the Emiran tools, perhaps because the modern humans were using them as projectile points to hunt smaller, quick-moving animals as the climate got drier and finding food became more challenging. The people who made the Mudayyan tools in Oman were most likely hunting small animals like lizards and rodents, says Rose.
View Images A Nubian stone core (bottom right) and point (bottom left) are fit back together (top). Early modern humans in Egypt around produced such triangular points by chipping away the edges of a core. Later modern humans in the Middle East used a more efficient technique to make multiple points from a single core. Photograph by Jeff I. Rose
In their scenario, Rose and Marks suggest that the Arabian toolmakers pushed north into the Middle East when the climate changed dramatically in Arabia about 75,000 years ago. At that time, Arabia was beset by drought, which parched lakes and underground streams and converted grasslands into sand dunes.
By contrast, the climate began to grow wetter and more humid in the Middle East 60,000 years ago, drawing animals—and hunters—northward, according to the scenario proposed by Rose and Marks. There, modern humans made a major breakthrough: Instead of producing just one tool from a single stone by striking the core in one direction, from top to bottom, as their Nubian ancestors did, they learned how to strike many elongated blades from the top and the bottom of a single core, in succession—a telltale feature of the Emiran and subsequent Upper Paleolithic industries.
Neanderthal Connection
But in a surprising twist, the researchers also propose that the modern humans who made the Emiran were influenced by archaic people, possibly Neanderthals, who left behind fossils in Israel some 70,000 to 50,000 years ago, as well as more primitive tools, called Mousterian. The scientists say the Emiran tools are made in the same systematic manner as Egyptian Nubian tools, but closely resemble the local Mousterian tools.
The timing fits with genetic studies that suggest that modern humans interbred with Neanderthals when they arrived in the Middle East. A 55,000-year-old modern human skull from Manot Cave in Israel, reported last month, has provided new evidence that the moderns were there at the same time as Neanderthals.
Not everyone agrees that the Emiran hunter-gatherers' tool-making was influenced by their Neanderthal neighbors. The Emiran "has nothing to do with Neanderthals," says Harvard University archaeologist Ofer Bar-Yosef, who proposed a decade ago that the Emiran was made by Egyptian Nubians when they moved directly to the Middle East.
Regardless of who influenced the Emiran toolmakers, the long and winding path that led to modern tools may have taken a lengthy detour through Arabia.Just over three months after he was shot in the head at the Eaton Centre, Connor Stevenson showcased his impressive recovery by throwing the first pitch at Sunday’s Blue Jays game. “He had an ear-to-ear smile,” said Craig Stevenson, Connor’s father, who proudly watched his son toss the ball from the pitcher’s mound under the late-summer sun. “He got it to home plate,” he said, laughing.
Connor Stevenson is "doing very well" three months after being caught in the crossfire at the Eaton Centre. He threw out the first pitch at the Blue Jays game Sunday, and met players including Brett Lawrie, who was also at the mall the day of the shooting. ( STEVE RUSSELL / TORONTO STAR )
Connor, 13, was caught in the crossfire of the Eaton Centre food court on June 2. He underwent neurosurgery at Toronto’s Hospital for Sick Children, and has since been recuperating with his family in Port Hope, Ont. For weeks after the incident, Connor wore a helmet to protect his damaged skull. “He is doing very well, but still has some hurdles,” said Connor’s father, declining to go into detail. “(The pitch) was a chance to get away and kind of forget about all the stuff that’s happened.” After heaving his right-handed toss beneath the gaze of more than 21,000 baseball fans, the Grade 9 student spoke with third basemen Brett Lawrie in the Jays’ dugout. Lawrie was also at the downtown mall on the day of the shooting.
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“They had a nice conversation about their experience,” said Craig. “It’s nice to meet back up.” Ahmed Hassan, 24, was killed in the shooting. Six others were injured, including Connor and 22-year-old Nixon Nirmalendran, who later died. Christopher Husbands, 23, is charged with two counts of first-degree murder and five counts of attempted murder.(Newser) – Newt Gingrich is taking heat on the right, after calling Paul Ryan’s Medicare revamp “right-wing social engineering,” and saying |
of the NBA’s point guard from pure passers to turbo scorers has created the position’s golden era. Throwbacks like Chris Paul and Ricky Rubio still exist, but there are more varying styles than ever before, with score-first guards as disparate as Stephen Curry and Russell Westbrook taking hold of the position. Teams run pick-and-roll more than ever and are spacing the floor farther and farther out, which enables anyone — big or small — to occupy the point guard position. Someone as little as Isaiah Thomas or as large as Giannis Antetokounmpo can be a playmaker in this era. A wide range of styles abolishes labels like “combo guard” and “undersized shooting guard,” opening the door for an influx of playmakers who don’t fit a singular definition.
With the league evolving the way it is, the 2017 draft class comes at a perfect time. There are seven guard prospects likely to be lottery selections, meaning the position group already flooded with stars is only going to get better. Markelle Fultz, Lonzo Ball, and De’Aaron Fox are the three big names you’re probably already familiar with. Dennis Smith Jr. and Frank Ntilikina could also be long-term fixtures at the position. Now that there’s a greater demand for scoring, more traditional combo guards like Malik Monk and Donovan Mitchell could also develop into point guards. A team in need of a playmaker in the backcourt won’t have to look hard to find one.
Not every prospect will develop into a franchise player, but the team(s) fortunate enough to land one will be at a distinct economic advantage over the next four years. The no. 1 pick in this year’s draft, possibly Fultz, will make only $10.2 million in the fourth and final year of his rookie-scale contract, which is in the ballpark of what Matthew Dellavedova makes now. The no. 10 pick, maybe Donovan Mitchell, will make $4.5 million, about the same as Jameer Nelson.
Having a key player under a cheap deal enables your team to make other big additions. Just look at some of the recent NBA champions. A big reason the Cavaliers could clear space to acquire LeBron James was the fact that Kyrie Irving was still on his rookie-scale contract. The Warriors’ title team had three rotation players still on rookie-scale deals, making it easier to retain more costly veterans.
If we’ve learned anything over the past 25 seasons, it’s that champions haven’t needed an expensive star facilitator. As covered in September, the starting point guards on title teams since 1992 accounted for only 11.3 percent of the salary cap, which is the near-equivalent of Tyreke Evans’s salary under the $94.1 million salary cap this season. Championship teams historically haven’t had to pay a premium on point guards. Only two title teams had starting point guards accounting for over 20 percent of the cap (Tony Parker in 2014 and Irving in 2016), with most teams featuring younger guards (like young Parker or Rajon Rondo) or inexpensive veterans (like Derek Fisher or Avery Johnson).
It’s unclear how much historical precedence matters moving forward. The league is different now. With such a significant emphasis on shooting and spacing, it’s possible things will begin to reverse course; that teams with the premier (and expensive) players at the position will have the best chances at a title moving forward. But no matter the case, great teams typically have players who are good and cheap. Filling the point guard role with a high-level, low-cost player will always have significant benefits since it’s harder to find skilled players at other positions.
The 2017 draft is the year of the guard. The destinies of these prospects may determine which team(s) crack open their championship windows. But first, there are a few things we have to identify: Who are they? How can they improve? And just how soon will their impact be felt?
With The Ringer’s 2017 NBA Draft Guide, our hope is to begin answering those questions (and many more). This is my fourth year in a row making a draft guide, but for the first time, it wasn’t a solo endeavor. I authored the scouting reports, but The Ringer provided a whole team of people who played massive roles in the design, integration, research, and production of the guide. We will have a continuously updating consensus mock draft from myself and my colleagues Jonathan Tjarks and Danny Chau, as well as our personalized top-60 rankings all the way up to draft night. I’m super excited about it, and I hope you find the guide valuable not just leading up to the draft, but beyond it, too — as a tool to track where players were and how far they’ve come.
While referencing the guide, remember that weaknesses come in different degrees — not being a good rebounder as a guard is not as major as having a subpar feel for the game or slow foot speed. But no matter their strengths or weaknesses, all point guards should come with a Patience Required label. There are 12 active point guards in the league who have been named to an All-NBA team, and on average, it took five seasons for them to get there for the first time. The average age was 24; only Paul, Irving, Westbrook, and Derrick Rose made it at a younger age. Kyle Lowry made his All-NBA debut in his 10th season, at 29; John Wall will likely be named to his first All-NBA team this June, at age 26, seven years into his career. Point guards are often in utero for years. It isn’t a process that can be rushed, because point guard isn’t an easy position to master.
Learning point guard is like learning an instrument: There’s a steep learning curve on the way to an advanced level. Some rules must be followed, but others must be bent and broken — improvisation mastered only after years of experience. For the premier prospects of the draft to reach higher ground, they’ll need to prove they have the modern building blocks of the position within themselves.
A Feel for the Game
“This is like the premier position right now,” Wall told me at All-Star Weekend. “Understanding that every night someone’s trying to get a name off you or trying to leave a statement on you. If you’re a rookie, that ain’t gonna be easy.” Wall went through the growing pains. He cites his coaching staffs allowing him to play through mistakes early in his development as key.
“My rookie year, my first couple games I [averaged 5.8] turnovers. It was just an opportunity to learn and develop and try to see where I could find myself in this league,” Wall said. “Nowadays you see a lot of younger guys having that opportunity themselves because they have a coach who’s letting them learn and letting them develop at a young age.”
Wall had the benefit of being a no. 1 overall pick, and Fultz presumably will too. However, unlike Wall, Fultz will enter the league prepackaged with a broad set of strengths and without any glaring weaknesses. He lacks the elite burst of guards like Wall, but he falls into the James Harden category in terms of balance and pace. At just 19, he has the special ability to manipulate defenders to go where he wants and maintain equilibrium in his body while twirling and spinning his way to the rim.
As a freshman at Washington, Fultz spent virtually the entire season playing on the floor with two non-floor-spacing big men. The NBA will be different. No matter where he’s drafted, he’ll have more space than ever to attack for buckets or kickouts. The key to achieving stardom will be to extend his shooting range, add more dynamic dribble-jumper moves, and hone the strengths he already has. It’ll take time. The nice part is, because he checks all the boxes from a skill and physique standpoint, he will thrive regardless of his circumstances. Fultz can be a chameleon. Depending on where he goes, certain facets of his game — either on-ball or off-ball — will shine brighter than others.
These traits make Fultz a rarity — it’s why he is on a tier to himself among the point guard crop and the draft class in general. Much of the class, however, will have to figure out how to best leverage their athleticism in a league full of outstanding athletes and unlearn a lot of what they relied on at the high school and college levels. This will be the case for Dennis Smith Jr., a freshman out of NC State projected as a top-10 prospect. Smith can do stuff like this:
But he also needs to learn when to attack and how to do it efficiently. Contested shots early in the clock were common with Smith, as were careless turnovers:
It’s conceivable that Smith never develops into a true lead guard, and that’s OK. Any team that drafts him is doing so for his scoring ability. They’re imagining him in a system with a spread floor and utilizing his flashy first step to blow by defenders. They’re not worried about his lackadaisical defense or his passing. They want scoring — and with Irving’s role with the Cavaliers serving as a precedent, scoring could be enough to maintain a successful career. If secondary skills aren’t there, however, it’s increasingly important he develops his offensive repertoire. He might not be able to make it up in other areas like some prospects can.
Defensive Foundation
Kyle Lowry was the 24th pick in 2006 and had stops in Memphis and Houston before landing in Toronto. Lowry played behind Chucky Atkins and Damon Stoudamire as a rookie in Memphis; then the Grizzlies drafted Mike Conley in 2007, who immediately was handed the keys to the car. Lowry was dealt to the Rockets, but found himself behind Aaron Brooks and, later, Goran Dragic. “Sometimes you’re on a team where you have some big dogs in front of you,” Lowry said at All-Star Weekend. “But you still gotta let those guys know you got their back, and you’re just trying to help them.”
Lowry took a long path to stardom and was afforded multiple chances because he had a calling card: defense. Teams knew he could be relied on at that end of the floor, which gave Lowry the cushion he needed for luck, timing, and opportunity to reveal themselves — he has since blossomed into one of the NBA’s premier point guards. Louisville point guard Donovan Mitchell and Strasbourg’s Frank Ntilikina are different players, but they can similarly hang their hats on defense as they develop.
Ntilikina is a human vise grip: He uses his long arms to whack away the ball and puts his body (frail as it is at 6-foot-5, 170 pounds) on the line to get stops. Ntilikina knows how to play point guard, too. He’s smart. He understands where to be in the pick-and-roll. You’re going to read or hear a narrative that he’s not a point guard. He is, or he can be — it just depends on whether he’s quick enough. On offense, though, putting the ball in his hands is like putting 50-pound weights on his ankles. Watch Ntilikina struggle to turn the corner here against a basic defensive coverage:
His first step is slow. His handle is loose. He can’t handle pressure. Why the hell is he a top-10 prospect? I ask myself the same question, but I keep going back to this: He’s not even 19 yet, and he doesn’t have any other major red flags. There’s a strong probability that he’s simply inexperienced, like a lot of teenagers are, and just needs time to grow into himself.
Mitchell is like a cross between Smith and Ntilikina. He has Smith’s athleticism and scoring instincts, as well as his subpar decision-making. He lacks pure point skills like Ntilikina, but shares his tremendous defense. In fact, Mitchell might even be the best defender in the draft. He has a compact, muscular 6-foot-3 frame with a long wingspan to hound opponents.
It’ll take years for Mitchell to develop lead-guard tendencies, if not forever, but if I’m a team in the lottery, I’m willing to take that risk. It’s easy to see him as a player who earns minutes early in his career because of his defense. Then, should a team see him as a future floor general, he’ll have opportunities to learn how to play the position, much like Lowry did. Don’t be surprised when Mitchell’s name gets called in the lottery.
Acclimation to the NBA’s Physicality
Wall, Lowry, and other All-Star point guards I’ve talked to, like Isaiah Thomas, all say adjusting to the speed and physicality of the game are the biggest hurdles for a young guard. Kemba Walker says it’s learning how to play with pace. “Going into the lane and challenging the bigger guys like we did — when we was in high school and college it worked, but here it doesn’t work as well,” Walker said at All-Star Weekend. “Knowing how to slow down, knowing when to speed up. It’s really about pace. That’s the word, really.”
The two battles between De’Aaron Fox and Lonzo Ball this season were decisive wins for Fox, particularly their March Madness matchup. Fox is a blur on the court who can zoom by defenders then finish loudly at the rim. But speed isn’t enough in the half court at the NBA level. The improvements Fox will need to make are obvious, but how he addresses them will tell us a lot about his star potential. First, he’ll need to dramatically improve his shooting; then, he’ll need to learn to play with pace to better create for his teammates and finish in the lane. Otherwise, there will be a lot more where this came from:
Walker was drafted ninth in 2011. It took him until this season — his sixth, at age 26 — to be named an All-Star. The most significant improvements in his game were his 3-pointer — rising from 31.8 percent over his first four years to 38.6 percent over the past two — and his at-rim finishing — from 51.9 percent to 57 percent over the same time span. Fox will likely struggle to score at first, but with his immense speed (and defensive impact), he’ll be given the benefit of time to iron out his issues.
Fox’s athleticism was too much for Lonzo Ball, who you already know as the son of Big Baller LaVar Ball. He’s also a likely top-three pick and one of my favorite prospects to watch, ever. Ball’s one of the best passers and most unselfish players I’ve watched in the college game, but he has conspicuous flaws.
I try to be like James McAvoy in Split when I scout; it can be useful to take on different roles with different personalities to assess a prospect. The thing is, when you do that, you start worrying about moments like this from Lonzo:
Ball has no shake in the half court. I went in-depth before on how his funky shooting mechanics cripple his scoring off the dribble, but even when he tries to get to the rim, he has trouble. In the Draft Guide, you’ll see he shoots 75.6 percent at the rim, but that’s a misleading figure: Most of his at-rim shots come open in transition or from cuts to the rim. He avoids contact like the plague in these situations: If he can’t blow by Wenyen Gabriel or lay the ball up over Isaac Humphries (two Kentucky bigs unlikely to be NBA prospects), then how will he score in the half court against starter-level players at the next level?
Let’s take a moment to acknowledge the fact that Ball, in the clip above, used the same in-out dribble move four times in a row before going into an ineffective crossover. It reminded me of button mashers in video games:
Ball won’t be a bust. He’s too good of a passer. He has the it factor. He’s too good of a spot-up shooter, at least when he has space. Teams can put him into a role where he doesn’t have the ball in his hands the majority of the time, and he’ll flourish. But it’s fair to be skeptical: Not every team has the top of the draft as a Fultz-Ball race. One team executive I talked to claimed that the Jason Kidd comparisons that have been floating around were outrageous. Ball will have a high burden of proof to clear because of questions regarding his game, not because of LaVar’s hype machine.
Since he lacks a top gear, he’ll need to learn how to play better at different speeds and add more ballhandling maneuvers. Otherwise, he might end up as a present-day Shaun Livingston with a 3-pointer. That may not scream “superstar,” but is that really so bad?
Youth and Adaptability
“Malik Monk is special, folks,” Kentucky head coach John Calipari said to a swarm of reporters at the NBA combine, while rattling off all of Monk’s strengths. “But they’re all young. They’re 19. They can’t get a beer or go to a club. If you’re going to draft him, know that. Don’t think they’re 25.”
Calipari’s statement underlines the whole point of player development: You can’t expect any of these players, as rookies, to be now what they’ll be in six years — which is why it’s so important fans stay patient with players like D’Angelo Russell and Dante Exum. It’s rare that a player enters the league already pre-baked in the college oven, ready to play. Projecting the arc of a prospect’s development is hard; having the patience and commitment to see that growth through is even harder.
Monk is an intriguing case. I wasn’t particularly high on him at the start of the season: He reminded me of Zach LaVine, who I didn’t like as a prospect and still don’t as an NBA player. Like LaVine, Monk is an elite athlete with a terrific jump shot. Monk also has LaVine’s loose handle, poor passing accuracy, and apathetic defense. But compared to LaVine at the same stage of development, Monk is better: He has feel and vision, which makes improved playmaking a projectable skill. With the way the league is going — four-out or five-out offenses with heavy pick-and-roll action — it’s hard not to envision Monk as an ideal fit for an offense that shares lead ballhandling duties. He could eventually make simple passes like this:
Or attack the rim when he has space:
And he could still be used as a ferocious off-ball weapon who complements another primary distributor like Ben Simmons on the Sixers. It’s possible Monk becomes another Lou Williams — a glorified sixth man. He could also become a modern Ray Allen — who could pass in his heyday but played in an era when the game operated much differently than today’s.
No matter the case, it’ll take time. As Coach Cal said, these kids are just teenagers. A combination of film study, live-action opportunity, and learned experiences over a period of time are necessary for a point guard to assimilate into the NBA. Stay patient, but remain hopeful: This year’s class is loaded with potential stars.Prime Minister of Romania, Dacian Ciolos, is still receiving pay from the commission | Dean Mouhtaropoulos/Getty Images Two years after their work ended, Commissioners still get paid The payments were designed to prevent Commissioners from changing into well-paid industry jobs immediately after leaving office.
BERLIN – Although they left office in 2014, 16 former EU Commissioners from José Manuel Barroso's Commission still receive monthly payments of at least €8,333 each, German weekly newspaper Die Zeit reports.
The original idea behind the payments was to avoid conflicts of interest and to prevent Commissioners from changing into well-paid industry jobs immediately after leaving office. Ironically, many of the Commissioners who according to Die Zeit currently receive "transitional allowance," have long gone back into working in well-paid positions as lobbyists, managers, or in other political offices.
The names on the list, seen by POLITICO, include Karel De Gucht, currently on the supervisory board of steel company ArcelorMittal and telecommunication company Proximus, and Connie Hedegaard, a member of the supervisory board of energy company Danfoss, as well as Ferdinando Nelli Feroci, who served as stand-in Commissioner for around four months in 2014, and Dacian Cioloș, now Prime Minister of Romania.
Earlier this year, the maximum length of the benefits, which are based on a regulation from 1967, was shortened from three to two years, although that only applies to new appointments and re-appointments.
Here's the full list:
Joaquín Almunia Amann, Spain
László Andor, Hungary
Tonio Borg, Malta
Dacian Cioloș, Romania
Maria Damanaki, Greece
Karel De Gucht, Belgium
Jacek Dominik, Poland
Štefan Füle, Czech Republic
Connie Hedegaard, Denmark
Siim Kallas, Estonia
Janusz Lewandowski, Poland
Ferdinando Nelli Feroci, Italy
Andris Piebalgs, Latvia
Janez Potočnik, Slovenia
Algirdas Šemeta, Lithuania
Androulla Vassiliou, Cyprus← Sidebar
A few years ago I had an idea for a unique feature: To ask ATP and WTA players if they overslept and were defaulted out of the US Open, would they cheer for any other players to win? The responses were quite interesting…
Janko Tipsarevic: “Novak. Novak for sure. (Why?) First of all, he’s a dear friend and second of all, I really want to see someone getting involved in the Federer-Nadal rivalry and the race who is to be no. 1 and no. 2.”
Francesca Schiavone: “Justine (Henin). Because she’s a complete player. She has every shot. She has mind. I respect her.”
Juan Martin Del Potro: “Roger again. Or some Argentine players. (Why Roger?) Because he’s the best [smiles].”
Jurgen Melzer: “Oh, that’s a tough one. But I think I would root for Roger. He’s a nice guy. We know each other since juniors. We’re the same age. It’s unreal for Roger.”
Martina Hingis: “You don’t want to see anybody else but yourself holding the trophy. I’m sorry. I can’t give another answer.”
Feliciano Lopez: “Any of the Spaniards I guess. Rafa.”
Jo-Wilfried Tsonga: “[Long pause]…….I don’t know…… Marat Safin. (Why?) Because since some years he’s not playing very well in slams. So it would be fun to see him in the final or semifinal.”
Marcos Baghdatis: “Nobody. No. (One of your friends?) No friends [smiles].”
Peng Shuai: “I never really think of that question… I just think of why I lose or my next training and what I have to train and just good luck for everyone. It’s really tough to cheer for anyone. Every tournament has different players around.”
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No honour enough for Shah Rukh Khan: Karan Johar
Mumbai: Filmmaker Karan Johar says his friend and colleague Shah Rukh Khan is such a dynamic personality that no matter how many honours he gets, they will never be enough.
Shah Rukh was recently named India's Most Attractive Personality in a survey carried out by the Trust Research Advisory.
"He is dynamic, attractive and he is one of the finest actors this country has seen. No matter how many honours he receives, they are less," the 41-year-old said at the launch of Mandira Bedi's sari store.
Having completed 25 years in the industry, Shah Rukh will celebrate his 48th birthday on 2 November.
"He has reached the pinnacle and I think his love (love of his fans) just continues to grow with every passing year," said the filmmaker.
Karan and Shah Rukh's camaraderie started with the former's directorial debut Kuch Kuch Hota Hai in 1998. They later teamed up for "Kabhi Khushi Kabhie Gham", "Kabhi Alvida Naa Kehna" and "My Name Is Khan".
Last year they co-produced Student of the Year.
Updated Date: Oct 28, 2013 15:23:07 ISTTesla together with its CEO Elon Musk has set its sights on dominating the entire car market. This can’t be done with only a few models, and people in Tesla are more than aware of this. They have a luxury sedan, compact sedan on the way, the crossover and they are planning on full-size SUV and a pickup truck at that. That’s not all folks; they are planning on adding a minivan in their range of vehicles. Yes, the expansion of demand for crossover has taken its toll on minivan sales, but many families still depend on their minivans and are always looking for new and improved versions the of their favorite brands. Tesla is planning on entering this market with theirs 2019 Tesla Minivan, that don’t have a code name just yet.
Main reason why people in Tesla believe in the success of their minivan compared to the competition, is that because of their battery pack and small and compact electric motors they would offer more room inside and more cargo space at the back.
Exterior design of 2019 Tesla Minivan
The front end of the car would be the easier part to design. It would have standard tesla appearance, their already established look with letter T on a front grill. The platform on which they are going to build it is the platform of the X model or maybe from the upcoming Y. They would just have to make it a little longer to fit the minivan chassis on it. Tesla model X is something most similar to a minivan that tesla has, they would just have to extend it, and lose the falcon doors. Instead, they would put the sliding ones.
Interior
Design, in general, is what Tesla people, both those who manufacture it and the ones that use the product, are most proud of. That’s why interior design and equipment used on their minivan would have to be of the highest quality. Actually, it will be like that because that is what Tesla strives for. Fully digitalized interior, infotainment system of latest generation, the large touchscreen will come as an inevitable part of the Tesla interiors. The autopilot will come on premium trims, as well will all kinds of the hi-tech features. It will be able to take in up to seven passengers, and because the battery pack is on the floor it will give the more head and legroom to all of them.
Powertrain
Just like any other Tesla, the 2019 Tesla Minivan would be an electric vehicle. A variety of batteries would enable Tesla’s minivan to be offered in quite a few versions. P90D is not one of them because there is no need for a minivan to reach the speeds of Tesla Model S. The ones that would find itself on the plate are the 60D, 75D, and 90D. 90D is the exactly one being used on the Tesla model X.
60D would be offered on the base model, and its range is 200 miles with top speed 130mph. We should mention that it can go from 0-60 in six seconds. 75 D would cost more but in return, it would offer 237 miles of range. Other specs would remain the same. Topping the lineup would be the 90D which offers 257 miles of range, and goes from0-60 in 4.8 seconds.
2019 Tesla Minivan Price and release date
2019 Tesla Minivan’s price would be slotted in between of the prices of Model 3 and Model S. Lower battery option, 60D, would be in the region of $45.000 while the top end 90D with standard equipment included would go up to $68.000. With adding additional equipment prices will only go higher. The release date is nowhere near to even being scheduled. Before the Tesla’s minivan hits the market we will witness Tesla Model 3, their truck and maybe something else. After you start seeing one of these on the streets in regular intervals, you may well look up for Tesla’s minivan.Greetings Citizens
Greetings Citizens,
Now that the 2.6.1 schedule is out, we are moving forward and focusing on making 2017 an epic year! It’s pretty busy around here while development focuses on the major milestones being laid out. If you have not seen the updated production schedule – you can check check it out here!
For the Community Team, we are also preparing, refining, and building processes to ensure we are best equipped to be able to deliver interesting content to all of you. In the coming weeks we’ll be premiering a fun show that focuses on highlighting one of our favorite aspects of the Star Citizen Universe: YOU! No, not you. YOU. Yes, YOU! Stay tuned for more information on that soon.
With that, let’s take a look at this week!
On Tuesday, the Lore Team will release another installment in one of their many continuing series. The Star Citizen Universe is rich with history and a past/future worth exploring. If you find yourself easily immersed in a good story, fascinated by the design of Star Citizen, or just hungry for more information, these posts are made for you! You can also browse previous posts here.
On Wednesday, we’ll be exploring the Helios System alongside our resident Archivist, Cherie Heiberg, in an all new episode of Loremaker’s Guide to the Galaxy.
Around the Verse has returned to its regular schedule. If you want to stay in the loop or deep dive the development of Star Citizen with us, you won’t want to miss the second episode of 2017! You can catch these on our website, or our Official YouTube Channel.
Last Friday we went live on Twitch and YouTube for our second Star Citizen Happy Hour alongside guest streamer GrayHeadedGamer and Technical Director Sean Tracy. We had a great time hanging out with the two of them and are really enjoying the fun combination of game-play and guests from the community. Additionally, Sean Tracy took the time to explain the often misunderstood Megamap feature, scheduled to arrive in Star Citizen Alpha 2.6.2. If you want to learn more about this exciting new feature, you can catch the replay on our Official YouTube channel. A huge perk of doing these shows live is that you never know who might stop by.. Make sure to tune in at 10am PST, 6pm UTC at twitch.tv/starcitizen to catch this week’s show!
Lastly, this Saturday, Community Managers Jared Huckaby and myself will be traveling to San Antonio, TX for PAX South. Keep an eye out for us! We may have some cool goodies to give away. ;) Additionally, we’re very excited to meet many of you for the first time at the community organized Bar Citizen event Saturday night! You can find more info about this meetup here.
That’s all for this week, we’ll see you in the ‘Verse!
Tyler “Zyloh” Witkin
Community ManagerJan 3, 2016; Seattle, WA, USA; USC Trojans forward Darion Clark (0) compete for a rebound with Washington Huskies forward Marquese Chriss (0) during the second half at Alaska Airlines Arena. Washington won 87-85. Mandatory Credit: Jennifer Buchanan-USA TODAY Sports
Darion Clark, Malik Martin and Malik Marquetti, bench contributors for the Trojans are reportedly set to transfer away from USC basketball this offseason.
UPDATE (12:19 p.m.): Malik Marquetti has tweeted that he is NOT transferring from USC.
Just taking a test, minding my business. Get done and my phone was in shambles. No, I’m not transferring — Cubano (@MalikBOMAYE) March 23, 2016
ORIGINAL (11:38 a.m.): USC basketball is set to lose forwards Darion Clark and Malik Martin as well as guard Malik Marquetti this offseason, according to Jon Rothstein of CBS Sports and multiple other reports.
USC’s Darion Clark will graduate and transfer, sources told @CBSSports. Immediately eligible. Undersized post player. — Jon Rothstein (@JonRothstein) March 23, 2016
USC’s Malik Martin and Malik Marquetti will both transfer, sources told @CBSSports. Both will have two years of eligibility remaining. — Jon Rothstein (@JonRothstein) March 23, 2016
Clark will graduate and transfer for his final season of eligibility while Martin and Marquetti will have to sit out the year with two years of eligibility remaining each.
USC was expecting to return nearly everyone from the 2015-16 roster except graduating senior Strahinja Gavrilovic. However, with three incoming freshmen and Louisville transfer Shaqquan Aaron set to join the team, the Trojans did need to make room on the roster.
The hole left by Clark will be the most difficult to fill. He was an important figure for the Trojans coming off the bench to provide greater toughness and rebounding ability. He dealt with a series of injuries at the close of the season while USC was in a slump, losing six of their final eight games.
Clark also sat out the Trojans’ NCAA Tournament loss to Providence with a shoulder injury. In just 289 minutes of action in 2015-16 he had 119 rebounds.
USC’s depth at forward was already questionable. The absence of both Clark and Martin puts pressure on freshman forward Harrison Henderson to contribute. Aaron, who is 6-foot-7, could also help on the boards next season.
Aaron is also the answer to Marquetti’s departure as an added wing player. The Trojans will also welcome guards Jonah Matthews and De’Anthony Melton who might have pushed him further down the pecking order.
Martin and Marquetti saw limited action in 27 games this past season. Marquetti averaged two points while Martin averaged 1.8 points.Yesterday, Italian ex-prime minister Silvio Berlusconi was handed down a one year sentence for his part in the Wire-trap Scandal. It has since emerged that Berlusconi’s legal team lodged a concern that their client would be at a dangerous level of risk being a politician in prison.
The prison ethical code demands that a hierarchy exists between inmates. This generally means that criminals who were involved in ganglands feuds and shootings have a higher status than those who committed sexual offences.
Order
Ergo Berlusconi being an ex politician would rank lowest in the prison pecking order and would be subjected to constant torment as everyone’s moral inferior.
It has been now argued by Berlusconi’s team that it could constitute a breach of Berlusconi’s human rights to subject him to just biased and constant persecution.
Extensive medical testing has amazingly confirmed that the ex-prime minister is indeed human and all had seemed lost in the quest to finally incarcerate a politician until Berlusconi himself suggested that he would be willing to serve his term in a female minimum security prison. He noted that he had personally done research into the prison and believed that the nurturing female environment would encourage him in his rehabilitation.
Education
Going even further Berlusconi said he would even consider giving private group lectures and workshops to the prisoners in order to pass on his huge life experience and help them in their quest to become useful Italian citizens on their release.
Having heard his extremely passionate argument in favor of the female prison the courts have decided to allow Mr. Berlusconi to carry out his sentence at ‘Stabilimento of San Gimignano‘ female prison.
For his part Berlusconi stated that he thought the decision was extremely fair and that in order to regain the Italian people’s confidence he would carry out the sentence in it’s entirety. Our translator told us he stated that, “I look forward to growing as a person within the prison and would like the ladies to call me by my nickname ‘Big Silvo’ so they can feel more at ease with me.”
Though Berlusconi’s legal team have stated that they will lodge an appeal for the sentence, Berlusconi himself has already started organizing his “Freedom Bunga Bunga Party” in a year’s time.
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Hate Hoax Update: 'Empire' Star Jussie Smollett Lied to Police in 2007
Does this make it more plausible he lied to police in 2019?
Hate Hoax Update: 'Empire' Star Jussie Smollett Lied to Police in 2007
Gowdy Doesn't Believe McCabe's Claim That He Told 'Gang of Eight' About Second FBI Probe
Rep. Jim Jordan doesn't believe it either.
Gowdy Doesn't Believe McCabe's Claim That He Told 'Gang of Eight' About Second FBI Probe
7-Year-Old Boy Raises $5K for Trump's Wall, Gets Branded 'Little Hitler'
He was selling hot chocolate...
7-Year-Old Boy Raises $5K for Trump's Wall, Gets Branded 'Little Hitler'
How the Media Failed Again on the Jussie Smollett Hoax
When presented once again with an enticing opportunity to demonize Trump supporters, they jumped like Pavlov's dogs.VIENNA (Reuters) - The United States and long-time arch-foe Iran agree on at least one thing ahead of Tuesday’s negotiations on a long-term nuclear deal - reaching an agreement will be very difficult, if not impossible.
Iraqi women walk towards a poster depicting images of Shi'ite Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei at al-Firdous Square in Baghdad February 12, 2014. REUTERS/Ahmed Saad
Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, the man who has the final say on all matters of state in the Islamic Republic, declared again on Monday that talks between Tehran and six world powers “will not lead anywhere.
Hours later a senior U.S. administration official also played down expectations, telling reporters in the Austrian capital that it will be a “complicated, difficult and lengthy process” and “probably as likely that we won’t get an agreement as it is that we will.
Their remarks came on the eve of the first round of high-level negotiations since an interim deal was struck on November 24 under which Tehran curbed some nuclear activities for six months in return for limited sanctions relief to allow time for a long-term agreement to be |
Manigault worked with children and relied on her faith to get over the death of her fiance Michael Clarke Duncan in 2012. [Huffington Post]
Despite being offered Joan Rivers' spot on Fashion Police, Kathy Griffin says the job may not be right for her. [Access Hollywood]
Comedian and actor Wayne Brady opened up about having depression, saying he had a "complete breakdown." [Entertainment Tonight]
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Miles Teller will star in a new movie by The Amazing Spider-Man director Marc Webb [Variety]
Lisa Kudrow thinks her Friends' character, Phoebe, would probably be a "conservative soccer mom" now. [ABC]
Here is Deee-Light in 1992 reminding you to Vote, Baby, Vote:With just three weeks to go until the Republic of Ireland’s Euro 2016 opening game in Paris against Sweden, the Football Association of Ireland today unveiled the official anthem to accompany Ireland’s campaign in Europe performed by Irish band Seo Linn.
Written and produced by Seo Linn and James Darkin, ‘The Irish Roar’ commemorates the stirring memories of the Irish team over the past 26 years and features a special tribute to the late, great and ultimate football man, Bill O’Herlihy.
‘The Irish Roar’ will be performed exclusively for the first time by Seo Linn at next Friday’s Republic of Ireland 'Three' International Friendly against Netherlands in the Aviva Stadium, the team’s last game at the Aviva before EURO 2016.
Football fans can tune up their vocal chords when the full song is unleashed on the Ian Dempsey Breakfast Show on Today FM this Monday morning, 23rd May.
The FAI commissioned Seo Linn, one of Ireland’s most exciting young bands, to write and produce the piece and the results are quite spectacular.
FAI CEO John Delaney said today: ‘This is a distinctively Irish song for the Rep. of Irish team as they go to France to make the Nation proud. I would like to thank Seo Linn for composing such an exciting and uplifting song for the Irish Fans and I look forward to hearing The Irish Roar live at the Aviva in front of our great supporters at the Holland game on Friday night.’
Seo Linn have come a long way since their humble beginnings in Coláiste Lurgan where they bonded over their love for both the Irish language and music.
Having racked up over 20 million views on their cover of Avicii’s ‘Wake Me Up’ on YouTube, playing for President Higgins on more than one occasion and most recently closing RTÉ’s Centenary Show in the Bord Gáis Theatre, the Euros will be no challenge to them!
‘The Irish Roar’ will be available to download through iTunes and Google Play from 27th May.
Listen to the track in full:[Ed. Note: Our Winter Print Sale is in Day 2 of 5.
Here's the post about it and here's the order page.]
SA
As everyone knows, all of the talk at CES has been about one innovative, breakthrough product: the new Nikon D5600. Lines are deep at the Nikon booth, while crickets chirp everywhere else in the hall. It's all anyone is talking about, all anyone wants to see.
As one excited showgoer cried out, "I wanted something just exactly like my D5500, but just enough better to be noticeable, and this is it!" Another said he had come "a very long way" to reassure himself about what the new camera felt like to hold. "At first it was disorienting," he admitted, "but I stood there motionless, gripping the camera in my hand and keeping anyone else from looking at it, and it began to feel like a budget Nikon DSLR to me. And I said to myself, yes...yes...this feels right."
We were able to catch up with D. Functionary Minion, Nikon's Associate Assistant Head of Blatherskite and Salespatter, by rescuing her from the press of humanity at the Nikon booth and treating her to a triangle of cold pizza-like substance and fizzless sugary-water at a dirty table near the grimy, dispiriting concessions stand here at Tech North-by-Northwest.
TOP: Greetings, Functionary—may I call you Functionary?—first of all, please explain to us all the fresh thinking and innovation that went into this new camera.
D. Functionary Minion: Actually, my friends all call me "D. Funct." You're welcome to call me "Ms. Minion." And for starters, this new camera replaces our long established and much-loved D5500 model, which was a worldwide success. Right here, if you'll look closely, you can see what's probably the biggest outward sign of all the changes inside.
TOP: You're pointing to the "D5600" badge.
Ms. Minion: Exactly! Very perceptive.
TOP: So what's the significance there?
Ms. Minion: Well, which is more, 5600 or 5500?
TOP: You're actually waiting for me to answer? Fifty-six hundred is a higher number.
Ms. Minion: Exactly. How much more, would you say?
TOP: One hundred more?
Ms. Minion [laughing]: I can see why they let you blog from your mother's basement! That was the overarching "deep principle" of our Nikon engineers in Japan—the new camera must accord with the ancient samurai principle of jumanji, which means "give them at least one hundred more."
TOP: Not all bloggers actually work in their mother's basements, you know. I work on my front porch. And I don't think jumanji means...
Ms. Minion:...No, there's nothing much else new on the camera...that can be seen on the outside. But inside is a completely different story! A very different story.
TOP: Why don't you tell me that story.
Ms. Minion: Basically, we have sprinkled what is known inside the company as "magic eye-eye dust" all over the camera.
TOP: And what is "eye-eye" dust?
Ms. Minion: It stands for "incremental improvement."
TOP: Got it. And what incremental improvements are there?
Ms. Minion. Oh, a bunch of them. There are lots. All sorts of them.
TOP: Such as, specifically?
Ms. Minion: Are you ready? This camera can communicate wirelessly...through the air.
TOP: Do you mean it's got Wi-Fi?
Ms. Minion: It's magic, blogger. Something never before known.
TOP: Well, I agree it seems miraculous, but actually it's been around for...
Ms. Minion: Our marketing tagline is "Connected. Just Like a Smartphone. Only Not Quite As Convenient."
TOP: Speaking as a wordsmith, that's not a very compelling tagline.
Ms. Minion: The D5600 is an extremely capable little camera!
TOP: Agreed. But wasn't the D5500 an extremely capable little camera?
Ms. Minion: No.
TOP: No? Why not?
Ms. Minion: Because we don't need it to be.
TOP: Your predecessor seemed to think pretty highly of it two years ago.
Ms. Minion: We needed it to be then. We're not on that cycle any more. We're on this cycle. Marketing doesn't target all corporate products, you know, only the products that are in the selling cycle. The D5600 is the absolute latest thing. It's bleeding-edge new.
TOP: Well, actually it's been around since last November in the rest of the world.
Ms. Minion: I only handle North America. May I have another piece of pizza?
TOP: You liked that? I thought it was pretty close to the worst pizza I ever let past my lips. It was cold and old. The crust was soggy and the cheese was congealed.
Ms. Minion: Yes, it tasted like wet carpet. May I have another piece? Please don't make me go back to the booth.
TOP: Given that it was nine dollars a slice, I'm afraid you're going to have to buy your own this time.
Ms. Minion: Deal, sad blogger-boy.
TOP: Boy? I'm almost sixty years old!
Ms. Minion [puts her hand on my shoulder]: Aww. There there. I know. Last year at this time I was working in a knit shop in the desert south of town. Would you like another piece?
TOP: Can't you see I haven't even eaten this piece?
Ms. Minion: Oh, but I'm sure that old one is gone. They've probably put out a whole new pie by now. It's probably just out of the oven and it's sizzling fresh and steaming hot. Oooh—ooh—yum! I can just about smell it from here.
TOP: Right as you said that, I imagined I smelled the aroma of hot pizza.
Ms. Minion: It's just what you want. Picture it in your head. Exactly like you like it. The latest thing, new and beautiful and as good as they can make it! Oh so good! It'll be delicious! Fresh, tasty and satisfying!
TOP: You're good at this.
Ms. Minion: Thanks.
TOP: Here's nine dollars. Don't buy it unless it's actually better.
[After several minutes, Ms. Minion returns with two more slices of pizza on paper plates.
TOP: Hey! This looks just like the first slice.
Ms. Minion: Nope! This time there are mushrooms. See? It's better.
TOP: Let me guess: one hundred better?
Ms. Minion: [laughs] You're seeing how this works. Eat up, fat sad old blogger! We all need our strength this week.
Mike
(SA = Satire Alert)
P.S. Joking aside, the D5600 costs only $697 and offers very good image quality for the price. Here is the list of all the new products from CES '17 in Las Vegas.
Original contents copyright 2017 by Michael C. Johnston and/or the bylined author. All Rights Reserved. Links in this post may be to our affiliates; sales through affiliate links may benefit this site.
Hot pizza!
Give Mike a “Like” or Buy yourself something nice
(To see all the comments, click on the "Comments" link below.)
Featured Comments from:
Roger Cicala: "First, thank you for the laughs. Second, thank you for reminding me why I don't go to CES anymore. A great read to start my day."
Juha Haataja: "What a nice start to the day to read this in the morning, well done indeed. Well, what can a marketeer do if the engineers keep on turning out the same product again and again? Given that, I'm quite happy that there hasn't been an announcement of an upgrade to the Panasonic LX100, thank you very much. And if there is, please don't mention it. (Even though 'LX200' would be exactly one hundred more.)"
kirk tuck: "Can't buy the D5600. Am saving money for their 'Key Mission' camera. According to their advertising 92% of Americans want one now. I don't know what the hell it is but if 92% of Americans want one how can I go wrong? But I have a question I was hoping someone here could answer...is it just a Go-Pro with a different logo slapped on the front? Did they just rush out some rebadged Nikon Go-Pros?
"Is the Key Mission some sort of routine to keep track of one's car keys? Is that the whole mission or is part of it to record 'intimacy' as suggested in their survey of American buyers? Some 15% indicated they desired a 'Key Mission' to record their hanky panky. That's a lot of Americans!
"But then I read the (almost invisible) fine print and found out that the math genii at Nikon marketing were able to extrapolate all these percentages and numbers from a survey group of a little over a thousand self-selected poll takers.
"New math. Now that it's socially okay to lie about...anything I guess camera advertising is going to become exciting again. Go Nikon!!!"
hugh crawford: "When I read that I thought you were just making up the word blatherskite. But it turns out that it is not only a real word but is just as scatological as I imagined. Not only that, but I learned 'cheapskate' has nothing to do with skating! It seems our Scottish ancestors not only wore kilts but knew their s***."Cristiano Ronaldo will not be available for Real Madrid's Super Cup match
Cristiano Ronaldo said he plans to hold talks over a new Real Madrid contract when he returns from holiday.
Ronaldo, who led Portugal to the Euro 2016 title but suffered a knee injury in the final, is on an extended break on his home island of Madeira.
Between visiting his personal museum and having a hotel and the island's airport named in his honour, he also gave an update on his return to club action and revealed he will miss the UEFA Super Cup showpiece pitting last season's Champions League winners against Europa League champions Sevilla.
Cristiano Ronaldo helped Portugal win Euro 2016
Ronaldo signed a five-year extension with Real in 2013, and speaking to Portuguese news agency Lusa, he said: "I spoke to the president on the phone and when I get to Madrid, we will talk about it.
"Obviously it's something I want, I have mentioned it many times, and the club also wants it. But we only spoke briefly, and there will be more concrete things to come."
Ronaldo also confirmed he will not be available to face Sevilla, adding: "I am completely ruled out for the ninth [August] because my return date is the 10th, there is no chance."David Ruth
713-348-6327
david@rice.edu
Mike Williams
713-348-6728
mikewilliams@rice.edu
Tanks, graphene! Rice advances compressed gas storage
Rice University mix of graphene nanoribbons, polymer has potential for cars, soda, beer
HOUSTON – (Oct. 10, 2013) – A discovery at Rice University aims to make vehicles that run on compressed natural gas more practical. It might also prolong the shelf life of bottled beer and soda.
The Rice lab of chemist James Tour has enhanced a polymer material to make it far more impermeable to pressurized gas and far lighter than the metal in tanks now used to contain the gas.
The combination could be a boon for an auto industry under pressure to market consumer cars that use cheaper natural gas. It could also find a market in food and beverage packaging.
Tour and his colleagues at Rice and in Hungary, Slovenia and India reported their results this week in the online edition of the American Chemistry Society journal ACS Nano.
By adding modified, single-atom-thick graphene nanoribbons (GNRs) to thermoplastic polyurethane (TPU), the Rice lab made it 1,000 times harder for gas molecules to escape, Tour said. That’s due to the ribbons’ even dispersion through the material. Because gas molecules cannot penetrate GNRs, they are faced with a “tortuous path” to freedom, he said.
The researchers acknowledged that a solid, two-dimensional sheet of graphene might be the perfect barrier to gas, but the production of graphene in such bulk quantities is not yet practical, Tour said.
But graphene nanoribbons are already there. Tour’s breakthrough “unzipping” technique for turning multiwalled carbon nanotubes into GNRs, first revealed in Nature in 2009, has been licensed for industrial production. “These are being produced in bulk, which should also make containers cheaper,” he said.
The researchers led by Rice graduate student Changsheng Xiang produced thin films of the composite material by solution casting GNRs treated with hexadecane and TPU, a block copolymer of polyurethane that combines hard and soft materials. The tiny amount of treated GNRs accounted for no more than 0.5 percent of the composite’s weight. But the overlapping 200- to 300-nanometer-wide ribbons dispersed so well that they were nearly as effective as large-sheet graphene in containing gas molecules. The GNRs’ geometry makes them far better than graphene sheets for processing into composites, Tour said.
They tested GNR/TPU films by putting pressurized nitrogen on one side and a vacuum on the other side. For films with no GNRs, the pressure dropped to zero in about 100 seconds as nitrogen escaped into the vacuum chamber. With GNRs at 0.5 percent, the pressure didn’t budge over 1,000 seconds, and it dropped only slightly over more than 18 hours.
Stress and strain tests also found that the 0.5 percent ratio was optimal for enhancing the polymer’s strength.
“The idea is to increase the toughness of the tank and make it impermeable to gas,” Tour said. “This becomes increasingly important as automakers think about powering cars with natural gas. Metal tanks that can handle natural gas under pressure are often much heavier than the automakers would like.”
He said the material could help to solve long-standing problems in food packaging, too.
“Remember when you were a kid, you’d get a balloon and it would be wilted the next day? That’s because gas molecules go through rubber or plastic,” Tour said. “It took years for scientists to figure out how to make a plastic bottle for soda. Once, you couldn’t get a carbonated drink in anything but a glass bottle, until they figured out how to modify plastic to contain the carbon dioxide bubbles. And even now, bottled soda goes flat after a period of months.
“Beer has a bigger problem and, in some ways, it’s the reverse problem,” he said. “Oxygen molecules get in through plastic and make the beer go bad.” Bottles that are effectively impermeable could lead to brew that stays fresh on the shelf for far longer, Tour said.
Co-authors of the paper are Rice graduate students Daniel Hashim, Zheng Yan, Zhiwei Peng, Chih-Chau Hwang, Gedeng Ruan and Errol Samuel; Rice alumnus Paris Cox; Bostjan Genorio, a former postdoctoral researcher at Rice and now an assistant professor at the University of Ljubljana, Slovenia; Akos Kukovecz, an associate professor of chemistry, and Zóltan Kónya, head of the
Department of Applied and Environmental Chemistry, both at the University of Szeged, Hungary; Parambath Sudeep, a research scholar at Cochin University of Science and Technology, India; Rice senior faculty fellow Robert Vajtai; and Pulickel Ajayan, the Benjamin M. and Mary Greenwood Anderson Professor in Mechanical Engineering and Materials Science and of chemistry at Rice. Tour is the T.T. and W.F. Chao Chair in Chemistry as well as a professor of mechanical engineering and materials science and of computer science at Rice.
The Air Force Research Laboratory through the University Technology Corp., the Office of Naval Research MURI graphene program and the Air Force Office of Scientific Research MURI program supported the research.
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Read the abstract at http://pubs.acs.org/doi/abs/10.1021/nn404843n
Follow Rice News and Media Relations via Twitter @RiceUNews
Related Materials:
Tour Group: http://www.jmtour.com
Rice researchers unzip the future: http://news.rice.edu/2009/04/15/rice-researchers-unzip-the-future/
Images for download:
http://news.rice.edu/files/2013/10/1014_GAS-1-web.jpg
A composite material created at Rice University is nearly impervious to gas and may lead to efficient storage of compressed natural gas for vehicles. A 65-micrometer-wide polymer film, photographed edge-on with an electron microscope, contains a tiny amount of enhanced graphene nanoribbons that present gas molecules a “tortuous path” to escape. (Credit: Changsheng Xiang/Rice University)
http://news.rice.edu/files/2013/10/1014_GAS-2-web.jpg
A close-up cross section of graphene nanoribbon-enhanced polymer shows the ribbons as white dots dispersed through the material, where they effectively block gas molecules from passing through. The material created at Rice University could be useful for storing compressed gas in a lighter, stronger vessel and for food packaging. (Credit: Changsheng Xiang/Rice University)
http://news.rice.edu/files/2013/10/1014_GAS-3-web.jpg
An electron microscope image shows graphene nanoribbons embedded in a block copolymer. The composite material created at Rice University shows promise for containing compressed natural gas and for food packaging. (Credit: Tour Group/Rice University)
Located on a 300-acre forested campus in Houston, Rice University is consistently ranked among the nation’s top 20 universities by U.S. News & World Report. Rice has highly respected schools of Architecture, Business, Continuing Studies, Engineering, Humanities, Music, Natural Sciences and Social Sciences and is home to the Baker Institute for Public Policy. With 3,708 undergraduates and 2,374 graduate students, Rice’s undergraduate student-to-faculty ratio is 6-to-1. Its residential college system builds close-knit communities and lifelong friendships, just one reason why Rice has been ranked No. 1 for best quality of life multiple times by the Princeton Review and No. 2 for “best value” among private universities by Kiplinger’s Personal Finance. To read “What they’re saying about Rice,” go to http://tinyurl.com/AboutRiceU.This weekend certainly demonstrated that Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) has his work cut out for him if he decides to run for president. In a large sense he has not only the same burdens as his father did, but also many of the unsavory traits and views President Obama displays.
Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky (AP Photo/Manuel Balce Ceneta)
As for his father, there is no secret he comes with intellectual baggage. In what will be the first of many biographical inquiries the New York Times, surveyed the ideas and people whom he and his father surrounded themselves. We learn, for example:
That worldview, often called “paleolibertarianism,” emerges from the Ludwig von Mises Institute in Alabama, started with money raised by the senior Mr. Paul.... Still, his 2011 book, “The Tea Party Goes to Washington,” praises some institute scholars, recommending their work and the institute website. And he has sometimes touched on themes far from the mainstream. He has cautioned in the past of a plan to create a North American Union with a single currency for the United States, Mexico and Canada, and a stealth United Nations campaign to confiscate civilian handguns. He has repeatedly referred to the “tyranny” of the federal government.
Paul’s own conduct and views at times has shown a marked divergence from his father and/or the crackpot wing of the libertarian movement. But his association with and support for his father’s brand of libertarianism is evident (“side-by-side portraits of father and son adorn one wall in his Senate conference room”).
Moreover, that close identification has resulted in huge blind spots and ideological peculiarities that have already gotten him into trouble. His tolerance of pro-Confederacy views led him to hire and stick by the Southern Avenger. His extreme views on the sanctity of private property led him to criticize civil rights legislation that tells private businesses they cannot discriminate. His penchant both for isolationism and conspiracy theories manifested itself when he struck out at pro-Israel Christians, accusing them of desiring war in the Middle East. His praise for Edward Snowden as a Martin Luther King Jr. figure stems from his paranoia about anti-intelligence operations. In his elevation of drug legalization and anxiety about the Federal Reserve, his father’s obsessions resonates. In these cases dogged conservatives have criticized him. He will have a hard time convincing skeptics that he isn’t simply a savvier incarnation of his father.
Paul the Younger also bears an uncanny resemblance to Obama in troubling ways. He, like Obama, has no Senate accomplishments in his freshman term and no executive experience. Like Obama, he wants to retrench and “nation build” at home. Like Obama he opposes Iran sanctions (at least at present he is one of two senators to follow the Obama line and disdain sanctions legislation) and calls advocates of a tough Middle East policy warmongers. Like Obama he is prickly and defensive when criticized, threatening to leave politics when his plagiarism was uncovered. And he is the president’s equal when it comes to rewriting the past. He now denies he ever questioned the civil rights laws or, on “Meet the Press” yesterday, that he had lauded Snowden.
It’s not clear how Paul will try to convince primary voters that he is qualified for the presidency. If his qualifications rest on longtime exposure to politics, people are going to suspect he learned the wrong lessons from his father. If his calling card is merely firm ideological footing, mainstream Republicans will worry he’s not the fellow to formulate and pass an agenda, while hawks and social conservatives may worry that he is inflexible to a fault. Following Obama, it isn’t clear if the voters are ready for another speechifying, thin-skinned candidate.
Paul likes to claim that his views and opposition to constructive governance (he voted no on immigration reform, no on reopening the government, etc.) are the personification of real conservatism. It will be interesting to find out if that flies, especially since he, unlike Sen. Mike Lee (R-Utah), hasn’t bothered to lay out comprehensive views and proposals on health care, education, upward mobility and the rest.
Rand Paul has several years to address these and other weaknesses. But if this weekend’s exposure was a sample of what he’s in for, he should get cracking. He shouldn’t expect anything but exacting and constant scrutiny once he declares his candidacy. If he’s not up for that, he might as well go back to ophthalmology.Delta Air Lines will begin diversity training for all of its flight crews after at least two widely publicized incidents in which passengers said they were discriminated against or treated uncivilly on its flights.
Chief Executive Officer Ed Bastian banned a passenger for life in November after the man was videotaped yelling in support of Donald Trump. A few weeks earlier, the carrier had apologized to a black doctor who volunteered to help a sick passenger and was rebuffed by a flight attendant.
“Their brand reputation is critical, and you don’t want that reputation to be damaged,” said Jason Wingard, dean of Columbia University’s School of Professional Studies and a consultant on diversity issues. Success for consumer-facing companies such as airlines is “tied to customer loyalty and emotions.”
The Atlanta-based airline is last among the four largest U.S. carriers to require such training, which it made mandatory for executives last year and will start for 23,000 flight attendants in the second quarter. Delta’s classes will use “real and relevant scenarios” and discuss unconscious bias and so-called microaggressions, said Keyra Lynn Johnson, managing director for diversity and inclusion. “This goes well beyond the typical cross-cultural training.”
Tensions between passengers or between passengers and crew have been on the rise. On Friday, the U.S. Department of Transportation issued new guidelines for airline personnel on nondiscrimination, including sample scenarios outlining their legal obligation not to discriminate based on race, sex, religion or national origin. It also issued a document for passengers, explaining their rights.
Incidents of reported discrimination rose 37 percent in the first 10 months of 2016 to 74, according to the transportation agency. Although the number is fairly small, these episodes can cause public relations headaches for the companies and provoke lawsuits.
The U.S. presidential campaign, in which Trump proposed banning Muslims from the United States, and recent terrorist incidents have intensified the issue, said Corey Saylor, director of the department to monitor and combat Islamophobia at the Council for American-Islamic Relations. The organization documented 149 removals from flights, buses or trains in the first nine months of last year, more than double the 62 of the same period a year earlier, he said.
“Airplane removals weren’t really a significant issue until 2016,” Saylor said. “The rhetoric definitely plays into it.”
The four Transportation Department scenarios included a headscarf-wearing woman, two men speaking Arabic and a Sikh. The department advised flight crews to react to passengers based on their behavior, rather than their appearance.
Delta moved up its training plan after an October flight from Detroit to the Twin Cities in which a passenger was taken ill. After a call went out for a doctor, physician Tamika Cross came forward. She was brushed off by a flight attendant who said, “Oh, no, sweetie, we are looking for actual physicians,” Cross said in a Facebook account of the episode that has been shared 48,000 times.
Cross, who is black, complained to the airline’s top management, which has also decided no longer to require physicians to show credentials on flights.
“We’re using this incident and others as an opportunity to improve,” said Brian Kruse, a Delta spokesman.
The Trump supporter’s outburst prompted Bastian to ban the passenger for life and refund others’ tickets.
“The heightened tension in our society means that now more than ever, we must require civility on our planes,” Bastian said in a memo to employees.
American Airlines Group, the world’s largest carrier, has a “value of respect” training that’s required for all flight attendants with a refresher every two years. Southwest Airlines gives mandatory anti-discrimination and anti-harassment courses to new hires, and optional diversity training thereafter.
At United Airlines, all customer-facing employees, including its 25,000 flight attendants, undergo recurrent diversity training that includes lessons in cultural awareness.
“What we have seen is a higher sense of emotion across the board, and that’s something that flight attendants have been aware of, and put on their checklist,” said Sara Nelson, president of the Association of Flight Attendants-CWA, which represents crews at several airlines, including United. Most carriers first began such training after 9/11, Nelson said. American and Southwest also have unionized flight attendants, while Delta does not.
While more companies are adopting diversity training, “it’s usually reactive,” said Columbia’s Wingard. “They may do leadership training, but diversity training, in particular, is usually absent until something happens — a lawsuit, or a public relations disaster,” he said.
The airline industry’s woes hold a lesson for other companies in consumer-facing businesses, from travel to sales, he said. “Even if they do have diversity training, it’s much more aligned with the office employees,” he said.
Requiring training of everyone who deals with customers would mean that “all of a sudden diversity training would take on a new meaning,” Wingard said.A Russian tourist suffered an agonising death after forgetting his keys and trying to climb back into his room – then slipping onto SPIKES.
The man, who was later named as Sergei Belozertsev, returned home in the early hour this morning to his apartment block in the Bang Lamung district of Pattaya at 4am.
He couldn’t enter his room and started trying to push the door open – without success. He woke up a neighbour then tried to climb from the balcony next door into his room.
But wearing only flip flops – and according to residents ”drunk” – he slipped and fell on black metal spikes in place to prevent people climbing into the rooms.
He desperately clung on as blood poured from his impaled leg down the front of the white building. Rescue workers arrived at 5am and used ropes to hold him up.
He was eventually cut free with the metal still stuck in his leg and lowered on a stretcher by a crane before being rushed to Pattaya City Memorial Hospital. But was pronounced dead a few hours later having suffered severe blood loss.
Rescue workers from the Sawang Boromtham foundation performed the rescue. They said they received a call for help at 5am this morning.
A spokesman said: ‘’The primary injuries were serious and the victim had suffered severe blood loss. The medical team provided close supervision. We will need to wait to find more information about the wounded man.’’
Police were not investigating as the man’s death as rescuers said it was not suspicious. Staff at apartment block where it happened did not release the name of the man.It happened when I was sitting at a table taking a breather after an exhilarating game of Captain Sonar. Someone pulled that long sleek box out from their bag. While I had heard of Secret Hitler—it’s Kickstarter success was virtually unavoidable—I had little interest. Coming from the team behind Cards Against Humanity, I expected it to be another alcohol-fueled card game of mindless shenanigans. I couldn’t have been more wrong.
Secret Hitler is a social deduction game clearly influenced by the smash hit Resistance. Its defining characteristic is that it’s damn smart. While the structure is very similar to its progenitor, every single turn and divergence is clever. This is a design with a very editorial presence all the way from its art direction to its subtle interwoven mechanisms.
You know the drill: several players at the table are bad guys (Fascists) while the majority lean good (Liberal). Team progressive is trying to ferret out the Mein Kampf book club so they can control what policies are enacted each round. It’s a classic game of cat and mouse with the shady individuals misdirecting and attempting to lay low. Social combat ensues, Jeremy starts yelling at Ben, and the whole thing goes pear-shaped. If I was the type of person that said “awesomesauce,” this is where I’d be saying it.
There is one key element where the setup differs here: one of the villains receives the Hitler card. At larger player counts (where the game is best) the dictator-to-be is blind to their teammates and must function in a clouded area of subterfuge. Trying to catch a wink from a teammate who is trying to signal their allegiance is crucial to organizing your rise to power.
The primary element to securing victory is controlling the President. Each round the role passes clockwise very similar to the leader position in the Resistance. This person chooses another player at the table to be Chancellor and everyone votes simultaneously with a hilarious “NEIN!” or “JA!” card. If the majority likes the selection then a session of legislation will be conducted which has a great chance of resulting with a fan covered in poo.
The President draws three thick policy tiles from the draw stack, discarding one and giving the remaining two to the Chancellor. The Chancellor then selects one of the two options they were dealt to put into play, discarding the other. Policy tiles clearly display “LIBERAL” or “FASCIST” and if passed are placed onto the corresponding track for that particular party. Whichever team reaches the end of their track first wins.
What separates this game from the Resistance is hard information and direct conflict. The stack of tiles consists of six Liberal and 11 Fascist policies. This means you can easily count cards to some degree and measure probabilities. It also means that if you’ve passed four blue laws you only have two remaining and there’s an exceedingly likely chance that the next leader will draw three red regardless. When the President throws up his arms in frustration claiming that they had only Fascist tiles are they telling the truth or spewing bile?
This direct action of passing the onus of success/fail to another player with a dash of random chance really exhilarates the genre. Most designs functioning in this space rely on pure social deduction, but Secret Hitler dials it back a bit and instead crams an extra gallon of paranoia and suspicion by shining the spotlight on individuals. You can’t shirk the center stage and clam up when you enact a Fascist policy as we want the truth, even if we can’t handle it.
By centralizing confrontation and making the game so direct, all of the dull soft moments are eliminated. Preconceived conventions upon how certain players should act are chucked out the window and it feels like a completely new ball game within an epic stadium.
You also have the stellar inclusion of an increased tempo due to an accelerating Fascist track. Red policies enacted will trigger special actions such as the current President looking at another player’s loyalty or even assassinating a target. If they’re lucky enough to nail Hitler they outright win.
The flipside is that once enough autocrat filibusters are pushed through the track reaches hostile territory. If Hitler is ever elected Chancellor while in this danger zone the Libs instantly lose and the fate of the free world suffers.
While the setting is certainly handled well and with a light tone, it’s hard not to remark how precisely thematic the whole experience is. Secret Hitler manages to capture a distinct element of paranoia where a small group injects terror and suspicion into a larger body to thwart progress and subvert. It can be an emotional experience that subtly ties back to its cultural tethers and leaves an indelible mark.
If you asked a couple weeks ago I’d have happily proclaimed Resistance: Avalon as king. At this point, the king is dead. Long live the king. Even if he sports a lame ‘stache.
Are you a fan of social deduction games? Have you played Secret Hitler? Do you plan to give it a shot? Let us know in the comments below!
All images courtesy of Max Temkin and Breaking GamesThe Origin of Us: Campfires As The Bedrock of Human Civilization
If you want to understand who we are as human beings, a good question to ask yourself is “Where did we come from?”
And to begin to find an answer to this big and daunting question, it’s helpful to discover more about our history and past, especially the evolutionary origin of our species and civilization as a whole.
In The Social Conquest of Earth, legendary scientist Edward O. Wilson provides us an intriguing glimpse into the story of where we came from, what shaped us into who we are today, and what natural forces contributed to our advancements in society and civilization.
Like many familiar stories of our origin, it begins with our ability to create fire and control it.
The first use of fire was likely from lightning strikes, which were helpful to flush and trap prey who’d run away from ground fires. Many animals would become cooked by these fires which likely sparked our interest in cooking meats and vegetables. This was also an easy way to get bones that could later be fashioned into tools.
However, once we learned how to create fire and control it on our own, this led to the development of campfires and campsites, which – as I will try to explain – was likely the first step toward how our civilization evolved into what it is today.
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LOL. RT@nathanmurf Not since Patrick Swayze wrapped the arms around Demi Moore has a man made such an impact with clay #Nadal — Kelly (@MungoNGus) June 8, 2014
Having been pegged back from 30-0 up, a sole voice from the crowd put Djokovic off as he shaped for a second serve staring at championship down, and his dream of collecting a first French Open to complete a career grand slam was over.
No one should ever win anything nine times–it verges on impossible. And Nadal knows it. More tears after this one than I can ever remember. — Tom Perrotta (@TomPerrotta) June 8, 2014
As usual, it was another cracking final between these two, probably not reaching the heights of their epic duels witnessed under the lights and in the cooler conditions in Australia, and while it didn’t have the long baseline rallies we’ve come to expect of these two, it certainly had plenty of drama.
Via telegraph.co.uk
Nadal, who will retain his place at the top of the rankings with the victory, has now won 14 Grand Slam titles, tied for second among the men with Pete Sampras. Only Roger Federer, with 17 majors, has more.
But Nadal is the only player to have won the same Grand Slam tournament nine times, and is the first to win five straight French Open titles. He also won at Roland Garros from 2005-08, but lost for the only time in the fourth round of the 2009 tournament.
Federer went on to win that year, completing a career Grand Slam. Via foxnews.com
Nadal on letting his emotions go after the win:
“Last year was emotional for a few things. This year are emotional for another ones. But for sure when you are able to win Roland Garros, always will be emotional, no?
And then more when your age is older, no? Last year was with 27; this year is with 28. That’s not forever.”
Djokovic on his tactics:
“I think he was covering the forehand angle quite well. My backhand cross-court wasn’t as effective as it was maybe in the previous matches against him.
He was hitting down the line forehand really, really well, so I think his first shot off the forehand, off my return, was terrific today.” Via tennis.si.comFor years, states have been arguing that they are losing millions of dollars in uncollected taxes from online sales. In response, a few of them have begun crafting their own rules to get some of that tax money back. Massachusetts is one of the latest — and the way it's doing this is unprecedented.
"I buy all my pet food and pet supplies online," says Michelle O'Brien, a 44-year-old Internet shopping fanatic. "I buy most of my laundry detergent, shampoos and almost everything really besides groceries."
O'Brien — like a lot of Americans — started shopping online more in the past couple of years. "You don't even have to be... on your laptop," she says. "You can be pretty much anywhere, and just open an app and order some things."
Thanks to people like O'Brien, online sales are growing by about 15 percent each year. But all this e-commerce isn't necessarily translating into tax dollars for states.
Amazon, the largest online retailer, started collecting sales tax nationwide this past April. Most online retailers still don't: Back in 1992, the Supreme Court ruled that retailers must have a physical presence in a state to collect taxes.
"It usually means when there's a warehouse, an office, an employee located in those states," says Richard Jones, a Boston tax attorney. "It doesn't have to be much, but it has to be something. Something real, something physical."
The cookie approach
Technically, when you shop online, you're still supposed to back-pay your state when you file your annual taxes. But in reality, most people don't. And there's nobody actively enforcing the rules.
That means there's a lot of potential money being left on the table for state governments. The National Conference of State Legislatures estimated that in 2015 states lost roughly $17 billion in uncollected taxes from electronic sales.
Massachusetts is one of the latest states to step up the fight for tax dollars, issuing a new directive for out-of-state online retailers to begin collecting the 6.25 percent state sales tax starting July 1.
As a trigger, the state is adopting a hyperliteral definition of physical presence — one that relies on any downloaded apps as well as "cookies," the little bits of data that websites store on users' computers or phones to track their visits. Massachusetts is now considering them a physical in-state operation for a company.
"Massachusetts is arguing that these vendors with no property and no people and no offices in this state, they still have physical presence because of Internet cookies," Jones says.
Essentially, it's an Internet answer to an Internet problem.
But Jones says it raises a lot of questions about how you define property.
"Who's the owner? There's a presumption that the Internet vendor retains ownership of that little tiny bit of advertising software tracking code," Jones says. "I'm not sure if that's right."
Brick-and-mortar versus e-commerce
But whether or not it's right doesn't matter to a lot of brick-and-mortar stores — they're happy something is finally being done as they say the current tax system hurts their businesses.
"You know, for years, retailers here and across the country have argued for a level playing field," says Bill Rennie, vice president of the Retailers Association of Massachusetts. "It's become much more important each year now with the growth of mobile commerce. Folks can shop and comparison shop and purchase anywhere they want from their smartphone."
And so to some folks, the Massachusetts tax theory seems like sheer genius, but to others, it's a shameless tax grab.
Steve DelBianco is on the shameless-tax-grab side. He leads NetChoice, a national trade association representing e-commerce sites. He says under this strange Massachusetts theory, "your business is subject to the taxation [and] regulation in any state where a user simply enters their website address. That can't hold up to legal scrutiny, because it certainly doesn't hold up to common sense."
DelBianco is not convinced a cookie on your computer is the same thing as a storefront in a strip mall. He is willing to take that argument to court and says his group is pursuing an injunction to block enforcement of the law before it goes into effect in July.
Asma Khalid leads WBUR's BostonomiX team, which covers the people, startups and companies driving the innovation economy. You can follow them @BostonomiX.Capybara's Below is a fairy tale among video games. It strips away artifice to deliver an archetype, free from flourish. It says, "this is what it's like to be small and frightened, alone in the dark woods, surrounded by malevolence."
Pitched as a roguelike and due out this year, it's an RPG in which the character explores, solves problems and fights monsters. Progression comes through the power endowed by collectibles. All of this is normal for the genre. But Below's style is unusually stark for a console game. Below is a world of black and white and gray, with the occasional flash of light and splash of red.
Fairy tales teach children lessons about the evils of the world. The also reach into children's hearts because the characters are almost always vulnerable or naive. Below creates a similar effect through three devices.
First, its overhead camera sits a long way above the action, meaning that the main character is a very small part of the world it inhabits. This is in direct contrast to most modern, big budget RPGs in which the character takes up a significant proportion of the screen.
Second, it offers no clues as to how the character ought to progress. The player begins the game on a beach, alone. There are no signals about where to go, or what powers are available to you. Everything must be learned by experience.
You wander through the world and you encounter stuff and, although the game might give you broad clues about its intention (this is food, that is a trap) you are mostly expected to make mistakes and to pay the price. Certainly in the early part of the game, this makes the player feel extremely vulnerable and weak.
Third, if you die, you die and you return to the beginning. We call these games "Roguelikes" after 1980 dungeon-crawler Rogue. But the concept of insta-death has been the norm in fiction since time began, while save points and saved characters are modern video game conventions.
Below strips away artifice to deliver an archetype, free from flourish.
Video game RPGs took their lead from D&D-type games, which derived from high fantasy, which itself is an evolutionary branch of the fairy tale. Fairy tales are fantasy adventures, but their function is to mirror real life. They teach valuable lessons about the value of being wary and wise. Below is going back to the genre's roots.
Below does not merely allow players to wander around at will, fighting their way through levels. They must sustain themselves with food. In fact, right from the start of the game, this is an absolute imperative, though the unwary player, like the lazy squirrel, will only find this out when it's altogether much too late.
In Below the player collects stuff and either it has some ready-made function, or it can be crafted into something new. Some players may be alarmed to find that catching a fish and eating it raw gives only trifling health. They must learn that cooking the same fish with mushrooms and water makes a life-sustaining soup.
"Roguelikes are the most lifelike games," says Creative Director Kris Piotrowski, "Every time you start a Roguelike, you're jumping in at the deep end. You're always one mistake away from death. Every time you play a game, you think, 'Is this potion going to kill me? Am I going to try it?'"
Potions and scrolls and magical items are just one analog that connects fairy tales and Roguelikes. In most role-playing games, potions are named and marked for their properties. So, this purple one gives magical boosts and this green one restores health but don't drink the red one.
In Roguelikes, the fun is not knowing what you are drinking. The player who is close to death will find a potion and will often indulge in belief that the lottery is worth a spin, and will take the potion, often with unpleasant results.
Below is very much about being alone, underground.
Compare this with fairy tales in which items often promise some alluring outcome — like the porridge pot that keeps on giving — only to end in disaster. The juicy red apple looks tasty, but in fact it leads to instant death. (Actually, not death for Snow White, but a restart, after a significant cooling down period.)
Death in Below is a blow, but there is some relief. Players discover shortcuts back to the starting point, so they can re-enter at convenient points. The bodies and leavings of your previous corpses add to the variety of things that can be plundered.
Below is a game that demands that you work stuff out. "There's something nice about approaching a game and being able to butt up against it and figure it out as you go." says Piotrowski. "We've seen a lot of hand-holding design in triple-A design. Now there's a hunger for games that let you just get into the game world and figure it out on your own."
In fairy tales, central characters are often alone. Red Riding Hood does not set out into the woods accompanied by a party comprising a mage, a healer and a tank. When there are parties, they are often comprised of fools, and quickly trimmed, as in the Three Little Pigs. Below is very much about being alone, underground and far from help.
"I love games that let me be alone in a place," says Piotrowski. "Below is really about that kind of feeling. You're a tiny little character in a big mysterious world. It feels like a very solitary journey."
Combat in Below is about being smart and avoiding danger. The player wades into battle and swings a sword and finds that each and every hit received brings serious damage. Enemies are not so-much bested with brute force, as with measured timing and guile. But the player can become stronger.
"You're super fragile at first," says Piotrowski. "Whenever you take damage, it's always a big deal. And so part of the game is about preparing for that and getting familiar with all the little flora and fauna in the world, so you can get yourself ready for the inevitable moment where you do take a hit."
Fairy tales deliver simple pieces of information to millions of people across thousands of years. It's interesting that Below has been designed with meme-like info exchanges in mind. Players who just can't survive in this world won't be able to turn on an "easy mode" but they will be able to find a helping hand elsewhere, by turning to the warm nuzzle of the internet in order to live happily ever after.
"When I get into a game, I love being able to chat with friends about it," says Piotrowski. "'Where did you find this? What's that?' I love jumping on the forums and learning all this stuff that other players have figured out and put in places to help other people.
"I hope that happens with Below. That's what we're trying to create, a game that you get to lose yourself in, but also where the community can unravel it the way communities do. They tear games to pieces and figure out every little thing that's initially completely hidden."We all love Mary Anne Hobbs, don’t we? She has given us so much great music through her radio show and compilations on Planet Mu. So it was an honour to receive a promo of her latest compilation album Wild Angels.
Wild Angels has a distinguished dark feeling to it that seem to be intentional from Mary Anne. It explores the subgenres that she plays on and the album is able to extract the essence of the show.
All in all I love the Wild Angels compilation! It is filled with strong tunes (with a couple of exceptions) for everyone interested in bass-driven music and it is definitely a compilation worthy of your record collection.
I give it 5 out 6 Core News-stars.
Mary Anne Hobbs – Wild Angels can be bought from Amazon as CD, vinyl and MP3 -release.
Here are short reviews of each track with mp3-links to preview them.
1. Mark Pritchard –?
The opening tune of Wild Angels is simply called “?” by Mark Pritchard. It is a moody piece of music that works great as an opening track on this “dark” compilation. The most ambient tune on the CD. I like it!
2. Hudson Mohawke – Spotted
Hudson Mohawke gives us a track called Spotted that has eclectic Hip Hop feel to it. It is pretty good, but I prefer other tunes on Wild Angels.
3. Mike Slott – Knock Knock
Next up we get the track Knock Knock from Mike Slott. I feel it is in a bit the same vein as the one from Hudson Mohawke. Not really my style, but still cool.
4. Brackles – LHC
Brackles got a downright ridiculous great tune on the album. It’s called LHC and fills me with joy. Might be one of my favorite tracks of 2009.
“If you were in my hearth”, indeed you are Brackles 😉
5. Gemmy – Rainbow Road
Rainbow Road by Gemmy is one fine dubstep tune that I’ve enjoyed a lot.
6. Untold – Discipline
Untold is representing the darker and heavier side with Discipline. Some really heavy, rolling basslines in this one that make you wanna move slowly around the dance floor like you are caressing the music..
7. Tranqill – Payroll (Paul White’s Clean Dub)
Next up is Tranqill with a track called Payroll in a Paul White’s Clean Dub that starts up like a Prince track and then moves on to sound a bit like DJ Shadow.
8. Architeq – Sleeping Bear Lament (TAKE Remix)
Love the bassline on this one with its wobbly movements.
9. Rustie – Zig-Zag
I enjoy the DJ sets Rustie play and his tune Zig-Zag on Wild Angels is loveable too. To me it sounds a bit chaotic, but it still has a nice structure.
10. Mono/Poly – Red And Yellow Toys
I discovered Mono/Poly through the Mary Anne Hobbs show. The track Red And Yellow Toys. Think experimental hip hop on this one.
11. Hyetal – We Should Light A Fire
We Should Light A Fire is a perfect track for long summer nights while you are sitting with your girl by a bonfire. It is evocative yet massive. One of my faves on Wild Angels!
12. Starkey – Gutter Music V.I.P.
If you can call something a hit in “our scene” Starkey – Gutter Music VIP is a strong contender. Its wild and dirty beats should make any crowd move.
13. Darkstar – Videotape
Darkstar got some really wicked tracks. No different with the Videotape tune that is the Darkstar version of the Radiohead tune from the In Rainbows album. Although a bit unusual style it is still very awesome. I’ve actually been walking around humming on Videotape for the last few days.
14. Floating Points – Esthian III
Floating Points has made a nice tune called Esthian III.
15. Sunken Foal – Of Low Count And Light Pocket
Time for some acoustic guitar from Sunken Foal. I’ve been enjoying this tune too. Love it!
16. Teebs – WLTA
WLTA makes your head nod n appreciation. Love the fat beats (I really mean fat – my ears feel like they are stuffed with cotton after listening to Teebs too loud).
17. Nosaj Thing – IOIO
Another great tune! Nosaj Thing brings us lovely music that I find a bit hard to describe so just listen to the sound clip.
18. Legion Of Two – And Now We Wait
The last track by Legion Of Two got a dark feeling to it and the drums sounds acoustic. Not my fave track as I’m not a fan of the more industrial kind of sound.
What do you think about the Mary Anne Hobbs – Wild Angels compilation?
Please use the contact page if you want Core News to review your release.Ranking anything in sports is subjective. We may all agree on certain things — like Michael Jordan is better than Kobe Bryant or that Lambeau Field is better than SunLife Stadium — but for the most part, beauty is in the eye of the beholder.
Ranking college football stadiums is not only subjective but also extremely intricate. General atmosphere, fan support, home-field advantage, amenities, tailgating, the surrounding campus and the college town should all be considered when trying to rank college football stadiums.
Basically, there is no right or wrong answer. Athlon Sports polled 12 SEC experts and asked them to rank their favorite SEC stadiums based on all of the above factors. Here is how things shook out:
The Voters:
Tim Brando, SiriusXM (@TimBrando)
Dan Wolken, USAToday (@DanWolken)
Steven Godfrey, SBNation (@38Godfrey)
Billy Liucci, TexAgs.com (@BillyLiucci)
Josh Ward, MrSEC.com/The Sports Animal (@Josh_Ward)
Jon Cooper, SaturdayDownSouth (@JonSDS)
Seth Emerson, Macon Telegraph (@SethEmerson)
Barrett Sallee, BleacherReport (@BarrettSallee)
Reed Carringer, FootballTimeInTennessee (@FootballTimeMag)
Mitch Light, Athlon Sports (@AthlonMitch)
David Fox, Athlon Sports (@DavidFox615)
Braden Gall, Athlon Sports/SiriusXM (@BradenGall)
The Results:
Stadiums TB DW SG BL JW JC SE BS TN ML DF BG 1. LSU 3 1 2 2 1 1 1 1 1 4 1 1 2. Texas A&M 2 5 5 3 6 3 3 8 2 2 3 2 3. Georgia 4 2 1 4 4 5 4 9 6 1 4 4 4. Tennessee 1 4 4 7 5 8 2 4 5 3 6 3 5. Alabama 6 6 7 1 2 2 6 5 3 5 5 9 6. Florida 8 9 8 6 3 6 5 3 4 8 2 5 7. Auburn 9 3 6 5 7 4 7 2 9 7 8 6 8. South Carolina 5 7 14 8 9 7 8 6 7 9 7 8 9t. Arkansas 10 8 10 9 8 9 9 10 11 6 10 7 9t. Ole Miss 7 10 3 11 10 11 11 7 8 10 9 10 11. Missouri 11 13 11 12 11 10 10 12 10 13 11 11 12. Miss. State 12 12 9 10 12 12 12 11 12 11 13 12 13. Kentucky 13 11 13 13 14 13 13 13 14 12 12 13 14. Vanderbilt 14 14 12 14 13 14 14 14 13 14 14 14
The Stadiums:
1. Tiger Stadium, LSU
Opened: 1924 Capacity: 100,000
Be it the vast and unique tailgating menu or Richter Scale-registering fans, few places in the nation can send chills down your spine like Tiger Stadium. As one of the loudest and most rabid atmospheres in the nation, LSU boasts one of the most daunting home-field advantages in college football — especially at night. A $70 million renovation is underway to push Tiger Stadium’s capacity to 100,000, only furthering a hallowed reputation as one of the nation’s top venues. There is a reason Tiger Stadium got eight first-place votes in our poll.
Listen to Athlon Sports Cover 2 Podcast:
2. Kyle Field, Texas A&M
Opened: 1904 Capacity: 102,500*
If things progress the way Texas A&M faithful believe, Kyle Field is poised to become arguably the best football stadium in the SEC. Once the $450 million renovation is completed prior to the 2015 season, the Aggies' home stadium will be the largest in the SEC (102,500). That said, the home of the 12th Man is no joke today as it stands. Three towering decks of screaming fans urge their team on through choreographed cheering and rich traditions. Despite having hosted only a dozen SEC games, Kyle Field is currently the oldest venue in the conference.
3. Sanford Stadium, Georgia
Opened: 1929 Capacity: 92,746
It may not be the SEC’s biggest or loudest stadium, but it is the most beautiful. The Bulldogs' home stadium is located in the heart of the plush greenery of the gorgeous Athens campus. The famed privet hedges line the field and separate the Georgia fans from the action on the field with style that matches the dolled-up student section. Mark Richt is 68-14 “Between the Hedges” and has his team poised for another perfect home slate in 2014.
4. Neyland Stadium, Tennessee
Opened: 1921 Capacity: 102,455
Named for former head coach General Robert Reese Neyland, the biggest venue in the SEC has, at one time or another, been the biggest college football stadium in the nation. Recent renovations have transformed the once dilapidated exterior into a brick Big Orange cathedral. Towering over the winding Tennessee River and attendant Vol Navy, Neyland’s double-deck, totally enclosed seating makes it one of the loudest places to watch a game in the nation.
5. Bryant-Denny Stadium, Alabama
Opened: 1929 Capacity: 101,821
Legendary head coach Bear Bryant and former university president George Denny lent their names to one of college football’s most intimidating home venues. Alabama is 231-52-3 since opening the building in 1929, and Nick Saban is 36-6 at home during his tenure. In front of the most dedicated fans in the nation, the Crimson Tide routinely bring opponents to their knees with ear-shattering support (just as long as the opponent is a good one).
6. Ben Hill Griffin Stadium, Florida
Opened: 1930 Capacity: 88,548
Dubbed "The Swamp" by Steve Spurrier in the early 1990s, no stadium in the nation has a better nickname. And when the Gators are rolling, few places in the nation are as intimidating as a hot and humid Ben Hill Griffin Stadium. Unique sightlines and design subtleties give BHGS plenty of character and gives the team a huge home-field advantage. From 1990 to 2009, the Gators had the best home field record in the nation at 113-13. When it comes to noise and success, The Swamp is among the game’s preeminent locations to watch a game.
7. Jordan-Hare Stadium, Auburn
Opened: 1939 Capacity: 87,451
The Tigers' football stadium is named after Shug Jordan, the winningest coach in school history, and Cliff Hare, a member of Auburn’s first-ever football team and former president of the Southern Conference. Beautiful and historic murals on the east-side exterior as well as freshly planted “War Eagle” flowers in the end zone give this venue plenty of character. And when “Nova” (War Eagle VII), the team’s live golden eagle mascot, flies into the friendly confines, the Auburn faithful explode into a pre-game frenzy.
8. Williams-Brice Stadium, South Carolina
Opened: 1934 Capacity: 80,250
Recent upgrades to the tailgating areas and stadium itself have elevated Williams-Brice into the upper echelon of SEC venues. “The Cock Pit” has signature lighting high above the upper deck on either side of the field and each home game begins with the playing of the theme from "2001: A Space Odyssey," giving South Carolina one of the best pre-game reputations in the nation. Steve Spurrier has built WBS into one of the impossible places for visitors to win, posting a 32-3 mark at home over the last four seasons.
9t. Donald W. Reynolds Razorbacks Stadium, Arkansas
Opened: 1938 Capacity: 72,000
One of the most underrated home atmospheres lies just a few miles north of the Ozarks in Northwest Arkansas. After massive renovations in 2001, “DWRRS” grew to accommodate some of the most dedicated fans in the nation. The nation’s second-largest video board (167 feet wide) was added just last year to the North end zone, and additional planned renovations will push this stadium to 80,000 seats in the very near future. Arkansas’ all-time record at their home stadium is a solid but uninspiring 166-81-2. The trademark “Woo Pig Sooie” chant can be heard echoing across campus during each home game in the fall.
9t. Vaught-Hemingway Stadium, Ole Miss
Opened: 1915 Capacity: 60,580
Can Ole Miss figure out a way to move The Grove inside Vaught-Hemingway? The world’s greatest pre-game tailgate takes place just a few yards away from the comparably small, but no less enjoyable, stadium. So while the third-oldest venue in the SEC hasn’t been all that daunting to opposing teams over the years, it does house what may be the most beautiful fan base in the nation. Everyone should attend at least one tailgate in Oxford, Miss.
11. Faurot Field at Memorial Stadium, Missouri
Opened: 1927 Capacity: 77,000
Missouri is doing everything it can to make its atmosphere and gameday experience match its big-time SEC rivals. In 2013, Mizzou faithful were greeted with a brand new luxury suite tower to the West and tweaks to the historic north hill beyond the end zone. The famous rock “M” emblazoned hill was moved closer to the field to get fans closer to the action and create more concourse space. In 2014, fans will be met with a completed upper bowl on the East side of the stadium adding nearly 6,000 new seats.
12. Davis Wade Stadium, Mississippi State
Opened: 1914 Capacity: 61,337*
The Bulldogs averaged more than 100-percent attendance the last two years and this is one of the reasons why Mississippi State has planned yet another expansion to Davis Wade Stadium. The $75 million work has taken two years and will be completed before the 2014 season and should add roughly 6,000 new seats*. The North end zone will be sealed off and a high-definition video board will be installed. Opposing fans and teams have grown to despise playing in front of the piercing collection of cowbells.
13. Commonwealth Stadium, Kentucky
Opened: 1973 Capacity: 67,692
When this team is good, Big Blue Nation is as loud and passionate as any stadium with less than 70,000 seats in the nation. Despite winning just two games last year, this team drew 59,472 fans per game. This venue has witnessed some historic moments — i.e., the Bluegrass Miracle — and Mark Stoops hopes he can build on his first season. It also has one of the cooler names of any stadium in the nation.
14. Vanderbilt Stadium, Vanderbilt
Opened: 1922 Capacity: 40,350
The new brick façade and back-to-back-to-back winning seasons have helped build up the Dores' home atmosphere. However, the tiny alumni base and single-tiered stadium lacks the pageantry and passion of every other SEC venue. Vandy will always have a tough time selling out and competing in attendance numbers compared to the SEC's bluebloods. However, being located on beautiful West End with plenty to do within walking distance, there is still plenty to enjoy on gameday in Nashville.Rep. Peter King (R-N.Y.) said Tuesday that the United States had the right to take preemptive military action against North Korea if there was "solid evidence" that Kim Jon Un planned to attack the U.S. or South Korea.
"If we have good reason to believe there's going to be an attack, I believe we have the right to take preemptive action," King said on CNN's "Erin Burnett Outfront."
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"I don't think we have to wait until Americans are killed or wounded or injured in any way," he continued. "I'm not saying we should be rushing into war, don't get me wrong, but if we have solid evidence that North Korea's going to take action, then I think we have a moral obligation and an absolute right to defend ourselves."
Tensions in the region have deteriorated in recent weeks, with Pyongyang announcing Wednesday that it had barred South Korean workers from a jointly run industrial zone on the border between the two countries. That announcement came just a day after officials declared their intention to restart a shuttered nuclear reactor. North Korea has escalated tensions in recent weeks, declaring a "state of war" against South Korea and threatening to attack the United States.
North Korea's actions are thought to be driven by additional United Nations sanctions that resulted from its recent nuclear test. The United States has responded to Pyongyang's posturing with a series of military drills in the region, as well as a repositioning of naval ships in waters off the Korean peninsula.
More from The Hill:
♦ GOP pushes government to study Homeland ammo purchases
♦ Key provision of gun bill could be stripped
♦ Defense company stocks have soared since sequester's ax fell
♦ Poll: Majority of Republicans believe global warming a hoax
♦ Few senators sacrifice pay amid budget cuts
♦ Green groups get billionaire ally, money
♦ Hagel takes pay cut in solidarity with furloughed workers
♦ UN arms trade treaty sets up Obama, Senate showdown
King said Tuesday night that "as of now, there's no deployment or movement or troops or any aircraft sea power whatever that would indicate any type of an attack." The White House has also suggested that North Korea's recent moves are largely symbolic, rather than substantive.
But in a telephone call Tuesday evening to Chinese Defense Minister Chang Wanquan, Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel warned of a "growing threat" in the region.
"The secretary emphasized the growing threat to the U.S. and our allies posed by North Korea's aggressive pursuit of nuclear weapons and ballistic missile programs and expressed to General Chang the importance of sustained U.S.-China dialogue and cooperation on these issues," Pentagon spokesman George Little said in a statement obtained by Fox News.Nancy Pelosi allowed the NSA to dismember our 4th Amendment Rights, she caved to Dick Cheney and allowed him to torture. Nancy Pelosi took bribes from the Insurance company Lobbyists to deny Americans Universal Health Care, she took the money and then would not even allow a debate.
Nancy Pelosi is every thing that is wrong with the Democrat Party.
The Zionist Wahhabi Kings do not just own most of the Worlds petroleum energy supplies ad central banking system, they own our NSA and CIA too.
The Saudi and Israeli can do what ever they want. They can come into our center of trade and commerce and blow it up right in our face, murdering thousands of our People and then, simply by bribing our US Officials, they can not only escape justice, they can utilize us Americans as cannon fodder and tax facilities to attack their Enemies who had nothing to do with 9-11-2001.
As a Newly registered Democrat who signed up to vote for Bernie Sanders, I am asking you to please stop hurting the Democrats by advocating for this Monster Nancy Pelosi and her cruel reign of terror upon Americas Poor.
They should put Zoe Lofgren or Barbara Lee in as House Minority Leader.San Diego football fans caught a glimpse at the Chargers’ possible future on Saturday–and many didn’t like it.
Emotions were already running high at the Chargers’ FanFest, the annual training camp practice held in front of fans at Qualcomm Stadium in Mission Valley. The team said 17,000 attended this year’s event, collecting autographs, snapping pictures and enjoying a team scrimmage just before the Chargers begin their preseason on August 13.
But the team’s presence inside Qualcomm was its first since owner Dean Spanos announced a partnership with Raiders owner Mark Davis to build a $1.7 billion stadium in Carson.
Five-time all-Pro safety Eric Weddle, a fan favorite who could leave the team next year after his contract expires, told the San Diego Union-Tribune that this year’s event was more emotional than usual.
“Excitement level was definitely up,” Weddle told the paper. “It was pretty awesome.”
But the fans in attendance got a bleak look at what could be the team’s future when a small group of fans unfurled a banner that read “Los Angeles Area Chargers:”
The Union-Tribune‘s Matt Calkins wrote that the banner “reeked of disrespect and instigation.”
“Pretty sure [a sign that read] ‘Ryan Leaf for Mayor’ would have been more well-received,” Calkins wrote in a piece called, “San Diegans get slapped in the face.”
The fans were similarly unhappy.
“I’m about to rip that sign down,” one fan told the paper.
Contrary to Weddle’s assessment of an increased excitement level inside the stadium, Calkins writes that the banner “sucked the energy out of a FanFest crowd that can’t escape reality.”
While the fans consider the prospect of their beloved Bolts leaving for “greener pastures” in Los Angeles, the team isn’t letting talk of a move get to them. Veteran quarterback Philip Rivers, whose contract also expires next season, told Bleacher Report that the team is focused strictly on football.
“I think when there’s not a lot of football going on, or it’s early in the offseason, you talk about it,” Rivers told the outlet. “But now, it’s just not a conversation [in the locker room]. It’s just not a topic in there. I think it’s just what you say: it’s football and there’s a lot of excitement about this year because we do know where we’re going to be this year, and guys are just saying, ‘That will happen when it happens.'”Borrowing Books Through Open Library
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BookReader editions may be read online immediately in your web browser. No special software is required. Other Internet Archive loans are managed through Adobe Digital Editions and will require software installation on your computer or device.
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Follow these steps:
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The easiest way to find books to borrow is to jump straight to the eBook Lending Library which shows books that have editions that are available through the Internet Archive.
You can also use the search page and check the box that says "Show only eBooks" though this will also return results in DAISY format. You may also want to browse books in the Accessible Book subject facet.
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Internet Archive offers borrowable books in BookReader, PDF and ePub formats. BookReader editions may be read online immediately in any web browser on any device. Downloadable eBooks are readable in Adobe Digital Editions and some other software applications.
How many books can I check out at once?
You can borrow five books at a time from Open Library. Each loan will expire after two weeks and be removed from your device.
Can I return a library book early?
Sometimes. If you borrowed a BookReader edition, simply return it from your Loans page.
If you downloaded another type of ebook, you can return it if you borrowed it through Adobe Digital Editions for all versions except the iPad version. If you checked out your book with other software like Blue |
citizen this year.) When he talks about transformation, in other words, he’s living proof that it’s possible.
With his wife, Ilusion, he runs Cesar Millan Inc., the center of a constellation of businesses that coordinates all things Cesar beyond the show, including speaking engagements; executive leadership seminars; a line of organic dog food, fortified water, shampoos and toys that sells at Petco; and the charitable foundation financed by an undisclosed percentage of the company’s revenue.
His Web site, cesarmillaninc.com, grosses annual sales in the mid-seven figures, according to a company spokesman, chiefly from DVDs, books and merchandise like the Illusion Collar, designed by his wife to help control challenging dogs. Nearly 400,000 visitors are on the site monthly. Then there’s his Dog Psychology Center, a 43-acre mecca he calls a “Disneyland for dogs.” Under construction north of here, near where he and his family live, it will be the first of many such centers nationwide, he says.
According to MPH Entertainment, the production company that is Mr. Millan’s partner in all its many offshoots and co-owns the TV show with the producers who discovered him, he will be a $100 million business in a few years. And he says he’s just getting started.
“Anything that is realistic, if I create it in my mind, it can become a reality,” he says, evoking one of his favorite authors, the self-help superstar Wayne W. Dyer. “That is the power of intention.”
Like the dogs that he is world-famous for understanding — and, notably, unlike some of their owners — Mr. Millan doesn’t judge others. Instead, he lives in the now and maintains a sort of über-balanced mien. For without balance, or what he calls “our most important tool: calm, assertive energy,” no one can be a pack leader. And that, more than anything else, is what Cesar Millan dearly wants each of us to be — for our animals, sure, but also for ourselves and the well-being of the planet.
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“World transformation begins with self-transformation,” he advises. To achieve that, he says, you need a co-pilot: “My suggestion is you have somebody next to you that is willing at any time to transform the moment. That is called dog.”
THERE are 65 million dogs in the United States, where pet care is close to a $40 billion industry. By one estimate, dog owners spend an average of $11,000 over each pet’s lifetime. And even during a recession, such spending shows no signs of flagging. Simply put, Americans are nuts about their pets.
Or maybe we’re just nuts. Which is pretty much the underlying message of “Dog Whisperer.”
Did you see the episode about Genoa, the golden retriever who was afraid of the garage? Mr. Millan quickly sussed out that the woman of the house had strong feelings about the garage, too — namely, she resented it because her husband spent more time puttering there than he did cuddling with her. Problem solved.
How about the one about Li’l Miss Kisses, the Maltese whose owner was obsessed with pink? The woman’s apartment, her outfit, everything was pink. Including the dog. Can you blame Kisses for urinating on the floor? Then there’s the episode in which Mr. Millan sat down with Kathy Griffin, the comedian, and Pom Pom, her Labrador mix.
“What is she saying to you with her body language?” Ms. Griffin demanded. Mr. Millan didn’t hesitate: “That you are kind of crazy.” Ms. Griffin yelled, “Cut!”
That Mr. Millan keeps a straight face in these situations says less about his manners and more about where his focus lies: with the hounds. Over the years, he has learned that in a country where pet lovers treat their animals like coddled children (making them unhappy, he believes), he must delve into the human realm to put things right.
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He’s the first to say, however, that communicating with humans didn’t come naturally.
He grew up on a farm in Mexico, where from an early age he was known as El Perrero, or “the dog man.” Dogs made sense to him. They telegraphed their anxieties in predictable ways. They loved to be led.
“They accept you as who you are — one leg, two legs, no eyes, no problem,” he says. “But they won’t be around unstable energy. That’s how much integrity they have.”
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Not so with humans. “One of Cesar’s favorite sayings,” says Jim Milio, a partner in MPH, which produces the show out of a mini-mall in Burbank, Calif., “is that humans are the only animals who will follow unstable pack leaders.”
It would take years before Mr. Millan realized that to achieve his goal of being the world’s best dog trainer, he would need to understand not just pets, but also pet owners.
His wife, Ilusion, a Mexican-American whom he met at an ice rink and married when she was 18 and he was 24, recalls the moment he began to “get” his own species. After the birth of their first son (they have two), they’d hit a rough patch and separated. Cesar was too macho and too bossy, she felt, and ignored her feelings. At her insistence, they went to counseling, where the therapist told her to express her needs.
“I said: ‘You know, Cesar, I really want you to listen. I want you to be there in our household. I want to hear you say that you love me. I don’t want to be treated like I’m just a piece of property. I want to be acknowledged,’ ” Ilusion says, recalling how her husband looked at the counselor and exclaimed, “She’s just like dogs!”
Ilusion is wry about this “light-bulb moment,” which she says initially made her angry. But then she realized that for her husband, all knowledge walks on four legs. His mantra of “exercise, discipline and affection” — the essential trio that he says keeps dogs (and apparently wives and anyone else) happy and healthy — was born that day. Now, Mr. and Mrs. Millan are a team.
“We’re what I call Mr. Talent and Mrs. Brains,” says Ilusion. “You can’t have one without the other.”
Cesar agrees: “My wife rehabilitated me.”
BACK in 1991, Mr. Millan’s English was poor, which made him reluctant to charge much for his door-to-door training services. “My goods were good, but my delivery wasn’t,” he says, recalling that his initial rate per session was $10. “We couldn’t even afford Pampers.” But his reputation was spreading.
One of his first clients was Jada Pinkett, then 20 and starring in a television sitcom. As he helped Ms. Pinkett, just 5 feet tall, become pack leader to four huge Rottweilers, they became friends. When Mr. Millan told her he wanted to be on TV, she leveled with him: he wasn’t ready. Then, she hired him a tutor in English. He studied for a year.
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For all Mr. Millan learned during that period, the actress says he taught her even more.
“When Cesar came into my life, I was a young starlet,” she says. “I had all this energy and all this power at my fingertips, but I didn’t know necessarily what to do with it.” She credits him with helping her have good relationships with both canines and humans. (She married Will Smith in 1997.)
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“We want to have our own self-fulfillment, and we’re not paying attention to what the dog needs,” says the actress, now Jada Pinkett Smith. “Then we’re throwing the dog into complete imbalance and wondering, What is the problem? That was a crazy discovery: Oh, my goodness, I wonder if I’m doing that in other relationships.”
The Smiths started recommending Mr. Millan to friends. The director Michael Bay needed help controlling his 230-pound mastiff, Mason. Later, he sought out Mr. Millan for help with another mastiff, Bonecrusher (a nod to the Transformers villain of the same name). Bones, as he is called, liked to attack small dogs. Mr. Millan brought a tiny dog to Mr. Bay’s house, as well as his sidekick, Daddy, a gentle pit bull that “Dog Whisperer” fans will recognize from his frequent appearances on the show. For $60 a day, Mr. Millan and Daddy shaped Bones right up.
“It was the oddest experience in the world,” says Mr. Bay. “He doesn’t say hello. He doesn’t say, ‘Here, doggie.’ He doesn’t pet the dog. It’s like this animalistic thing between him and the dogs. They immediately respected him.”
In 2002, after a newspaper article about Mr. Millan drew dozens of producers to his door, he teamed up with two of them, Sheila Emery and Kay Sumner, whom he picked because the dogs in his pack liked them best. That pair teamed with MPH, which had made its name with other successful reality-based cable shows.
The National Geographic Channel, which had started in the United States only in 2001, was interested but didn’t want to bankroll the entire production. It ordered 26 half-hours with the caveat that MPH provide deficit financing to get the show on the air — what Mr. Milio said eventually amounted to “a low seven-figure investment.” The upside was that MPH and Emery/Sumner retained copyrights to the show.
The channel, a joint venture of the National Geographic Society and Fox Cable Networks, controls television distribution in the United States and Canada. MPH and Emery/Sumner control worldwide home video and foreign sales and share that revenue with the channel. Mr. Millan takes a big slice of that same pie.
“His profit definition is the same as our profit definition,” Mr. Milio says. “We’re not doing the studio thing where we’re taking off 25 percent overhead and then interest on the money and all that stuff. He’s got a really great deal.”
Mr. Millan calls the deal, which he agreed to on instinct, a blessing. “The goal that God and I have together is the whole world transformed through a dog. God was my lawyer,” he says. “And so he’s going to bring you great people, and those great people are going to give you your fair share without you asking.”
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Mr. Milio also gives the National Geographic Channel credit for taking the initial plunge. “TV runs on fear,” he says. “No one gets fired for saying no and having it become a hit two years down the road someplace else. They get fired when they say yes and it tanks.”
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The show premiered in 2004, and its audience grew slowly, by word of mouth. That first season, it wasn’t in prime time and the channel did little to market it. But Mr. Millan was magnetic. “I’ve been in the business 30-some years,” says Mr. Milio, “and I’ve met three people who had that kind of magic. One was Jacques Cousteau. One was Jim Henson. And the third is Cesar.”
In Season 2, the show expanded to an hour and moved into prime time. That’s when things started to take off.
NOT everyone agrees with Mr. Millan’s methods. “Positivist” trainers like Ian Dunbar reject the idea that a submissive dog is a happy dog. Mr. Dunbar advocates treating dogs as companions, not followers. While Mr. Millan uses his hand like a mother dog uses her mouth — to nudge dogs to behave — Mr. Dunbar shuns physical corrections and relies instead on treats and rewards.
To each his own, says Mr. Millan, whose favored “tsst!” sound is a correction heard around the world. “It’s just that I think I know something you might not know,” he says. “An open-minded human can learn from anybody.”
Soon, more humans will be able to learn from him. This summer, after a special 100th episode (and a third Emmy nomination for Mr. Millan), the National Geographic Channel struck a deal with Fox to syndicate “Dog Whisperer” next fall. That means 50 million or so of the nation’s 120 million households that might not know him will get their chance to meet El Perrero.
“Here in America, the dogs take over,” says Mr. Millan, and he doesn’t have to look far for evidence. Ms. Winfrey did an episode of her show with Mr. Millan in which she outed herself for loving her dog Sophie “like I gave birth myself.” She called her dogs “little people with fur,” until Mr. Millan told her this might be “good therapy for the mankind, but not for the dog kind.”
Mr. Millan says Mr. Eisner, whose home he visited for a private consultation, told him there was no way his German shepherd would get on a treadmill. “I said, ‘Well, sir, that’s your opinion.’ In less than three minutes, the dog was on the treadmill,” he recalls.
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Mr. Eisner was unavailable to comment, but Mr. Millan said that once the dog was on the treadmill, all the business titan could say was “amazing.” Then he just walked away. “Because you know, he can’t be wrong,” says Mr. Millan.
On another occasion, Mr. Millan spent eight Sundays in a row eating breakfast with Mr. Scott, the movie director, and his two Jack Russell terriers, Scottie and Matilda. “When you can actually direct 2,000 people in a movie called ‘Gladiator,’ that makes you a very powerful man,” says Mr. Millan. “But two Jack Russells controlled this man.”
So how did the Dog Whisperer help? Mr. Millan attributes his success with the terriers to “patience, and sitting down and enjoying his cigar habit and waiting until he is in a zone,” he adds of Mr. Scott, who declined to comment. (A representative confirmed Mr. Millan’s account but says the director does not smoke cigars.)
“They get into zones, all these powerful people,” Mr. Millan said. “And they give you 10 minutes to listen to you.” Of course, by this point, he was charging handsomely for his time — $10,000 to $100,000 for a private consultation, which he usually donates to his foundation.
“What I learned about wealthy, wealthy, wealthy people is money talks. So you charge them a lot of money; you speak their language,” he says. “I don’t mind. I’m very happy with $100,000. Really. They really pay attention.”
ON a recent hot September day, Mr. Millan is standing outside his trailer in a San Fernando Valley suburb. On a break before shooting an episode about Spike, a year-old husky with a penchant for eating pool furniture, Mr. Millan speaks gratefully about the opportunities America has given him, and how he is determined to give back.
But when it’s suggested that Mr. Millan — trim in a white T-shirt, black track pants with red racing stripes and a big diamond in his left ear — now has more money and material things than he could ever have imagined growing up, he calmly, assertively objects.
“No, I want a plane,” he corrects. “Because people want to meet my 10 dogs, and I don’t want to put them in cargo. I just want them to ride comfortably, temperature adjusted, water when they need it. It’s not a luxury. It’s a necessity, you know, from a dog perspective.”
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Despite his success, he says he never forgets that being a true pack leader means taking care of others, not just yourself. “Sacrifice is a must in any relationship. Animals are not selfish,” he says. He and his wife finance numerous efforts to promote animal health. Their Shelter Stars program provides educational materials to people who adopt pets; they also sponsor a spay-and-neuter campaign and have teamed up with Yale to develop “Mutt-i-grees,” a curriculum based on Mr. Millan’s teachings. The goal is to foster empathy in young children. And, if he has his way, someday every state will have a taxpayer-supported dog rehabilitation center.
Mr. Milio recalls how, at the end of the show’s first season, he teased Mr. Millan at the wrap party about his growing stardom. “If you get famous, you can’t, you know, ask for a bigger trailer and become this difficult guy and throw stuff,” Mr. Milio said.
Mr. Millan nodded, looking, as usual, utterly unworried. “The dogs won’t let me be unstable,” he replied. “If I’m unstable, they won’t follow me. And then, I’m in big trouble.”A Secret Service agent assigned to protect former President Bill Clinton performed "network assessments" and information technology troubleshooting for the Clinton Foundation and also provided research on security issues for Bill and Hillary Clinton's email server in Chappaqua, New York. These revelations are included in FBI interview transcripts released Monday.
Although the time period the agent (whose identity is redacted) was assigned to Bill Clinton's detail is redacted, as well as the dates the agent worked for the Clinton Foundation, "he... assisted the Clinton Foundation in a case related to theft of information on the Clinton Foundation Information systems." Yet while Reuters reported in August that the Clinton Foundation was concerned about possible hacking this year, there are no other media reports in prior years regarding stolen information from Foundation computers. The Clinton Foundation did not respond to a request for more information about the work conducted by the Secret Service agent.
During his interview with the FBI, the Secret Service agent also related that he was contacted by Justin Cooper, a long-time senior advisor of Bill Clinton who helped set up the server at the Clintons' home in Chappaqua, to assist with email security. The agent said he simply researched information on the topic which he then, per Cooper's instructions, passed along to Bryan Pagliano, the State Department employee and former Hillary Clinton campaign staffer who was largely responsible for setting up the server for the Clintons.
Pagliano himself was given immunity by the Justice Department for his testimony to the FBI but has asserted his Fifth Amendment rights when asked to testify before Congress. The Hillary Clinton campaign did not respond to a request for further information on the agent's part in helping the Clinton's with security on their server.
Below is the relevant portion of the FBI transcript containing the agent's testimony:
Cathy Milhoan, Director of Communications for the U.S. Secret Service, did not have an immediate answer on details regarding the agent's work for the Clintons and the Clinton Foundation, or the Secret Service's response to the circumstances as they played out. This story will be updated when further information is available.Spread the love
Marysville, CA – Convicted child molester and former police officer Jared Tomlinson got off easy with a sentence of two years and four months back in June, because he had the help of other officers during his trial. This Tuesday, Chief Aaron Easton of the Marysville Police Department announced that seven officers were recently disciplined for helping Tomlinson get a lighter sentence.
“There were some sworn police officers. There were some professional staff with the department, and they were all people who knew the individual personally,” Easton admitted when the investigation began.
“So there’s no question of collusion, or that we’re covering up anyone of our own, and that we had full transparency, we thought it was important to use an independent group to look into the matter,” Easton said.
Tomlinson was found guilty of repeatedly molesting a young boy over the course of many years. The boy’s family trusted Tomlinson, and his crimes were never revealed until the boy grew older and came forward about what happened.
After Tomlinson was convicted, other cops at the department, including high-ranking officers actually wrote letters to the Butte County Superior Court asking for them to give him leniency in their sentencing.
One of the letters read, “Since Jared is a friend it is difficult for me to be impartial; however I do not feel the allegations made and subsequent conviction were just. But since the jury has made their decision and a sentence must be imposed, I would humbly submit a request for leniency.”
According to this week’s announcement, one officer was demoted, while others were given unpaid suspension and “written letters of reprimand in their permanent personnel files.”
However, the names of the officer’s are sealed and will not be released because they are protected by state law.
John Vibes is an author, researcher and investigative journalist who takes a special interest in the counter-culture and the drug war. In addition to his writing and activist work, he organizes a number of large events including the Free Your Mind Conference, which features top caliber speakers and whistle-blowers from all over the world. You can contact him and stay connected to his work at his Facebook page. You can find his 65 chapter Book entitled “Alchemy of the Timeless Renaissance” at bookpatch.com.7 Forgotten Atari Jaguar Classics Explore overlooked gems from an underrated 1990s platform. PCMag reviews products independently, but we may earn affiliate commissions from buying links on this page. Terms of use 7
I was a huge Atari fan as a kid. I grew up with an Atari 800 home computer as my first game machine before the great video game crash swept away Atari's fortunes. After the Nintendo Entertainment System re-ignited the American video game market in 1986, I was left wondering: Does anyone remember Atari?
Much to my excitement, I began following news from Atari on CompuServe in the early 1990s, and I heard rumors of a brand new Atari console in development called the "Panther." That project fell through, but a higher-powered console called the Jaguar came to the fore.
(For more, check out The Golden Age of Atari Home Computers and The Forgotten Early Atari Consoles.)
Atari Corporation released the Jaguar on November 23, 1993, and I was ecstatic—I received one as a gift for my birthday in 1994 and proceeded to buy and play some of the best games for the system, including Doom, Alien vs. Predator, Tempest 2000, and Rayman.
Among those highly acclaimed titles, I also purchased more than a few horrible games—there were plenty. But over its short three-year lifespan, the Jaguar played host to a number of good games that were overlooked due to the console's lackluster reputation. In the slides ahead, we'll take a look at seven underrated and mostly forgotten Atari Jaguar gaming classics.Controversy over historiography in Japan
Japanese history textbook controversies involve controversial content in one of the government-approved history textbooks used in the secondary education (junior high schools and senior high schools) of Japan. The controversies primarily concern the Japanese nationalist efforts to whitewash the actions of the Empire of Japan during World War II.[1][2]
Another serious issue is the constitutionality of the governmentally-approved textbook depictions of World War II, Japanese war crimes, and Japanese imperialism during the first half of the 20th century. The history textbook controversies have been an issue of deep concern both domestically and internationally, particularly in countries which were victims of Imperial Japan during the war.
Despite the efforts of the nationalist textbook reformers, by the late 1990s the most common Japanese schoolbooks contained references to, for instance, the Nanjing Massacre, Unit 731, and the comfort women of World War II,[2] all historical issues which have faced challenges from ultranationalists in the past.[3] The most recent of the controversial textbooks, the New History Textbook, published in 2000, which significantly downplays Japanese aggression, was shunned by nearly all of Japan's school districts.[2]
Textbook authorization system [ edit ]
School textbooks in Japan are not written by the Ministry of Education. Instead, the textbooks for all subjects in elementary, and both lower and upper secondary schools are written and published by several major private companies. This system was introduced to Japan after World War II to avoid government having direct authority over the written contents. Japan's School Education Law (教育基本法) requires schools to use textbooks that are authorized by the Ministry of Education (MEXT). However, each local education board has the final authority to select which textbooks can be used in their jurisdiction from the approved list.
In Japan, potential school textbooks must pass a sequence of evaluations before receiving approval to be used in Japanese schools. First, textbook companies submit a draft of their proposed textbooks to the Japanese Ministry of Education. The Textbook Authorization and Research Council (教科用図書検定調査審議会), an official council of the Ministry of Education, composed of university professors, junior high teachers, checks the draft in accordance with the Ministry's educational curriculum guidelines (学習指導要領) to ensure that the contents of the proposed textbook is "objective, impartial, and free from errors." The Ministry of Education will give the company that authored the textbook the opportunity to revise the draft when it is found to contain information that is inconsistent with national guidelines. Once the textbook revisions are complete and the textbook has received the approval of the Ministry of Education, Local Boards of Education select books from a list of authorized textbooks for schools under their jurisdiction. The process of textbook authorization is ongoing and conducted every four years, the results of which are presented to the public the following year.
Critics claim that the government textbook authorization system has been used to reject textbooks that depict Imperial Japan in a negative light. This includes a case in the 1960s where a description of the Nanking Massacre and other war crimes committed by the Japanese military before and during World War II was rejected by the Ministry of Education. The author sued the Ministry, finally winning the case decades later. Recent controversy focuses on the approval of a history textbook published by the Japanese Society for History Textbook Reform, which placed emphasis on the achievements of pre–World War II Imperial Japan, as well as a reference to the Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere with fewer critical comments compared to the other Japanese history textbooks. Historian Stephen E. Ambrose noted that "The Japanese presentation of the war to its children runs something like this: 'One day, for no reason we ever understood, the Americans started dropping atomic bombs on us.'"[4]
Defenders of the system counter that a book which fails to mention specific negative facts regarding the aggression and atrocities committed by Japan during World War II would also fail the Ministry of Education's approval process. During the approval process for the aforementioned history textbook by the Japanese Society for History Textbook Reform, the author was ordered to revise the book's content several times before receiving final approval. Moreover, during the Cold War, the Ministry rejected textbooks by left-leaning publishers which attempted to portray the Soviet Union, Mainland China, North Korea and other Communist countries in a positive light. Defenders also point out that during the 1960s and 1970s, the extent of the atrocities, as well as the existence of many of the incidents, were still being debated by Japanese historians; therefore, the Ministry of Education was correct in rejecting references to specific atrocities such as the Nanking Massacre during that era, but the Ministry finally insisted on the inclusion of those same incidents after Japanese historians had finally reached consensus during the 1990s. They also point out that, North and South Korea, as well as China, which happen to be the most outspoken critics of the Japanese textbook approval process, do not allow private publishing companies to write history textbooks for their schools. Instead, the governments of those countries write a single history textbook for all of their schools. In the case of South Korea, the government strictly examines textbooks from different companies before being publicized. Critics of Chinese and Korean textbooks also argue that the textbooks of those countries are far more politically censored and self-favoring than Japanese textbooks.[5][6][7][8][9][10]
Today there are 30 unique textbooks for Social Studies (社会, Shakai), from 5 different publishers, in Japanese primary schools. Additionally, there are 8 unique textbooks for the study of history as part of the Japanese Social Studies curriculum (社会-歴史的分野, Shakai-Rekishi teki bunya), from 8 different publishers, for junior high schools. In Japanese high schools, the number of available options is much greater, with 50 unique textbook editions available for teaching Japanese, and world history.
Textbook screening [ edit ]
The current textbook authorization system began in 1947 under the direction of the U.S.-led Supreme Commander, Allied Powers (SCAP) authority during Japan's post–World War II occupation. SCAP ordered the provisional government of Japan to end the system of government-designated textbooks (国定教科書, Kokutei Kyōkasho) and allow scholars in the private sector to write textbooks. Local educators would then choose which textbooks to use at their schools. Descriptions that promoted militarism and ultranationalism were eliminated, and the new idea to promote the dignity of the individual (個人の尊厳) was introduced. The New School Education Law states that while the government sets a curriculum guideline, it is not meant to establish a fixed, uniform line for all educators to observe, like in the old militarist days, but rather to help educators to creatively adapt the curriculum to the new demands of children and society in general.[citation needed]
Major controversies [ edit ]
Tokushi Kasahara identifies three time periods in postwar Japan during which he asserts the Japanese government has "waged critical challenges to history textbooks in attempts to tone down or delete descriptions of Japan's wartime aggression, especially atrocities such as the Nanjing Massacre." The first challenge occurred in 1955, and the second took place in the early 1980s. The third began in 1997 and continues unresolved to this day.[11]
"Ureubeki Kyōkasho" issue (1955) [ edit ]
At the general election of February 1955, the Japan Democratic Party proposed an idea that whilst editing of school textbooks might be left to the private sector, the government ought to supervise them and limit the kinds of textbooks to about two for each subject by tightening the authorization, so that the textbooks in effect would be equivalent to government-designated textbooks.
At the Special Committee on Administrative Inspection of the House of Representatives in July of the same year, Kazutomo Ishii (石井一朝) of the Democratic Party of Japan suggested that textbooks were about to be published that could overthrow the principle of the education of Japan. He characterized these textbooks as:
Intentionally and unwarrantably depicting the life of the working class of Japan as extremely horrible, so that it seems to be a product of the defects of the social system and of the self-contradiction of capitalism.
Extolling the Soviet Union and the Republic of China (the People's Republic of China was not officially recognized at the time) very emphatically and seeming to suggest that Japan should be subservient to them.
In addition, from August to October of the same year, the Japan Democratic Party published three volumes of booklets entitled "Ureubeki Kyōkasho" (うれうべき教科書, deplorable textbooks). The first volume listed four types of bias as "examples of biased education that appeared in textbooks":
Ones that unconditionally support the labor union of teachers and the Japan Teachers Union, and advance their political activities: Miyahara Seiichi ( 宮原誠一 ) ed., social studies textbook for high school, Ippan Shakai ( 一般社会 ), published from Jikkyo Shuppan ( 実教出版 ).
) ed., social studies textbook for high school, ( ), published from Jikkyo Shuppan ( ). Ones that hype how horrible the predicament of the Japanese workers are, and thereby advances a radical and destructive labor movement: Munakata Seiya ( 宗像誠也 ) ed., social studies textbook for junior high school, Shakai no Shikumi ( 社会のしくみ ), published from Kyōiku Shuppan ( 教育出版 ).
) ed., social studies textbook for junior high school, ( ), published from Kyōiku Shuppan ( ). Ones that particularly glorify and extol the Soviet Union and the Republic of China, and castigate Japan: Sugo Hiroshi ( 周郷博 ) ed., social studies textbook for 6th grade, Akarui Shakai ( あかるい社会 ), published from Chuukyō Shuppan ( 中教出版 ).
) ed., social studies textbook for 6th grade, ( ), published from Chuukyō Shuppan ( ). Ones that instill children with Marxist–Leninist, i.e. communist ideas: Osada Arata ( 長田新 ) ed., social studies textbook for junior high school, Mohan Chuugaku Shakai ( 模範中学社会 ), published from Jikkyō Shuppan ( 実教出版 ).
The Japan Democratic Party condemned these textbooks as biased "red textbooks" (赤い教科書). In response to this, the authors and editors of the listed textbooks made various public statements and protest notes. However, the Japan Democratic Party did not reply. Since this incident a greater number of textbooks had been rejected as being biased (偏向).
The changes resulted in one-third of pre-existing textbooks being banned from Japanese schools. The Ministry of Education required that new textbooks avoid criticism of Japanese involvement in the Pacific War, and avoid mention of the Japanese invasion of China and involvement in the Second Sino-Japanese War at all.[12]
"Section F" purge [ edit ]
Textbook screening in 1956, right after a change of the members of Textbook Authorization Research Council (教科用図書検定調査審議会) in September of the previous year, failed six drafts of textbooks, a significantly greater number than before.[citation needed] The evaluations of drafts by the Council had been noted by five letters from A to E, each representing the evaluation of a member in the Council. At 1955's screening, however, there was an additional section F that was considered responsible for the rejection of all the six drafts. Over this incident professor Iwao Takayama (高山岩男) of Nihon University who newly joined the Council was suspected be the writer of section F, and the news media reported the incident as the "Section F purge" (Ｆ項パージ, "F-ko paaji").
Ienaga v. Japan (1965–1997) [ edit ]
Saburo Ienaga was a Japanese historian known partly for his involvement in controversies regarding school history textbooks. In 1953, the Japanese Ministry of Education published a textbook by Ienaga but censored what they said were factual errors and matters of opinion, regarding Japanese war crimes. Ienaga undertook a series of lawsuits against the Ministry for violation of his freedom of speech. He was nominated for the 2001 Nobel Peace Prize by Noam Chomsky among others.[13][14]
Neighboring Country Clause [ edit ]
On June 26, 1982, the Japanese textbook authorization system became a major diplomatic issue for the first time when Asahi Shimbun reported that the Ministry of Education demanded a textbook, which stated that the Japanese army invaded (侵略) Northern China, be rewritten using the phrase "advanced (進出) into" instead of invaded. Having heard this news the Chinese government strongly protested to the Japanese government. In response, on August 26, 1982, Kiichi Miyazawa, then the Chief Cabinet Secretary of Japan, made the following statement:
The Japanese Government and the Japanese people are deeply aware of the fact that acts by our country in the past caused tremendous suffering and damage to the peoples of Asian countries, including the Republic of Korea (ROK) and China, and have followed the path of a pacifist state with remorse and determination that such acts must never be repeated. Japan has recognized, in the Japan-ROK Joint Communiqué of 1965, that the "past relations are regrettable, and Japan feels deep remorse," and in the Japan-China Joint Communiqué, that Japan is "keenly conscious of the responsibility for the serious damage that Japan caused in the past to the Chinese people through war and deeply reproaches itself." These statements confirm Japan's remorse and determination which I stated above and this recognition has not changed at all to this day. This spirit in the Japan-ROK Joint Communiqué and the Japan-China Joint Communiqué naturally should also be respected in Japan's school education and textbook authorization. Recently, however, the Republic of Korea, China, and others have been criticizing some descriptions in Japanese textbooks. From the perspective of building friendship and goodwill with neighboring countries, Japan will pay due attention to these criticisms and make corrections at the Government's responsibility. To this end, in relation to future authorization of textbooks, the Government will revise the Guideline for Textbook Authorization after discussions in the Textbook Authorization and Research Council and give due consideration to the effect mentioned above. Regarding textbooks that have already been authorized, Government will take steps quickly to the same effect. As measures until then, the Minister of Education, Sports, Science and Culture will express his views and make sure that the idea mentioned in 2. Above is duly reflected in the places of education. Japan intends to continue to make efforts to promote mutual understanding and develop friendly and cooperative relations with neighboring countries and to contribute to the peace and stability of Asia and, in turn, of the world.[15]
Despite the widespread attention that the issue received in both the Japanese and international media, investigations done in September 1982 reveal that the alleged change never actually took place, that the ministry of education did not even make a recommendation for the change, and that the entire incident was caused by hasty and inaccurate reporting by a small group of journalists assigned to cover the Ministry of Education.[16]
In November 1982 the Ministry of Education adopted a new authorization criterion, the so-called "Neighboring Country Clause" (近隣諸国条項): Textbooks ought to show understanding and seek international harmony in their treatment of modern and contemporary historical events involving neighboring Asian countries (近隣のアジア諸国との間の近現代の歴史的事象の扱いに国際理解 |
the conflict."
Once we've deepened our understanding of religious violence, Rabbi Sacks urges everyone - regardless of religious belief - to take action.
"The truest faith is protest at the evil and the violence and the injustice in the world. And therefore to be religious is to right those wrongs."
Rabbi Sacks has a degree in philosophy from the University of Cambridge, an MA from Oxford, a PhD from King's College London, and he holds fifteen honorary degrees. He was knighted by the Queen in 2005 and is a member of the House of Lords.
Rabbi Sacks is a curious blend of the very old and the new. He says keeping the Sabbath used to mark freedom from the Pharaoh; now, observing a day of rest means freedom from your smart phone. On one of the other six days of the week, you can check out the Rabbi's podcast.Hull-Oakes Lumber may be the last steam-powered commercial saw mill in the country, and they’re one of the few mills capable of cutting large timbers up to 85 ft. long. The mill has been on the National Register of Historic Places since 1996. Large long timbers are still used in railroad trestles, the restoration of historic structures, and for the spars and masts of ships. By coincidence, the day I arrived the mill was cutting an 80-ft. long timber for the restoration of the C.A. Thayer, an early 20th century three-masted schooner used to transport lumber along the West Coast.
In 1934 Ralph Hull went into the sawmill business by leasing a mill which had been closed since the beginning of the Depression. Hull started building a plant on the current site in 1938. Right up until he passed away, in May 2002, he continued to check in on operations, but his grandson, Todd Nystrom, now runs the mill, located about fifteen miles south of Corvallis, OR.
Operation of the Mill
Trucks arrive loaded with logs.
The waggoner, a log-handling machine, grabs the logs before the binders are released, then lifts the logs clear of the truck.
The truck pulls out…
and the waggoner drops the logs over the log brow…
into the log pond.
Then the truck backs up under the A-frame hoist, the driver releases the trailer… and the trailer is hoisted “piggy back” onto the truck.
The waggoner operator also doubles as the “pond monkey.” Back in the early 20th century, a pond man walked the logs in the pond, arranging them with a pikepole and stacking them at the log lift. But today, a pond boat quickly shuffles the logs, picking and ordering them at the base of the lift, so the boat operator is often called a “pond bronc.”
The bark that accumulates in the pond is lifted on a conveyor up to the mill, where it’s transported to the chipper. All debris goes to the chipper.
Once the logs are ordered and ready to be lifted, the boat operator goes back to off-load another truck of logs.
The log-lift hoists the logs individually out of the pond… and drops them into a chain-driven conveyor, called the “long transfer,” which transports the logs through…
the barker, where the bark is stripped off and conveyed to the chipper.
The logs continue on the conveyor to the “short transfer,” or log table, where they stack up. The sprocket-and-chain-operated table moves the logs individually to the log cradle (see photo, below) which holds each log in preparation for a short tumble down to the log deck and the log turner.
The log turner lifts, rolls, and shoves each log onto the carriage. The heavy steel arms—operated by steam cylinders—can throw a six-foot diameter, eighty-foot-long log. At the extreme right side of the photograph (below), the next log is held by the cradle.
This 80-ft. log (see photo, right) is carefully rolled and positioned in the carriage prior to making the first cut. All the cutting operations are powered by steam.
Now the log has been rotated to minimize waste. The first cut removes mostly wane—the round and bark-covered edge of the log.
The off-bearer (right side of photo, below) secures the fall-off until the log clears the blade, though large logs require more help. Here the ratchet setter lends a hand, too.
The carriage rides on tracks, like a railroad car. The movement of the carriage is controlled by the sawyer. The sawyer looks at his order board then motions to the rachet setter, who operates the carriage, racheting the log closer or farther from the blade. Hand signals are the only way to communicate with all the thunderous noise. Everyone wears ear protection.
The sawyer and the rachet setter must be sharp and quick, as the carriage moves the log past the blade quickly. Two fingers means the log must be moved out for a two-inch cut; a fist or a connected finger and thumb followed by four fingers means a 14-in. cut. In this way, the rachet setter knows that the carraige must be returned to the log turner so the log can be rotated before the next cut.
The Sawyer controls the movement of the carriage with the wooden-handled lever on the left, while simulataneously controlling log-loading and log-turning with the control on the right. The control on the right also operates the “short transfer” chain conveyor and the log cradle.
The rachet-setter is seated behind controls that operate the movement of the log on the carriage, and controls that secure the log to the carriage.
This log now lies flat on a clean cut, ready for another pass through the band mill, which squares the timber in preparation for making a new mast for the C.A. Thayer. The mast is so long that transporting the log required a truck-and-trailor with stearable rear wheels. The finished timber will be transported by barge to the ship restoration project in San Francisco.
The off-bearer works right beside the blade, as the mill squares up the timber.
The off-bearer relies on an assortment of tools to help move both slabs and sawdust away from the headrig.
Long timbers become a hands-on operation when they’ve developed a slight bow.
Hull-Oakes specializes in cutting long logs and big ones, too, over 6-ft. in diameter.
The off-bearer guides the second cut onto the rollers, and helps pivot the slab slightly. Gravity does the rest.
The slab is shoved tight against the straight-edge fence of the edger table before going through the edger.
The edger cuts wide slabs… into narrower beams and boards.
All of the fall off—the bark, the wane and waste—goes into the wood chipper. Some of the resulting material is used to fire the boilers, but most of the chips are shipped to Toledo, a nearby paper company.
After cross-cutting for length, timbers and beams are hoisted to a pallet, loaded on a lumber carrier, and stacked for shipment.
The Headrig
The over-sized bandsaw blade runs around two wheels in the headrig. The headrig includes the blade, pulleys, and protective housing.
The blade is removed for sharpening every two hours. The doors on the blade housing swing open and a carraige moves the blade off the pulleys… then lowers the blade to the ground. The saw filer, with assistance, guides the blade onto a long dolly.
It only takes two men to position the blade…
in several careful steps…
into the sharpening station.
The carborundum grinder must be dressed before sharpening each blade, then the saw filer calibrates the machine for the stone, adjusts the travelers, and starts the machine, which… runs automatically.
Though the saw filer still has to keep an eye on the process.
The shark-size teeth on this blade are a little larger than those found on most band-saw blades. This old boiler, now used to store water, has the doors removed, revealing the inner tubing.
The heat from the fire below circulates through the tubes, boiling the water within the tank.
The fires are fueled by a mixture of sawdust, planer dust, and bark,
transported on conveyor belts from the mill, and fed into the furnaces. Two boilers supply steam to the steam engines.
The headrig, carriage, edger, and log-table are powered by steam engines. The main engine, an Ames twin-cylinder, built in 1906 and still operating, powers the headrig and edger. A second steam engine powers the carriage, which is drawn back and forth on its tracks by a cable-and-pulley system.
The steam engines have fewer breakdowns than any other equipment at the mill. The larger engine has two 16-in. cylinders, an 18-in. stroke, and the pulley is 8 ft. in diameter. The engine is 13 ft. long and 10 ft. 5 in. wide.
But it’s an assortment of chains…
and gears that provide the fine tuning power of this mill.
In this photo, Bill Oakes adjusts the steam pressure feeding the engines. Bill’s family, like many employees at the mill, has a long history of working at the mill: his father, Ken Oakes, felled timber in the logging woods for forty years, providing logs for the mill. Ken retired at the age of 71 and passed away in September 2001 in his 90th year. Today, Bill’s grandson pulls and sorts lumber at Hull-Oakes.
The operation of the mill is dependent upon the millwrights, who repair everything from hydraulic lines, to steam engines, to boilers.
The millwrights have to know every inch of the plant, and how to operate nearly every aspect of the mill.
(This article originally appeared on GaryMKatz.com)0 of 10
USA TODAY Sports
You can bet, like most people, the players on the Oakland A's have New Year's resolutions for 2015.
During the week of Christmas, I asked A's fans what would be on their wish list. This week I'll keep the holiday spirit alive and venture a guess as to what many of the A's starters' New Year's resolutions might be, specifically pertaining to the 2015 baseball season.
Of course there are a few disclaimers to mention.
First, the following list is made up by me. The resolutions on this list were not provided by the player unless otherwise specifically stated. As such, take them lightly and enjoy.
Lastly, because many resolutions could be similar for a few guys, I combined them to save you a slide.
You're welcome. And Happy New Year!Hemp fibers are probably something you associate more with ropes, sacks and baggy ethnic clothing than with luxury cars. But in a report on BMW’s new electric car, the i3, Bloomberg notes in passing that the car maker will line the door panels with hemp, as part of an interior design apparently aimed at making the i3’s drivers feel closer to nature and less likely to drain the battery in a speed-freak fit.
Companies have been using the organic raw material, which is made from the marijuana plant (usually with the cannabinoids stripped out), for decades. The Hemp Research Association estimates that the retail value in the US of hemp products came to $500m in 2012, even though the US remains the only industrialized country in which it’s illegal, except in two states, to grow even the drug-free form of hemp.
And while it hasn’t lost its hippie associations, hemp has been taken up by a number of fashion brands. Giorgio Armani started using hemp in an Emporio Armani collection in 1995, while Ralph Lauren makes hemp floor rugs. In 2010, Burberry designed a suit for actor Woody Harrelson out of hemp, and a Canadian company, CRAiLAR, tried to commercialize a process for developing softer materials from hemp fibers. (It ultimately decided to shift its attention to flax, due partly to the US’s hemp-growing ban.)
But it’s not just fashion designers who have been using hemp. At the end of last month the US Congressional Research Service published a paper by Renée Johnson, an agricultural policy specialist, entitled Hemp as an Agricultural Commodity (pdf), which says:
Some estimate that the global market for hemp consists of more than 25,000 products in nine submarkets: agriculture; textiles; recycling; automotive; furniture; food/nutrition/beverages; paper; construction materials; and personal care. For construction materials, such as hempcrete (a mixture of hemp hurds and lime products), hemp is used as a lightweight insulating material.
Hemp has been used in cars for some time, and not just for the door panels. Students at the University of Warwick even developed a race car in 2007 whose outer shell was made from hemp. James Meredith and his team believe that hemp can replace carbon fiber as a light-weight material for a car body. Perhaps BMW can think about that for its next electric car.Q. How do I configure PHP as FastCGI under FreeBSD Nginx webserver?
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A. You can easily configure php as FastCGI application under Nginx for performance. You need following components:
[a] spawn-fcgi binary – For spawning a FastCGI process. This binary can be installed from Lighttpd webserver project. Nginx does not automatically spawn FCGI processes. You must start them separately using spawn-fcgi.
[b] start.php.sh : A shell script to stop / start / restart php fastcgi process. This script swap php process on 127.0.0.1 IP and 9000 port. Once backend is started Nginx can be configured to connect to PHP.
FreeBSD Install PHP5
If php5 is not installed type the following commands (make sure you select FastCGI option):
# cd /usr/ports/lang/php5
# make config
# make install clean
Also installed required php extensions such as php-msyql, php-gd and so on:
# cp /usr/local/etc/php.ini-recommended /usr/local/etc/php.ini
# cd /usr/ports/lang/php5-extensions/
# make install clean
Install spawn-fcgi
Grab latest spawn-fcgi from another Lighttpd installation or just install it as follows:
# pkg_add -r -v lighttpd
Sample output:
scheme: [ftp] user: [] password: [] host: [ftp.freebsd.org] port: [0] document: [/pub/FreeBSD/ports/amd64/packages-7.0-release/Latest/lighttpd.tbz] ---> ftp.freebsd.org:21 looking up ftp.freebsd.org connecting to ftp.freebsd.org:21 <<< 220 Welcome to freebsd.isc.org. >>> USER anonymous <<< 331 Please specify the password........... x lib/lighttpd/mod_access.so x lib/lighttpd/mod_accesslog.a x lib/lighttpd/mod_accesslog.la x lib/lighttpd/mod_accesslog.so x lib/lighttpd/mod_alias.a x lib/lighttpd/mod_alias.la x lib/lighttpd/mod_alias.so x lib/lighttpd/mod_auth.a x lib/lighttpd/mod_auth.la.......
Now you can use /usr/local/bin/spawn-fcgi to swap process. If you want you can copy /usr/local/bin/spawn-fcgi to /root or other directory and just delete lighttpd package by typing the following commands:
# cp /usr/local/bin/spawn-fcgi /root/
# pkg_delete -v lighttpd-1.4.18_1
# cp /root/spawn-fcgi /usr/local/bin/spawn-fcgi
Now you can start PHP Fastcgi from command line as follows:
# /usr/local/bin/spawn-fcgi -a 127.0.0.1 -p 9000 -u www -g www -f /usr/local/bin/php-cgi
Where,
-a 127.0.0.1 : PHP FastCGI bind IP address, where Nginx will connect.
: PHP FastCGI bind IP address, where Nginx will connect. -p 9000 : PHP FastCGI port number, where Nginx will connect.
: PHP FastCGI port number, where Nginx will connect. -u www : PHP FastCGI username.
: PHP FastCGI username. -g www : PHP FastCGI groupname.
: PHP FastCGI groupname. -f /usr/local/bin/php-cgi : Path to PHP5 fastcgi binary.
Verify that php running as FastCGI, enter:
# sockstat -4 | grep 9000
Sample Output:
www php-cgi 8998 0 tcp4 127.0.0.1:9000 *:* www php-cgi 8997 0 tcp4 127.0.0.1:9000 *:* www php-cgi 8996 0 tcp4 127.0.0.1:9000 *:* www php-cgi 8995 0 tcp4 127.0.0.1:9000 *:* www php-cgi 8994 0 tcp4 127.0.0.1:9000 *:* www php-cgi 8993 0 tcp4 127.0.0.1:9000 *:*
#!/bin/sh # NGINX FastCGI php5 startup shell script # Feedback <vivek@nixcraft.com> # http://bash.cyberciti.biz/web-server/fastcgi-php-server-start-stop-script/ # Set ME # PROVIDES =php-cgi LIGHTTPD_FCGI = / usr / local / bin / spawn-fcgi SERVER_IP =127.0.0.1 SERVER_PORT = 9000 SERVER_USER =www SERVER_GROUP =www PHP_CGI = / usr / local / bin / php-cgi PGREP = / bin / pgrep KILLALL = / usr / bin / killall ### No editing below #### cmd = $1 pcgi_start ( ) { echo "Starting $PROVIDES..." $LIGHTTPD_FCGI -a $SERVER_IP -p $SERVER_PORT -u $SERVER_USER -g $SERVER_GROUP -f $PHP_CGI } pcgi_stop ( ) { echo "Killing $PROVIDES..." $KILLALL $PROVIDES } pcgi_restart ( ) { pcgi_stop pcgi_start } pcgi_status ( ) { $PGREP $PROVIDES > / dev / null [ $? -eq 0 ] && echo " $PROVIDES running" || echo " $PROVIDES NOT running" } pcgi_help ( ) { echo "Usage: $0 {start|stop|restart|status}" } case ${cmd} in [ Ss ] [ Tt ] [ Aa ] [ Rr ] [ Tt ] ) pcgi_start ;; [ Ss ] [ Tt ] [ Oo ] [ Pp ] ) pcgi_stop ;; [ Rr ] [ Ee ] [ Ss ] [ Tt ] [ Aa ] [ Rr ] [ Tt ] ) pcgi_restart ;; [ Ss ] [ Tt ] [ Aa ] [ Tt ] [ Uu ] [ Ss ] ) pcgi_status ;; * ) pcgi_help ;; esac #!/bin/sh # NGINX FastCGI php5 startup shell script # Feedback <vivek@nixcraft.com> # http://bash.cyberciti.biz/web-server/fastcgi-php-server-start-stop-script/ # Set ME # PROVIDES=php-cgi LIGHTTPD_FCGI=/usr/local/bin/spawn-fcgi SERVER_IP=127.0.0.1 SERVER_PORT=9000 SERVER_USER=www SERVER_GROUP=www PHP_CGI=/usr/local/bin/php-cgi PGREP=/bin/pgrep KILLALL=/usr/bin/killall ### No editing below #### cmd=$1 pcgi_start(){ echo "Starting $PROVIDES..." $LIGHTTPD_FCGI -a $SERVER_IP -p $SERVER_PORT -u $SERVER_USER -g $SERVER_GROUP -f $PHP_CGI } pcgi_stop(){ echo "Killing $PROVIDES..." $KILLALL $PROVIDES } pcgi_restart(){ pcgi_stop pcgi_start } pcgi_status(){ $PGREP $PROVIDES > /dev/null [ $? -eq 0 ] && echo "$PROVIDES running" || echo "$PROVIDES NOT running" } pcgi_help(){ echo "Usage: $0 {start|stop|restart|status}" } case ${cmd} in [Ss][Tt][Aa][Rr][Tt]) pcgi_start;; [Ss][Tt][Oo][Pp]) pcgi_stop;; [Rr][Ee][Ss][Tt][Aa][Rr][Tt]) pcgi_restart;; [Ss][Tt][Aa][Tt][Uu][Ss]) pcgi_status ;; *) pcgi_help ;; esac
Install above shell script:
# cd /tmp
# fetch http://bash.cyberciti.biz/dl/251.sh.zip
# unzip 251.sh.zip
# mv 251.sh /usr/local/etc/rc.d/php.cgi.sh
# chmod +x /usr/local/etc/rc.d/php.cgi.sh
# rm 251.sh.zip
To start php FastCGI, enter:
# /usr/local/etc/rc.d/php.cgi.sh start
# sockstat -4 | less
To stop php FastCGI, enter:
# /usr/local/etc/rc.d/php.cgi.sh stop
Connect Nginx Webserver To PHP FastCGI Process
Open your ngixn.conf file, enter:
# vi /usr/local/etc/nginx/nginx.conf
Append following config directives so that Nginx can pass the PHP scripts to FastCGI server listening on 127.0.0.1:9000:
location ~ \.php$ { fastcgi_pass 127.0.0.1: 9000 ; fastcgi_index index.php; fastcgi_param SCRIPT_FILENAME /websites/example.com/http$fastcgi_script_name; include fastcgi_params; } location ~ \.php$ { fastcgi_pass 127.0.0.1:9000; fastcgi_index index.php; fastcgi_param SCRIPT_FILENAME /websites/example.com/http$fastcgi_script_name; include fastcgi_params; }
If your website is hosted at /home/www/theos.in/http, your config should look like as follows:
server { listen 80 ; server_name theos.in www.theos.in; access_log /var/log/nginx/theos.in/access.log main; location / { root /home/www/theos.in/http; index index.php index.html index.htm; } error_page 500 502 503 504 /50x.html; location = /50x.html { root /usr/local/www/nginx-dist; } # pass the PHP scripts to FastCGI server listening on 127.0.0.1: 9000 location ~ \.php$ { fastcgi_pass 127.0.0.1: 9000 ; fastcgi_index index.php; fastcgi_param SCRIPT_FILENAME /home/www/theos.in/http$fastcgi_script_name; include fastcgi_params; } location ~ /\.ht { deny all; } } server { listen 80; server_name theos.in www.theos.in; access_log /var/log/nginx/theos.in/access.log main; location / { root /home/www/theos.in/http; index index.php index.html index.htm; } error_page 500 502 503 504 /50x.html; location = /50x.html { root /usr/local/www/nginx-dist; } # pass the PHP scripts to FastCGI server listening on 127.0.0.1:9000 location ~ \.php$ { fastcgi_pass 127.0.0.1:9000; fastcgi_index index.php; fastcgi_param SCRIPT_FILENAME /home/www/theos.in/http$fastcgi_script_name; include fastcgi_params; } location ~ /\.ht { deny all; } }
# nginx -c /usr/local/etc/nginx/nginx.conf -t
# /usr/local/etc/rc.d/nginx restart
Test php with following sample script:
<?php phpinfo ( ) ;?> <?php phpinfo();?>
Share on Facebook TwitterThe man accused of firing an assault rifle inside a Washington pizza shop refused to completely dismiss the online conspiracy theory accusing the eatery of running a child sex ring that brought him there in the first place -- although he said he regretted how he handled the situation.
Edgar Maddison Welch, 28, told the New York Times in a Wednesday videoconference that the online articles he read about Comet Ping Pong pizzeria – which linked the supposed ring to Hillary Clinton – left him with the “impression something nefarious was happening” and he wanted to “really able to look into it.”
Court documents showed that Welch entered the eatery and fired an AR-15 rifle several times inside the restaurant but later exited with his hands up. He surrendered to police when he found no signs of children being held as sex slaves.
"I just wanted to do some good and went about it the wrong way," he told the newspaper.
While Welch acknowledged that his “intel” on the restaurant was not 100 percent, he refused to dismiss that what he had read online was untrue, conceding only that there were no children "inside that dwelling."
He also rejected the term “fake news” believing that it diminishes stories shared outside the mainstream media.
Welch told the newspaper he started driving to Washington from his Salisbury, N.C., home intending only to give the restaurant a "closer look." But while on the way, he said he felt his "heart breaking over the thought of innocent people suffering."
Welch would not say why he brought an AR-15 into the pizza shop and fired it, the newspaper reported.
On Thursday, a judge delayed a preliminary hearing for Welch. His public defender requested the delay, saying she needed more time to investigate the case. He will be back in court Tuesday.
Welch appears to have lived an aimless life that became turbulent in the weeks before he was drawn to the nation's capital by a fake news story.
Friends and family say he is a well-meaning father of two girls who wanted to be a firefighter. But he also unnerved some with his religious fervor and sometimes had trouble detaching himself from the internet.
In the weeks before his Washington arrest, there were other signs of turbulence. In late October, Welch struck a teenage pedestrian with his car in his hometown, requiring the boy to be airlifted to a hospital, according to a police report that said he wasn't immediately charged. More recently, days before he drove to Washington, he was dropped from the rolls of a volunteer fire department.
In past years, he was convicted of drunken driving and minor drug charges.
But the one constant, friends and family say, was his love for his two young daughters.
"He's a father and a very loving man, very concerned about children," said his aunt Tajuana Tadlock, adding: "He's not a vigilante, by no check of the words."
Tadlock said Welch's parents haven't been able to talk to him to ask what he was thinking, and the family's only information comes from the news and the public defender.
In recent years, Welch often mentioned his Christian faith. Interspersed with Facebook posts about his daughters are the registered Republican's musings on the Bible and religion.
Danielle Tillman of Raleigh said she met Welch a few months ago and has known his current girlfriend for years. She recalls Welch made her uncomfortable while talking at length about religion. At one point, he grabbed her hand and prayed, asking for "the demons to come out of me," she said.
Welch's family has roots in the Salisbury area, where his father and grandfather served in local government, according to the Salisbury Post. Friends say he attended West Rowan High School. A woman at the family's property declined to answer questions this week.
Around age 18, Welch pleaded guilty to misdemeanor drug possession charges in neighboring Cabarrus County, according to online records of the January 2007 offense.
Welch enrolled at Cape Fear Community College in Wilmington, but court records say he didn't graduate.
On a break from college in 2009, Welch was interviewed by the Salisbury Post after he made it halfway through a hike of the 500-mile Colorado Trail. He told the newspaper the hike helped him overcome an addiction to the internet.
"It's a good feeling, going solo," he told the newspaper. "There's something spiritual about it."
In April 2013, Welch was charged with impaired driving with a blood-alcohol content of.09, court records show. He pleaded guilty, was sentenced to probation and community service and underwent alcohol counseling.
Rowan County records show that after a short marriage, his wife filed for divorce in November 2014. The thin file doesn't say why they split up. The divorce complaint was dismissed in 2015 after neither attended a scheduled hearing. Documents related to his arrest say they remain separated, and his two children live with him.
Welch twice served briefly as a volunteer firefighter, and his aunt said he was recently taking classes needed to get a paying job as a firefighter.
Locke Fire Chief Rusty Alexander said Welch barely showed up at the fire station after joining in 2012, and lasted about six months.
"He tried it, and basically it wasn't for him," Alexander said.
In May 2016, Welch became a volunteer firefighter in the town of Spencer, Chief Gray Grubb said. Grubb said Welch stopped attending training sessions and didn't answer alarms, so he was removed from the active roster Nov. 30.
"When we interviewed him, he seemed like a good guy," Grubb said.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.Jaipur: Accusing BJP's chief ministerial candidate Vasundhara Raje of continuing to campaign on social media even after deadline in violation of model code of conduct, Congress today filed a complaint with the election commission seeking cancellation of her candidature.
Raje's campaigning continued on her official Facebook page even after deadline for electioneering 5 pm yesterday, Congress said in the complaint filed by spokesperson Satyendra Singh Raghav.
"She has posted one photograph and one album of Jhalrapatan and Khanpur (on Facebook) urging voters to vote in favour of BJP. This is clear violation of code of conduct," the complaint alleged, while demanding action against Raje.
Electioneering for December 1 polls in Rajasthan ended at 5 pm yesterday. Voting in 199 out of 200 assembly constituencies in the state will take place tomorrow while Churu, where the BSP candidate had died, will go on polls on December 13.
PTI
Firstpost is now on WhatsApp. For the latest analysis, commentary and news updates, sign up for our WhatsApp services. Just go to Firstpost.com/Whatsapp and hit the Subscribe button.When the Olympic Games begin next month in Rio de Janeiro, billions of people are expected to watch athletes from countries around the world compete.
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But also watching over the Olympic and Paralympic events will be a set of futuristic, balloon-mounted surveillance camera systems capable of monitoring a wide swath of the city in high resolution and in real-time. Initially developed for use by U.S. forces in Iraq and Afghanistan by Fairfax, Virginia-based Logos Technologies, the technology is sold under the name Simera, and offers live aerial views of a large area, or what the company calls “wide-area motion imagery,” captured from a balloon tethered some 200 meters above the ground. The system’s 13 cameras make it possible for operators to record detailed, 120-megapixel imagery of the movement of vehicles and pedestrians below in an area up to 40 square kilometers, depending on how high the balloon is deployed, and for up to three days at a time. The Brazil sale, which includes four systems operated under an $8 million contract, marks the first export of Simera, and the first time such as system will be deployed by a non-U.S. government at a large-scale event, the company says. “Simera was built late last year and we tested it this past February and then immediately sold four of them to Brazil,” says Doug Rombough, Logos’s vice president of business development. The system is like a live city-wide Google Maps combined with TiVo, letting authorities view ground-level activities in real time and rewind through saved images. Rombough compares Simera to a live city-wide Google Maps combined with TiVo, explaining that it lets authorities not only view ground-level activities in real time but also rewind through saved images to do things like track a suspicious vehicle–for instance, one that departs a crime scene–back to its origin. The government has announced it will deploy 47,000 security guards, 65,000 police, and 20,000 armed service personnel to patrol the Games, which have raised security concerns amid soaring crime rates in the city and a global burst in terrorist activity. Last week, Brazilian police arrested 12 people alleged to be planning an ISIS-inspired attack on the Games, which have been said to be a target discussed in jihadist chat groups. The system evolved from technologies Logos previously supplied to the Defense Department for use in combat zones, including the Constant Hawk aircraft-mounted surveillance camera system and Kestrel, a similar balloon-mounted sensor system that’s been used in Afghanistan to monitor activity near about a dozen U.S. bases.
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There, the company says the technology helped U.S. troops monitor potentially threatening activity as it evolved over days, enabling officials, for instance, to track the movement of suspicious vehicles in the vicinity of an attack. But as Logos’s technology continues to evolve and become easier and cheaper to deploy in civilian scenarios, it’s likely to raise more questions about the appropriate balance between security and privacy. Over time, the company’s sensor systems have become lighter and easier to deploy: Early Constant Hawk systems weighed about 1,500 pounds, Kestrel units weighed around 150 pounds, and Simera systems just 40 pounds, expanding the range of aircraft that can carry the devices. Including the ground-based equipment necessary to control and monitor the cameras, the Simera system—which generally costs $500,000 to $900,000 per unit, depending on features— can be transported in a single vehicle and put into an operation in under three hours, according to Logos. And as the company’s systems have gotten lighter in weight and easier to deploy, the range of potential use cases has expanded. In addition to policing large events and patrolling borders and ports, the company hopes its system could prove useful in supporting humanitarian assistance and disaster relief missions. A 2013 video describing the Kestrel system In 2012, a weeklong test of Kestrel’s potential by the Department of Homeland Security led to 80 arrests near the Mexican border in Arizona. “We see Simera not only being used for the Department of Defense but, we believe, event security, disaster relief, or even protecting wildlife from poachers in national parks,” says Rombough. In 2012, a weeklong test of Kestrel’s potential by the Department of Homeland Security led to 80 arrests near the Mexican border in Nogales, Arizona, the company said. The company has also recently been testing Redkite, a smaller sensor system designed for mounting beneath small planes, helicopters, and tactical unmanned aircraft, and, Serenity, a system that includes an acoustic sensor and can be mounted on drones or on lower-altitude towers. The Simera systems will likely be deployed outside four Olympic venues, Rombough says, though Logos won’t be involved in the day-to-day operations of the units, which are being deployed by Brazilian Ministry of Justice contractor Altave. Operators will be able to monitor multiple camera angles at once—the system can provide up to 10 video windows within its field of view, and Rombough says operators can generally pay attention to data from up to about eight feeds at any given time. As many as six users can watch different parts of the full captured image as if they were independent Pan, Tilt, and Zoom (PTZ) cameras, and use a DVR-style rewind feature to scan through up to eight hours of cached footage, says Logos. (The Simera systems omit some infrared night-vision capabilities that were available in military models, making it easier to sell outside the U.S. under export control rules.)
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Generally, Rombough says, Simera’s only limiting factor is the time that a balloon or aerostat can stay in the air–typically up to three days before more helium is required–and the weather. “The most important part for us to make sure that our sensor can handle more turbulence and winds and that type of stuff than the balloon itself can handle so we’re not the restricting part of that type of system,” he says. “If the balloon can stay up itself, then we’re able to stay up and provide good imagery.” While the image clarity from Simera’s sensors is good enough to follow individual people and vehicles as they move about the city, it’s not high enough resolution to make out individual faces or license plate numbers, Rombough says. However, a higher resolution video camera attached to the same balloon, which captures images at 60 times that of full HD resolution, or 15 times 4K, at three frames per second, will allow operators to get a closer look at anything or anyone that looks suspicious. “It’s a tremendously powerful surveillance technology that has the potential of monitoring the whereabouts of everyone in a town or city,” says the ACLU’s Jay Stanley. “It’s good enough to track people on the ground, and of course to track vehicles, and at any given time, if you see something suspicious, and you want a closer look, that’s when you cue that full-motion video camera system that hopefully is flying on the same balloon or aerostat with you,” he says. When it comes to privacy concerns, Rombough says it’s ultimately up to the operating agencies to follow applicable rules about what’s allowed. “I guess it’s like any Homeland Security or law enforcement tool—these systems will be subject to the government rule and regulations, and we’ll let the appropriate agencies deal with that,” he says. He argues the systems are only monitoring outdoor, publicly visible activities that could already be tracked with existing tools like police helicopters. Still, courts and privacy activists have wrestled with the privacy implications of other technologies that make widespread, mass surveillance more practical and inexpensive. Simera and similar systems would seem to make monitoring wide swaths of cities much easier than would be possible with circling helicopters. Jay Stanley, |
and the quarrels which vivify its barrenness. The Female Eunuch, Germaine Greer
Romantic love has been described by the Jungian psychoanalyst Robert Johnson as `the single greatest energy system in the Western psyche’. Although this sounds like a wildly extravagant claim, it is almost certainly true. Love – and in particular romantic love – is our great preoccupation. Almost every aspect of our life is affected, in some way, by the concept of romantic love.
The word ‘romantic’ is troubled by a long history. It is like an overworked canvas, the composition and brushwork of which cannot conceal the suggestion of earlier drafts. English dictionaries distinguish ‘romantic’ with several definitions, but in reality, such tidy divisions are misleading. When we use the word, these different meanings ings bleed into each other. To be romantically involved is an admission that carries a host of implications: passion, folly, obsession, anguish, recklessness, intrigue, and adventure; archetypes rise from varying depths and jostle with each other for recognition and influence.
As with any native tongue, we first speak the language of romantic love without being able to explain its grammar. The assumptions on which romantic love is predicated are buried in the unconscious mind, where they exert a powerful influence on our beliefs, attitudes, and expectations. We never pause to question their legitimacy. When a romantic hero decides he will sacrifice everything for love, no one will ask ‘Is she really worth it?’ or ‘Can’t he find someone else?’ Romantic love has its own obscure logic which we all tacitly accept.
The roots of romantic love run deep. Indeed, the fundamental mental conventions of romantic love were consolidated on the ancestral plains of Africa, where evolutionary pressures determined that men should court women, that women should be coy, that relationships should be exclusive, and that love should storm the mind like a form of madness. However, since the rise of civilisation, these features have been increasingly complicated by ideological factors. The roots of romantic love are profoundly deep, but, now, they are also hopelessly tangled.
To understand fully the concept of romantic love requires an examination of its cultural history (in addition to its evolutionary history)…
* * *
The Islamic courtly tradition was introduced into Western culture by the troubadours, whose poetry preserved many features of Arab mysticism – particularly, a quasi-religious praise of female beauty. However, as this theme was reworked, it also began to change. Spiritual inaccessibility gradually evolved into alluring aloofness, which in turn became regal disdain. Thus, a recurring figure in troubadour poetry was the cold, cruel mistress.
The theme of inaccessibility was also explored in another way: the introduction of a female character, immensely desirable, but unavailable through marriage.
Even at this very early stage, the authenticity of love was being judged according to its difficulty (with respect to obstacles and impediments) and its irrationality. In troubadour poetry, we can recognise the cultural ancestry of modern concepts such as Lee’s mania or Tennov’s limerence: love that does not need liking – love that may even thrive in response to rejection or contempt. The troubadour’s cruel mistress reappears again and again in literature in different guises: the enchantress, the femme fatale, the Belle Dame sans Merci. Long before psychologists began to study love in a systematic way, literature required a particular female type who would represent unhappy love.
The doctrine of romantic love (also known as courtezia or amour courtois) would have spread across Europe irrespective of royal patronage; however, the process was certainly accelerated by events at the court of Poitiers, where William IX is reputed to have been ‘the first troubadour’ (on account of having written the earliest surviving examples of coutly verse in the Provencal language). It was also at Poitiers that William’s granddaughter, Eleanor of Aquitaine, and her daughter, Marie de Champagne, encouraged celebrated poets such as Bernard de Ventadour and Chretien de Troyes to compose works that exemplified courtly ideals. A narrative vehicle that was popular among the poets of Poitiers was Arthurian legend, which delivered a cast of characters whose relationships could be fully exploited to dramatise the frustrating dynamics of romantic love. Thus, Guinevere’s beauty is beyond compare, and Lancelot – Arthur’s most loyal servant – must fall hopelessly in love with the queen. (English readers are more familiar with this dynamic through Sir Thomas Malory’s Le Morte d’Arthur.) In the poetry of Chretien de Troyes, love – always complicated, but even more complicated by courtly conventions – is once again described as an illness: ‘My illness is what I want. And my pain is my health… I suffer agreeably… I am sick with delight.’
One of the most extraordinary developments at Poitiers was the creation of an inner court – the Court of Love – where noblewomen would meet to pose questions about love and the proper conduct of lovers. Questions would then be disputed, juried and judged, according to the increasingly dogmatic principles of courtezia. Perhaps, in an effort to make the task of this inner court easier, Marie instructed a cleric, Andrew Capelanus (also known as Andrew the Chaplain), to write a formal book of statutes: a kind of lovers’ charter.
Andrew began his task by consulting a classical authority – the Ars Amatoria (or Art of Love) by Ovid. It is difficult to imagine a more inappropriate work on which to base a ‘respectable’ canon. As with much to do with romantic love, history reveals cross-purposes, because for Ovid adoration is only a means to an end. Ovid adores, not because he can’t help himself, but because by feigning adoration he is more likely to succeed in seduction. He is a cunning and manipulative strategist, who advises on everything from good ‘chat up’ lines to how physical defects can be concealed by adopting special positions during intercourse. In an age of political correctness, he is still able to offend modern sensibilities. He recommends pretending to cry, making false promises, writing flattering verses (however insincere) and even coercion: `Some force is permissible – women are often pleased by force.’
Ovid also advises the aspirant libertine to affect the symptoms of love sickness: ‘All lovers should be pallid, it’s chic to be pale;/ Only fools deny it, pale skins rarely fail.’ Moreover, he observes that loss of appetite and worry ‘make the young lover as thin as a rake’. Therefore, if wishing to attract the attention of women, one should: `Look lean – it suggests passion.’
When Andrew Capelanus came to write his own work – The Art of Courtly Love – he did so by borrowing from Ovid. Thus, Ovid’s cynical observations were used to shore up the romantic ideal. Love sickness – merely another weapon in Ovid’s armamentarium – became fully established as a crucial sign of love’s authenticity.
Capelanus described love as `a certain inborn suffering’ and suggested thirty-one rules of love. They include the following:
Rule 2 He who is not jealous cannot love.
Rule 9 No one can love unless he is impelled by the persuasion of love (also translated as: No one can love who is not driven to do so by the power of love).
Rule 13 When made public love rarely endures.
Rule 14 The easy attainment of love makes it of little value; difficulty of attainment makes it prized.
Rule 15 Every lover regularly turns pale in the presence of his beloved.
Rule 16 When a lover suddenly catches sight of his beloved his heart palpitates.
Rule 20 A man in love is always apprehensive (also translated as: A lover is always fearful).
Rule 21 Real jealousy always increases the feeling of love.
Rule 22 Jealousy, and therefore love, are increased when one suspects his beloved.
Rule 30 A true lover is constantly and without intermission possessed by the thought of his beloved (Also translated as: The true lover is continuously obsessed with the image of his beloved.
Love and mental illness were closely linked according to the principles of Hippocratic medicine; however, Capelanus’s principles seem to do much the same thing. At Poitiers it was decided that love – if true – must be disturbed and slightly perverse; it must be obsessive, compulsive, agitated, anxious, jealous, suspicious, clandestine, and frustrating.
There is still some debate concerning to what extent Capelanus meant his rules to be taken seriously. It is possible that The Art of Courtly Love was meant to be satirical – but if so, its satirical content was lost on contemporary and subsequent generations. The Art of Courtly Love was never viewed as a critique. It was always viewed as a manifesto.
Romantic love became an increasingly important feature of literature in the late twelfth and thirteenth centuries. The Lais of Marie de France and de Lorris’s Romance of the Rose are significant examples; however, the quintessential courtly romance of the middle ages must be Tristan – now more widely encountered in the opera house as Wagner’s Tristan and Isolde.
Although Tristan does not feature King Arthur, it is an ‘Arthurian’ romance set in a landscape of castles, quests and dragons. An authenticated ‘original’ does not exist, but five versions have been handed down – the most famous being those of Beroul, Gottfried von Strassburg and Thomas.
Tristan is raised by his uncle, King Mark of Cornwall, and it falls upon him to escort King Mark’s bride-to-be, the beautiful Princess Isolde, from her home in Ireland to the king’s castle. While crossing the Irish Sea, they both mistakenly drink a love potion, and subsequently fall in love. The love potion – a potent symbol of love’s madness – neatly excuses Tristan’s betrayal of his uncle.
In Gottfried’s version, the bemused Tristan complains: `I do not know what has come over poor Isolde and me, but we have both of us gone mad in the briefest space of time, with unimaginable torment – we are dying of love …’
Tristan and Isolde (against their better judgement) become clandestine lovers and, in doing so, stir the gods of tragedy. Much of the ensuing drama concerns their attempts to avoid discovery, and eventually they must separate. Tristan is wounded by a poisoned spear and, as his life ebbs away, he calls for Isolde. She rushes to be with him, but arrives too late and can do nothing to save him. Clasping his dead body, she gives up her spirit and dies.
During the middle ages, romantic narrative’s landscape of kings and queens, knights and ladies, heroism, bravery, destiny and magic became established in the Western imagination, and is familiar to children, appearing in numerous story-books. The idea of romantic love has penetrated so deep into our culture, that few people escape its influence before leaving the nursery. Unfortunately, a consequence of this is that many grow up assuming they will find fairy-tale happiness in the real world – an expectation that is rarely fulfilled. Moreover, it is curious that the main exemplars of courtly romance (which in a sense foster our fairy-tale aspirations) rarely end with a `happy ever after’, but with torment, tears and death.
Continued in part-2…..Asylum seekers who spend more than nine months in the direct provision system without having their case decided on are to be given the right to work, become self-employed or access training.
The changes, which are expected to be approved by Ministers next week, will see a move away from the current system which does not allow adults seeking asylum in the State to work until their immigration status is decided.
The move is an attempt to bring the law in line with a Supreme Court judgment delivered in May which found the absolute ban on people in direct provision working was unconstitutional “in principle”. The Government believes that opting into an existing EU directive is the best way to comply with the ruling.
Minister for Justice Charlie Flanagan is to bring a memo on the subject to Cabinet next week. Under the Minister’s proposals, those who meet the criteria will be entitled to work by way of renewable six-month permits.
However, the right will be subject to some restrictions, such as areas of the economy in which those concerned can work.
Weekly allowance
The direct provision system was established in April 2000 and sees asylum seekers accommodated in privately-operated centres. Meals are provided and residents are entitled to a weekly allowance of €21.60. More than 4,400 people were living in direct provision at the end of March, some 564 of them for more than five years.
The ban on asylum seekers working has regularly been criticised by human rights groups, with former Supreme Court judge Catherine McGuinness recently saying it leaves people in direct provision “deprived of self-respect”.
Last May, a Burmese man who had spent eight years in direct provision before getting refugee status unanimously won his Supreme Court appeal over laws preventing him working here before his status was decided.
The seven-judge court adjourned making any formal orders relating to their ruling for six months to allow the legislature consider how to address the situation.
The Government set up a group that spanned a number of departments to help formulate a response to the Supreme Court, which must be provided by the end of this month.
Sources suggested that because Ireland is moving to comply with an EU directive, the changes could be made rapidly. It is not clear, however, if the changes can be applied retrospectively.
Those eligible to work will be given a “temporary and renewable” six-month stamp from the Department of Justice, which will also allow them to become self-employed or access vocational training.
Restricted sectors
However, access to work will be allowed to “certain but restricted sectors of employment”, and these areas of work will be kept under review.
The right to work will not be given to those whose status is decided within nine months, or those who seek to appeal or review a decided status.
The Irish Refugee Council had called for someone to be given the right to work after six months of waiting for an asylum decision “and no restrictions be placed on what professions a person can enter and that self employment also be allowed”.
It is also understood the new system could be reviewed in situations where there are high levels of emigration and increasing unemployment in the economy generally.
A consequence of Ireland adopting the European standards while the United Kingdom retains a unique system to deal with the same issues may lead more people to seek asylum in the State, the report adds.
Access to employment while children are in school would also allow single-parent families in the direct provision to better support their families, it says.A year ago, no one outside of perhaps Barrie, Ont. knew who Patrick Brown was.
That was before the Alberta Progressive Conservatives imploded; before Stephen Harper lost power in Ottawa; before Newfoundland appeared ready in Monday’s election to ditch the country’s last conservative-branded government (although Brad Wall’s Saskatchewan Party is conservative by another name); And before an existential malaise took hold in small- and big-C corners, where the faithful wondered what’s left of the movement.
And before all that, Brown became on May 9 the leader of the Ontario PC party. The next day, his team say the campaign to take back the premier’s office began.
Six months in, Brown remains an enigma, with political watchers, pundits and even some members of his own party still wondering what exactly he stands for and how he plans to win back the premier’s office. By the time Ontario next goes to the polls, the party that ruled the province for much of the 20th century, will have been shut out of power for 15 years.
Many wonder “who the heck is Patrick Brown?” the man himself admitted Monday at the Economic Club of Canada in his first major address outside of party events — a move designed to introduce him to the sold-out business event. In a speech light on policy and heavy on personal history, Brown sought to reframe himself as a softer kind of Tory, without giving away any of his ideas.
Who the heck is Patrick Brown?
A young Brown wrote to then prime minister Brian Mulroney about acid rain – and he responded, sparking a life-long interest in politics and a loyalty to conservative parties, Brown said.
The speech reiterated a lot of what we’ve heard from the party of late: He called the proposed cap-and-trade system “a tax grab” and accused the government of planning to use those revenues — and the ones from the partial Hydro One sale — to balance the books. He explained why he took on the education critic portfolio himself — to confront a looming skills gap. And he reiterated the vague policy points that dominated his bid for the leadership: energy rates, red tape, transportation and the economy.
Brown won that leadership race by swinging right to oust establishment favourite Christine Elliott.
The Liberals have seized on that, trying to frame him after he was elected as a right-wing zealot. Tamara Macgregor, his director of communications, said it didn’t work in the Simcoe North byelection where Brown won his seat at Queen’s Park. It’s simply a “desperate attempt by the Liberals to shift the conversation away from their disastrous economic record, sky-rocketing energy prices and the ongoing OPP investigations into their government,” Macgregor said.
The biggest challenge for Brown may be less how the Liberals are trying to brand him and more the fact that he lacks name recognition — 47 per cent surveyed in a Forum Research poll earlier this month didn’t have an opinion on his performance.
He’s well aware of that challenge and it fuels, in large part, the tireless outreach that has become part of his political brand.
“I think it’s really natural for an opposition leader: the province gets to know you over the course of a provincial election in a much greater manner. If you look at any of our previous premiers, they were unknown until they got elected,” Brown said earlier this month at Queen’s Park. “We are getting to a huge amount of events … and we’re building relationships throughout this province with professional associations, cultural communities, on campuses, in every walk of life and age, culture and gender.”
And there are glimmers of hope: Despite losing many seats, the federal party held 35 per cent of the popular vote in Ontario in October.
“The results of the Oct. 19 election show a federal Conservative party bloodied and bruised, but not moribund,” said Shachi Kurl, senior vice-president with Angus Reid Institute. “One bright sign may be that over the course of 2015, Patrick Brown, relatively new and unknown, has been starting to see his own approval ratings trend upward.”
People are starting to like what Brown is doing, although it’s hard to pin down his politics.
Even New Democrats have joked they’re ready to sell him a party membership amid his opposition to the Hydro One sale and support for socially liberal ideas, such as changing government forms to include gender-neutral language.
Brown’s question period and scrum performances have been strong. He’s hammered the government in the partial sale of Hydro One and he’s battled the government’s so-called death tax, a move by the province to collect estate taxes more quickly. He’s gone after the government for multi-million-dollar payouts to teachers’ federation for bargaining costs, but not the unions directly — the same ones who so successfully branded his predecessor Tim Hudak an anti-labour meanie. That’s left a few members of his caucus wondering whether courting the public sector unions is a waste of energy.
There’s a sense that the Brown brand is still trying to find its feet, and dealing with things as they come instead of setting a tone for the party. Even members of Brown’s own caucus feel a lack of direction from the leader’s office — although in some cases that’s a welcome change from Hudak. Interim chief of staff Pina Martino has kept the trains running, but a lack of a permanent replacement has fuelled speculation as to who will permanently take the reins.
The Queen’s Park Tories have been receiving dozens of emails and resumes from federal counterparts ousted from power, one source said. And although some big positions are filled — Mitch Davidson is Brown’s director of policy and the communications staff is stacked — there’s some consideration that seasoned federal expats could make their way to Toronto as Liberal staffers head in the other direction.
Regardless of who’s running the leader’s office, the caucus has repaired deep divides during the leadership, sources say, and although some may be sceptical, Brown is earnest in his pitch to unions.
There was a time when teachers’ federations held hospitality suites at PC party conventions. Firefighters and police came out in force on Brown’s behalf during the leadership and the hope is they are just the start.
“Some people roll their eyes when they hear a politician say they will do things differently, but when Patrick says he is setting a new tone, he means it. Whether it’s applauding an initiative put forward by the Liberals or NDP (he’s done this several times) or encouraging free votes, Patrick is showing people that he is committed to being different,” Macgregor said.
To further that, as part of his commitment to grassroots policy-making, he will launch next spring a new grassroots consultation that will tie into the party’s annual general meeting set for March.
The thing that should make Liberals nervous, and bears repeating, is his tireless outreach, observers say. During the leadership race he was lauded for crisscrossing the province and bringing in new community members. It’s something he’s continued, repeatedly visiting places such as Windsor — which has recently become an NDP stronghold — to pitch a broader, big tent PC party.
“Parties go through transformation. They’re a reflection of their leaders. The party has taken on the persona of Patrick: his pragmatic conservatism,” said Walied Soliman, a key advisor and long-time friend to Brown. The party is back at 80,000 members, and he believes Brown will get it to 100,000 before 2018. Brown’s now repeating the approach that helped him sign up more than 40,000 members during the leadership race.
The leader spends a lot of time in basements of mosques, churches and temples, deep in new Canadian and ethnic communities that have historically voted Liberal. Like Jason Kenney at the federal level, he’s trying to turn those red areas in the Greater Toronto Area blue, with a pitch that often goes something like this: help rebuild the party and draft its news policies. Then, in 2018, if “I keep my promise of building a modern, diverse party, it would be a privilege for me to have your vote. And if I haven’t, keep voting Liberal.”
His diverse support came out in force at the leadership convention, which prompted the Toronto Sun cover to declare, the day after his decisive victory, “Brown is the New Blue.”
“That wasn’t just about Patrick. The face of the party changed that day,” Soliman said.
Now, they just need to get the rest of Ontario to go back to blue.CHISINAU, Moldova and CHICO, California — “They brought us to a hotel and led us up a staircase — seven floors.
"I remember … wondering when they would let me go to my sister. The big Russian woman led us into a room with couches against the walls. There were men sitting, talking, drinking tea, laughing on the couches. One girl started to cry silently. I suddenly understood what was happening.
"They made the first girl stand in the middle of the room. They ordered her to take off her top. She hesitated so they beat her. Then it was my turn. I lifted my top for a second and pulled it right down. Then I noticed the curtains fluttering out the open window…. Time slowed. I heard a ringing in my ears and the room faded. I remember that I said a prayer — ‘God give me wings.’ I ran across the room and jumped over the men on the couch and out the window.”
When Marina woke up in the hospital she had shattered one leg and broken the other. She had a concussion and some internal bleeding. It was only then that she discovered that the Russian woman she had paid to take her to Italy had taken her to Istanbul instead and sold her to modern-day slavers. She was one of several women being auctioned to brothel owners when she jumped out the hotel window.
I met Marina in the fall of 2008 in her village, Drotcia, where I was doing field research for a book on human trafficking. One of her legs is held together by a pin and she walks with a pronounced limp. She continues to suffer from nightmares and headaches. Yet, hers is a rare success story. Many thousands of other women from Russia and Eastern Europe are not so lucky.
Generating an estimated $32 billion dollars annually, human trafficking is the fastest-growing criminal activity in the world today. It is also the most lucrative. According to a 2005 International Labor Office (ILO) report, just a single female held for sexual exploitation yields an average of $67,200 annually in Western Europe and North America.
The United Nations estimates that between 800,000 and 4 million men, women and children are deceived, recruited, transported from their homes and sold into slavery around the world each year. Eighty percent are women, girls and young boys trafficked into commercial sexual exploitation. Of these, more than 200,000 women and children from Russia and Eastern Europe are forced into prostitution each year.
Western demand for Eastern European prostitutes fuels today’s sex-slave industry. Currently, the market for Slavic woman and children in brothels and in pornography in "developed" countries — particularly the EU and the U.S. — is the hottest compared to other parts of the world, and is drawing on an endless supply of impoverished and vulnerable women.
A multitude of recent studies try to explain why women get snared into the trade in flesh. Researchers point to poverty, chronic unemployment, domestic violence and drug addiction as the primary “push factors.”
But sadly, there isn’t enough discussion of the real root of the problem — the men. Human trafficking is basically international sexual terrorism perpetrated against women and children on a mass scale by men. It is their demand for illicit or predatory sex that generates huge profits for the slavers and leaves behind the tortured minds and broken bodies of those women and children they violate.
According to a 2008 study by the Chicago Alliance Against Sexual Exploitation, the majority of men who buy prostitutes do so in order to obtain sex they are uncomfortable asking for. As one interviewee put it, “I want to pay someone to do something a normal person wouldn’t do. To piss on someone or pay someone to do something degrading.” The same study revealed that johns subscribe to a tremendous amount of denial — 87 percent thought women choose prostitution, “just like any job,” and 64 percent believed that the women they bought were sexually satisfied by the encounter.
Though corresponding data isn't easily accessible in Eastern Europe, it is widely assumed by experts that men in most countries share the same beliefs. Research suggests that in most countries men buy women with impunity. For example, Victor Malarek, in his recent book "The Johns," cites numerous international studies that estimate that approximately 70 percent of men in southeast Asia and Japan buy sex; and between 19 and 39 percent of European men regularly buy sex depending on the country.
And yet, the vast majority of women worldwide who engage in prostitution endure extreme abuse and violence, ranging from being raped to being kicked while pregnant or being choked with wire. Many prostitutes interviewed in a U.S. nationwide survey in 2004 said they had been punched, burned with cigarettes, hit with baseball bats and had their heads slammed into walls and floors, or held underwater in the toilet. That same survey revealed that 64 percent of women suffered permanent disabilities as a result of beatings and 33 percent had sodomy forced upon them. A 2006 British study held similar findings — 80 percent reported being “severely” beaten and 90 percent were forced into engaging in sexual acts they refused to perform.
If we are to really address the horror of the buying, selling and trafficking of human beings for sexual exploitation, then we must make efforts to stop the demand by making the buying of sex a crime with harsh penalties. At the same time, the selling of sex should be decriminalized so that the women, who are already victims, are not further abused by the penal and immigration systems. (Legalization of prostitution only exacerbates slavery — human trafficking flourishes where prostitution is legal.) It is time we recognize that the commodification of women and children is a nefarious form of sexual violence and stop pretending that it is benign.
Prostitution is rarely a free choice and it is never a preferred career path. Behind the myth of the “happy hooker,” hides a horrific human rights abuse.
Kate Transchel is a professor of Russian and Eastern European history at California State University in Chico, California. She is currently working on a monograph entitled, "Hidden in Plain Sight: An Oral History of Slavery from Russia and Eastern Europe."For fans who like to learn about the inner workings of Star Trek, one of the more interesting panels at Star Trek Las Vegas was with veteran writer/producers Brannon Braga (TNG/VOY/ENT/TNG Movies) and André Bormanis (VOY & ENT). The pair spoke in detail about their writing process for Star Trek and also ended up talking a little bit about their current project, The Orville.
Young TNG writers breaking Roddenberry’s rules but not going Mirror
Braga began his career in Hollywood as a WGA intern for Star Trek: Next Generation, starting at the beginning of the fourth season or as he noted, right after when the show got “good.” Braga joked that it was an internship that lasted 15 years.
The writers’ room was young guys all terrified that they were going to be fired at any given moment. Ron [Moore], and myself and René [Echevarria] kind of stuck it out….To be placed on a show as incredible as the Next Generation, was the best learning experience anyone could hope for, it’s still my favorite Star Trek.
Braga noted that by the time he joined it was showrunner Michael Piller running the writing room and being a mentor as well. Braga’s exposure to TNG creator Gene Roddenberry was limited due to his failing health, but he described Roddenberry as being very encouraging to the young writers.
That being said, Brannon wasn’t too keen on many of the “Roddenberry rules” for TNG, stating:
There were some rules that you weren’t allowed to do certain things on the show, no dream sequences, no time travel, and several others… I broke all the rules.
However, there was a specific line they never crossed. In response to a question on why they never did a Next Generation mirror universe episode, Braga responded:
We were a little frightened at doing it, and doing it badly, and maybe never really figured out what the Next Generation take would have been on it.
Originally Kirk was to die on a different bridge
As Star Trek: The Next Generation came to a close it was Ron Moore and Braga who were tapped to write both the series finale (“All Good Things…”) and the first TNG movie (Star Trek Generations). Braga talked about getting that double duty:
It’s kind of a blur, it just worked. We wrote “All Good Things,” it was a pure piece of writing, it was beautifully made. Whereas Generations was a little more laborious and serving a lot of things and I think that shows.
Braga also spoke briefly about the original vision he and Moore had for Generations:
I think Ron and I envisioned the two Enterprises kinda locked in battle and somehow they would meet, but they would get together and fight the bad guy, and Kirk would go down on his bridge, instead of a bridge falling on him.
Being summoned by Patrick Stewart for First Contact change
Braga feels that things worked better with the second TNG feature film, which he and Moore also wrote, noting:
[Star Trek: First Contact] is a great initiation for what Star Trek’s all about… It had to be the Borg, there was no question what we were doing for first contact. It was fun to do from beginning to end, fun to make, fun to watch, and i think it shows up on screen.”
Of course like with all scripts, things go through changes. Braga explained that a switch was made between the characters of Picard and Riker where originally it was Riker battling the Borg on the ship and Picard dealing with Zefram Cochrane down in post-World War III Montana. But a certain someone wasn’t happy with that, as explained by Braga:
We were summoned to Patrick Stewart’s apartment in New York, where he said ‘I should be battling the Borg’… so we changed it.
Braga noted that somehow when MAD Magazine did their “Star Blecch: Worst Contact” parody they used that early draft and so their version didn’t really resemble the final movie.
Beginning Enterprise differently, ending with a ‘slap in the face’
André Bormanis came in during seventh season of TNG as the science advisor, which he also did for Deep Space Nine and Voyager. Onstage in Las Vegas he revealed that initially he interacted with writers from a distance. He worked from home faxing [look it up, kids!] his technical notes back to the writers room as they couriered new pages to him. He would only go in periodically to pitch show ideas, but that is where he and Braga clicked and so eventually Brannon brought him to write a few episodes for Voyager and into into the writers’ room as a proper staff writer and story editor for Enterprise.
The pair talked about how the original concept for Enterprise changed. The writers, along with Braga’s co-creator Rick Berman, wanted the first season of the show to be mostly set on Earth with the launch of the NX-01 at end of the season. Bormanis explained the reasoning:
One of the things that guided us was we wanted those characters to be like more people today, than the kind of larger than life heroes of Next Generation or The Original Series.
By the time the second season was over the show was running into ratings problems, and so once again Braga was summoned, this time by the head of Paramount:
We got called into the boss’ office, Johnathon Dolgen, he said, “Do something different, we need to shake things up.”
It was that directive that lead to the decision to make the third season of Enterprise into a single arc with the Xindi war. Braga described the creation process:
[Season 3 was] one of those rare cases where we got together with the staff, and talked about it, we worked out a lot, we had the framework, we knew how it was going to end.
The show went through another change for the fourth and final season with Manny Coto being brought in as showrunner and moving to more mini-arcs as well as more call-backs to the original Star Trek series. Braga admitted that this approach worked, noting:
I think Manny had finally found voice of the show, and season 4 should’ve been season 1, and I think that the show should have continued.
Of course no discussion of Star Trek: Enterprise is complete without talking about the often panned series finale “These Are the Voyages…” After being asked about it by a fan it was clearly still a bit of a sore subject for the the writer/producer:
I thought it was the coolest thing ever when we were writing it, the idea of doing a ‘lost episode’ of The Next Generation, but they’re going to the holodeck to look back at Enterprise, Rick and I thought was a great sendoff to Star Trek [the franchise as it existed in 2005], and it didn’t work out so well…It was a kind of a slap in the face to the Enterprise actors. I heard it from everybody, it was the only time Scott Bakula was ever mean to me. I regret it.
Enterprise season 5 would have explored Vulcan changes and Romulan War
Enterprise was cancelled after the fourth season and Braga says he thought maybe that was for the best for the franchise:
I thought it was time, it needed a break, it needed some time for people to want another show.
As for Bormanis, he was ready for more:
I’d hoped it’d go seven seasons, it was my first full time staff writing job, it was a great opportunity, and I had a great time doing it, and wanted it to continue. I quickly found out that the life of a TV writer is generally feast or famine. Star Trek was an amazing 12 year run for me.
Of course the topic of where season 5 would have gone came up, with Bormanis saying they would have explored more of the human/Vulcan relationship that had changed in season 4 and how it was becoming more like what was seen in TOS. Braga chimed in that he remembered there being an idea to explore the Romulan War mentioned in TOS.
A return to episodic sci-fi on The Orville
Both Braga and Bormanis are now writing on The Orville, so fans were excited to ask them about Seth MacFarlane’s sci-fi dramedy (and clear homage to Star Trek). Braga had quite a bit to say about the show and how it related to Star Trek: The Next Generation specifically. He explained how The Orville is more like classic Trek storytelling:
I missed the kind of storytelling that Star Trek did which are standalone parables, with beginning middle and end, I worked on 24 and I did serialized storytelling for the most part, and I really really missed it. We’re actually writing a show with that kind of storytelling called The Orville. I think I speak for André when I say we missed that kind of storytelling.
However he noted it isn’t a copy The Next Generation:
It’s kind of its own thing, it’s funny, at times very funny, but the stakes are real, its science-fiction ideas I think are really cool, it’s a good mix of comedy but also drama …it’s like M*A*S*H, you’ll be laughing one second and the next something very serious is going on. You have to be involved, you can’t do an hour long satire of the genre. It’s a loving tribute to this kind of [standalone] storytelling.
That hated Voyager episode and why Braga comes to STLV
Even though both Bormanis and Braga worked on Star Trek: Voyager for seven years, it really didn’t come up during their time on stage, except when Braga discussed what is considered by many to be the worst episode of the series:
There’s an episode of Voyager called “Threshold” which is considered to be [trails off], now when I was writing it I thought, “This is the coolest thing ever!” It was just awful at the end of the day, and everyone hates it.
One audience member asked Braga why, even in the face of such criticism, he keeps coming to Star Trek Las Vegas and engages with the fans online. Braga explained:
It’s the reason I’m here right now, the Star Trek fanbase, you’re |
no different.”
In short, while the Alabama vision seeks to restrict participation in our democracy, the California vision aims to maximize it. As my Nation colleague Ari Berman, author of “ Give Us the Ballot: The Modern Struggle for Voting Rights in America,” put it, “Unlike Alabama, California is using the power of the government to bring millions of new voters into the political process — treating the vote as a fundamental right, rather than a special privilege.”
The unfortunate reality, however, is that Alabama is not alone. Today, the Republican Party appears to view legitimate voting rights as a threat to its survival. In fact, limiting the number of people who decide our elections has become a central part of the Republican Party’s mission.
Just consider the record. Over the past five years, Republican state legislators have aggressively pushed voter ID bills and other policies that make it harder to vote, especially for Democratic-leaning minority groups, successfully passing laws in 21 states. In 2013, the Supreme Court gutted the Voting Rights Act, which Republican leaders vocally praised a decade ago, in a controversial 5-to-4 ruling split along party lines. And in Congress, a Democratic bill designed to restore the law has just one Republican supporter in either chamber.
The competing visions are also apparent in the 2016 presidential race. This month, Republican contender Jeb Bush explained that he does not support restoring the Voting Rights Act because “There’s been dramatic improvement in access to voting,” making it unnecessary to impose protections “as though we’re living in 1960.” In contrast, Hillary Clinton issued a bold call for automatic voter registration in June, and Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) introduced an automatic voter registration bill in August. “Today Republicans are systematically and deliberately trying to stop millions of American citizens from voting,” Clinton declared. “What part of democracy are they afraid of?”
It’s no secret why Republicans would rather prevent some people from voting. While they run up big margins in midterm elections with low turnout, Republicans have won the national popular vote just once in the past six presidential elections. Moreover, instead of answering to the American public, Republican candidates are increasingly beholden to the privileged few who fund their campaigns. In the 2016 election cycle, nearly half of the contributions to presidential candidates so far have come from just 158 families. As the New York Times reports, “They are overwhelmingly white, rich, older and male.” They are also overwhelmingly backing Republicans, of course, thereby “serving as a kind of financial check on demographic forces that have been nudging the electorate toward support for the Democratic Party and its economic policies.” It’s a strategy of delay, of buying time, of staving off the inevitable.
But change is coming whether Republican politicians and their billionaire backers like it or not. They have disgraced our democracy with their voter suppression strategy, but they are not powerful enough to stop it. They will eventually have to reckon with a country that is more diverse, more compassionate and more progressive. The Alabama vision will not prevail.
Read more from Katrina vanden Heuvel’s archive or follow her on Twitter.Russia's relationship with the European Union establishment is at its lowest ebb for decades. However, its ties with some sections of European politics are getting stronger.
In March last year, when tensions surrounding Ukraine were at their highest, politicians from a mix of minority left-and right-wing European parties landed in Crimea. In their opinion, the Crimea referendum, in which 95.5 percent of those who voted said Yes to rejoining Russia, was free and fair. The Organisation for Security and Co-operation in Europe, which would usually have sent a team of observers, did not attend the Crimea referendum as it deemed it illegal.
As relationships between Russia and the West hit their lowest ebb since the fall of the Iron Curtain, concerns in the West are mounting that Russia may seek to destabilize other countries than Ukraine – and that it is doing this partly through the countries' minority parties.NEW DELHI: The father of 12-year-old Parth - who has a rare and deadly brain disorder - had almost given up hope to treat his son. He had spent all his savings, sold off his property and his wife's jewellery, DD News reported.With no option left, Parth's father thought, "Why not write to the PM?" And to his complete surprise, he got a reply. A positive one.Parth is from Gujarat's Amreli district and suffers from the rare Subacute Sclerosing Panencephalitis (SSPE), a deadly brain disorder related to measles (rubeola) infection. The disease is debilitating and progressive."He (Parth) was diagnosed with the disease (SSPE) some four months back. I consulted all the specialists in Amreli as well as in Ahmedabad but there was no improvement in his condition," Parth's father told DD News."I sold all my property, including my wife's jewellery, to help my only son. As a final resort, I wrote a letter to PM Modi and to the health ministry seeking help in the treatment for Parth," he said.A few days later, the family received a letter from the Prime Minister's office assuring free and full treatment for the boy in All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS)."Parth is now undergoing treatment at AIIMS after PM assured us full support and financial assistance for my son's treatment. So now, not only do we have financial aid, the PM has also given us moral support."While the financial aspect of the treatment has been taken care of, it is still an uphill battle for Parth, said specialists at AIIMS, to DD News. They said his condition is very critical."This is a degenerative brain disease. We are providing every possible treatment to the patient. Currently, all the required tests are being done," said Dr Sheffali Gulati of the child neurology department at AIIMS.Parth's father though is pleased that everything possible is now being done, thanks to the PM.This is not the first time that PM Modi has stepped in to provide succour in such cases. Earlier, a eleven-year-old boy from Unnao in Uttar Pradesh had written to the Prime Minister about the difficulty he faced in crossing railway tracks to reach his school. This prompted PM Modi to ask the Railways to intervene, following which the Northern Railways has written a letter to the boy.Before that, an eight-year-old girl Taiyyaba from Agra wrote to Modi seeking financial aid to treat her congenital heart disease. Touched by the girl's appeal, the Prime Minister's Office immediately responded to the letter and arranged for her treatment at New Delhi's GB Pant Hospital, where all the expenses incurred in her treatment will be borne by the government.Rendering of a white dwarf star (bright white spot), with rocky debris from former asteroids or a minor planet that has been broken apart by gravity (red rings).
Many scientists believe the Earth was dry when it first formed, and that the building blocks for life on our planet — carbon, nitrogen and water — appeared only later as a result of collisions with other objects in our solar system that had those elements.
Today, a UCLA-led team of scientists reports that it has discovered the existence of a white dwarf star whose atmosphere is rich in carbon and nitrogen, as well as in oxygen and hydrogen, the components of water. The white dwarf is approximately 200 light-years from Earth and is located in the constellation Boötes.
Benjamin Zuckerman, a co-author of the research and a UCLA professor of astronomy, said the study presents evidence that the planetary system associated with the white dwarf contains materials that are the basic building blocks for life. And although the study focused on this particular star — known as WD 1425+540 — the fact that its planetary system shares characteristics with our solar system strongly suggests that other planetary systems would also.
“The findings indicate that some of life’s important preconditions are common in the universe,” Zuckerman said.
The scientists report that a minor planet in the planetary system was orbiting around the white dwarf, and its trajectory was somehow altered, perhaps by the gravitational pull of a planet in the same system. That change caused the minor planet to travel very close to the white dwarf, where the star’s strong gravitational field ripped the minor planet apart into gas and dust. Those remnants went into orbit around the white dwarf — much like the rings around Saturn, Zuckerman said — before eventually spiraling onto the star itself, bringing with them the building blocks for life.
The researchers think these events occurred relatively recently, perhaps in the past 100,000 years or so, said Edward Young, another co-author of the study and a UCLA professor of geochemistry and cosmochemistry. They estimate that approximately 30 percent of the minor planet’s mass was water and other ices, and approximately 70 percent was rocky material.
The research suggests that the minor planet is the first of what are likely many such analogs to objects in our solar system’s Kuiper belt. The Kuiper belt is an enormous cluster of small bodies like comets and minor planets located in the outer reaches of our solar system, beyond Neptune. Astronomers have long wondered whether other planetary systems have bodies with properties similar to those in the Kuiper belt, and the new study appears to confirm for the first time that one such body exists.
White dwarf stars are dense, burned-out remnants of normal stars. Their strong gravitational pull causes elements like carbon, oxygen and nitrogen to sink out of their atmospheres and into their interiors, where they cannot be detected by telescopes.
The research, published in the Astrophysical Journal Letters, describes how WD 1425+540 came to obtain carbon, nitrogen, oxygen and hydrogen. This is the first time a white dwarf with nitrogen has been discovered, and one of only a few known examples of white dwarfs that have been impacted by a rocky body that was rich in water ice.
“If there is water in Kuiper belt-like objects around other stars, as there now appears to be, then when rocky planets form they need not contain life’s ingredients,” said Siyi Xu, the study’s lead author, a postdoctoral scholar at the European Southern Observatory in Germany who earned her doctorate at UCLA.
“Now we’re seeing in a planetary system outside our solar system that there are minor planets where water, nitrogen and carbon are present in abundance, as in our solar system’s Kuiper belt,” Xu said. “If Earth obtained its water, nitrogen and carbon from the impact of such objects, then rocky planets in other planetary systems could also obtain their water, nitrogen and carbon this way.”
A rocky planet that forms relatively close to its star would likely be dry, Young said.
“We would like to know whether in other planetary systems Kuiper belts exist with large quantities of water that could be added to otherwise dry planets,” he said. “Our research suggests this is likely.”
According to Zuckerman, the study doesn’t settle the question of whether life in the universe is common.
“First you need an Earth-like world in its size, mass and at the proper distance from a star like our sun,” he said, adding that astronomers still haven’t found a planet that matches those criteria.
The researchers observed WD 1425+540 with the Keck Telescope in 2008 and 2014, and with the Hubble Space Telescope in 2014. They analyzed the chemical composition of its atmosphere using an instrument called a spectrometer, which breaks light into wavelengths. Spectrometers can be tuned to the wavelengths at which scientists know a given element emits and absorbs light; scientists can then determine the element’s presence by whether it emits or absorbs light of certain characteristic wavelengths. In the new study, the researchers saw the elements in the white dwarf’s atmosphere because they absorbed some of the background light from the white dwarf.
In addition to Xu, Young and Zuckerman, co-authors of the research are Michael Jura, a UCLA professor of astronomy who died in 2016; Beth Klein, a former graduate student of Jura’s; and Patrick Dufour, an assistant professor of physics at the University of Montreal.Kenyan officials supervise the counting of Ivory tusks at the Mombasa Port on Aug. 21, 2013. [AFP]
Somalia’s Shebab militia, which carried out a bloody attack on Nairobi’s Westgate mall, is in part funded by the poaching trade, wildlife activists said Thursday.
“Over the last 18 months, we’ve been investigating the involvement of the Shebab in trafficking ivory through Kenya,” Andrea Crosta, executive director of the Elephant Action League told AFP.
The trade “could be supplying up to 40 percent of the funds needed to keep them in business.”
The Islamist group has come under the spotlight after claiming responsibility for a four-day siege at the upmarket Westgate Mall in Nairobi which left at least 67 people dead by the time it ended Tuesday.
However the wildlife group said links have also cropped up in recent years between the poaching trade and groups like Uganda’s Lord’s Resistance Army or Darfur’s Janjaweed.
But according to Crosta the Shebab are not involved in the actual killing of elephant or rhino.
Activists hope by highlighting security issues linked to the illicit trade it may spur governments to act.
“We’re asking the international community to start considering all the ivory (and rhino horn) trade’s stakeholders, ivory consumers, ivory shops and even governments, de-facto accessories to manslaughter, human exploitation and even terrorism,” said Crosta.
According to sources within the Shebab group, one to three tons of ivory pass through the ports in southern Somalia every month.
The ivory fetches an estimated $200 per kilo.
The Shebab’s ability to take advantage of the trade was hit when it lost control of southern ports in Kismayo and Merca, but the group still controls other hubs.
The illegal ivory trade, estimated to be worth between $7 billion and $10 billion (5.37 and 7.67 billion euros) a year, is mostly fuelled by demand in Asia and the Middle East, where elephant tusks and rhino horns are used in traditional medicine and to make ornaments.
Ivory trade is banned under the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES).Somali-American reporter let facts, not pressure, drive ISIS coverage
Mukhtar Ibrahim Jennifer Simonson | MPR News
They looked like me, or at least younger versions of me. We spoke the same languages, English and Somali. Their parents' history — fleeing a brutal civil war, seeking a better life in Minnesota — was my history, too.
My community ties opened doors for me as I covered the FBI's pursuit of Somali-American Muslim men in their teens and twenties trying to join the ISIS terror group. Those connections let me break news and deliver reporting to MPR's audience like no other journalist.
They also came at a cost.
Some Twin Cities Somalis ripped me as "Mukhtar FBI," a spy. Law enforcement officials made it clear they viewed some of my reporting as overly sympathetic to the community. During the recent trial of three of the men charged, I was pulled aside by marshals as I tried to enter the courthouse, despite the press credentials hanging clearly around my neck.
As the old journalism saying goes: If everyone's angry, you must be doing something right.
I didn't plan to be a reporter when I came from East Africa in 2005, but I eventually embraced it. Journalism's helped me honestly tell stories that otherwise might not have been told, including the stories of young Twin Cities men and the lure of ISIS.
Here's my account.
Sunday afternoon text changes everything
April 18, 2015 was a lazy Sunday at home. I was immersed in the simple joys of fatherhood, playing with my squealing 11-month-old daughter Maandeeq.
Then my phone buzzed with a text, a tip from a reliable source: As part of a joint terrorism task force investigation, the FBI arrested six young Somali-American men, four in Minnesota and two in California.
My reporter's instinct kicked in.
• MPR News: Called to Fight
The source told me to call Ayan Farah, a mother whose two sons were arrested: one at her house in Minneapolis, the other in San Diego. Four other families whose sons were also nabbed in the operation were meeting at Farah's house.
I grabbed a bag with my reporting gear and dashed from home to Farah's house. The scene there was chaos and confusion.
Mothers were caught off guard about the arrests of their sons. Some were asleep when FBI agents and police officers descended on their houses.
The next day, all the young men were charged in federal court with conspiracy to provide material support to ISIS. Six months later, the government added another charge: conspiracy to commit murder outside the country, a charge that carries a maximum sentence of life in prison.
This tip didn't just interrupt my family time that Sunday afternoon; it would consume me for more than a year.
I continued to report on this case from that spring afternoon in 2015 and through the trial, which ended a week ago when three of the young Somali-American men in their early twenties were convicted of conspiracy to join ISIS and to commit murder overseas.
One-sided coverage?
I'm a Somali with childhood memories of other East African nations. My family fled Somalia, our war-torn homeland, when I was a toddler. I arrived in St. Paul in 2005 at age 17 and enrolled in college a few months later.
Like many immigrants, I faced many challenges. Acclimation to the American education system was slow and overcoming the language barrier seemed impossible.
But choosing a major was my biggest worry. I took science courses to please my family. They hoped I'd become an engineer or a doctor.
But I found my professional calling in 2007 when I read about two dozen young Somali-American men, my peers, from the Twin Cities who ditched school for Somalia to join the terrorist group al-Shabab.
I was so engrossed in the media's coverage of the cases that I changed my major from biochemistry and pre-med to journalism.
The local media's coverage of the story was largely one-sided, relying heavily on the government's narrative, and did not capture the full picture of what led the men to leave the United States for Somalia.
I thought most of the reporters were disconnected from the community I knew.
Seven years later, history seemed to be repeating itself, but this time I'd be one of the reporters.
I heard rumors that several young Somali men left the Twin Cities and went to Syria to join ISIS, a brutal terrorist organization in Syria.
In 2014, I was the first to report on the scope of the Minnesota problem: As many as 15 young Somali-Americans had been lured by radical groups in Syria. I interviewed a man who abandoned his party-loving ways in Minneapolis for Syria, where he said he joined ISIS in an attempt to overthrow Bashar Assad's regime. Months later, the man was killed in battle.
Who is the face of terror?
Terrorism is a loaded term.
"When I hear about the word terrorism, I immediately think... guilty," said one potential juror in the trial of the three men — Guled Omar, 21; Mohamed Farah and Abdirahman Daud, both 22 — during jury selection on May 9. She was excused after admitting her bias against the defendants.
But she's not alone. The devastation of Sept. 11 and subsequent attacks and bombings remain etched in the consciousness of many Americans.
When terrorists strike, the media and politicians quickly put Muslims in the spotlight. Muslims are implicitly linked to the terror acts, and a lot of our fellow Americans have no problems finding us guilty by association.
On March 22, the day of the bombings in Belgium, Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, who was running for president at the time, called on authorities to "patrol and secure" Muslim neighborhoods in the United States.
On the same day, a Fox News host suggested looking into "taking some liberties" from Somali-Americans in the Twin Cities.
Around the same time, the FBI was carefully following the movements of a group of young Somali-American men in the Twin Cities, as well as their travels and their friends' activities. The scrutiny started in 2014 when three of their friends suddenly disappeared. Those Minnesota men ended up in Syria and had taken up arms with the terrorist group ISIS.
Emboldened by those departures, others in this tight circle of friends booked flights to the Middle East or found their way to New York and California, the first legs of their planned trips to Syria, prosecutors say. But they were stopped, either by federal investigators or by their families.
Between November 2014 and December 2015, the FBI arrested a total of nine men accused of plotting to join ISIS. Six of them eventually pleaded guilty to the conspiracy.
Young men and the call to fight
Throughout 2015, I interviewed families and mothers who were traumatized by the arrests of their Minnesota-raised sons who attempted to travel to Syria to join ISIS.
Families told me the FBI had long been pressuring their children to become informants.
Through my reporting, I learned that many of these young ISIS enlistees were struggling to reinvent themselves after past failures in school and life.
In March 2015, MPR News colleague Laura Yuen and I focused on a trio of friends from middle-class suburbs of St. Paul, who answered the terror group's call for recruits.
Laura and I chased the story through a combination of doorknocking, strong connections and standing in the Somali community, and a review of public records and social media accounts.
We produced the first comprehensive list of Minnesota's ISIS contingent, but more importantly, we painted a picture of how radicalization could happen here.
On the evening of March 26, 2015, after the results of our in-depth project were published, I shared the link to the story with a young man I had previously chatted with on Facebook. I suspected he knew more than he had told me. He'd been ignoring my messages. But that night, he began to talk to me again.
"Relax," he wrote me. "mpr shouldn't be in this rush."
He then added something that didn't sink in until two weeks later.
"More news to come," he said.
"What do you mean?" I asked.
"With patience you'll see," he replied.
Weeks later, I received that text with the tip: The FBI arrested the six young men.
I broke that story, to the surprise of federal prosecutors who were planning a press conference for the next day. While reporters from all over the globe were flocking to Minnesota to cover the news, I again went deep into the community.
I soon learned the man I chatted with on the night of March 26, 2015, was friends with all the men arrested just weeks later. He played a crucial role in helping the FBI crack the case by secretly recording his friends' conversations.
His name was Abdirahman Bashir, an FBI informant.
Before the project was published, I also exchanged messages with Omar, one of the three men convicted of ISIS-related charges. At the time, he had not been arrested yet. I asked him if I could talk to him about what he knew about some of the men who left for Syria.
Omar agreed to speak with me but changed his mind at the last minute. I suspect he thought I was an FBI informant. After all, my continuous poking around on this story led some in my community, which has always been fond of nicknames, to start calling me "Mukhtar FBI."
By a strange coincidence, his friend, Bashir, who started working for the FBI in January 2015, was secretly recording Omar's conversation around the same time I contacted Omar.
According to evidence presented at trial, Bashir cajoled the group to take up his offer of buying fake passports from an undercover officer who would help the men travel to Syria. It was a plan they had discussed before Bashir started working for the FBI, but one he made possible.
While the FBI was closing in on Omar and his friends, I was also contacting the same group after I mapped out their connections by studying their social media accounts and postings.
What bothered me is when some members of my community thought I was betraying them while I was doing my best to humanize the stories of the men the government portrayed as would-be terrorists.
When I was out in the community reporting, there were certain times I removed my press pass to ease the suspicion that I was somehow a government authority asking sensitive questions.
Because I look like them, I blend in and it's easier to identify myself as a reporter without the press badge.
Because I am one of the first and few Somali-American reporters in Minnesota, my community did not get accustomed to one of their own, a pen and a notebook in hand, interviewing people for a story. It's easy for them to assume that I'm a law enforcement agent when I ask them uncomfortable questions about someone who left for Syria.
"Are you an FBI agent?" one guy once asked me in the summer of 2014 when I was doing a story on his friend, Abdirahmaan Muhumed, one of the first Minnesota men who joined ISIS.
I met the guy several more times, and he eventually believed I was a reporter.
When our project, "From MN suburbs, they set out to join ISIS," came out in March 2015, a relative of Hanad Mohallim, one of the men we profiled in the story, sent me an email.
"I don't know how you could be so insensitive and inconsiderate of my family's feelings by publishing this article," the email said, "but as a Muslim, as a Somali brother, you should know that this is a sensitive topic for most Somalis."
The writer called me "pathetic."
That hurt. I learned how to develop a thick skin.
Feds don't like the reporting, either
I faced pushback not only from Somalis but also from the government.
All through my reporting, I have paid special attention to the often-strained relationships between law enforcement and Minnesota Muslims. A federal program called Countering Violent Extremism championed by U.S. Attorney for Minnesota Andrew Luger came under fire by some community members who were concerned it was a front for spying.
The program, called Building Community Resilience in Minnesota, aims to offer services to Somali-American youth. It's intended to make Somali youth more resilient to recruitment and radicalization by overseas extremist groups.
Luger was trying to build bridges with Somali-Americans while also aggressively prosecuting Somali men who plotted to join ISIS.
Rashad Turner, the leader of the St. Paul chapter of Black Lives Matter and a recent convert to Islam, equated CVE to Cointelpro, a 1960s FBI counterintelligence program that targeted civil rights organizations and political dissenters. He spoke at an event where civil rights and religious leaders criticized Luger's program. I was sent to cover the event and quoted Turner. Some found his comments unfair.
The U.S. attorney's office had previously voiced concerns about MPR News coverage of the program. It thought we quoted more critics than proponents of the program. Most people who supported the program were reluctant and uncomfortable to speak openly about their views toward the Building Community Resilience program.
At one point, an official with the U.S. attorney's office threatened to take MPR News off the press release list if I kept covering his office in a way he thought was unbalanced.
In journalism school, I was taught to act independently, and that my primary duty is to serve the public interest. I go to great lengths to present all sides of a story.
If the government thinks I'm not impartial and some in my community assume I'm not loyal to them, what am I?
When I decided to become a journalist several years ago, I never thought I would find myself in this predicament.
MPR News reporter Mukhtar Ibrahim talks with Ayan Farah during the trial of her son. Courtesy Eunice Lau | Delphin Films
'You leave, too'
I also never thought that federal court security guards would single me out and treat me differently from my white colleagues while covering the ISIS-related trial in Minneapolis.
On the morning of May 9, 2016, I woke up early, performed my morning prayers and read.
When I arrived at the court that morning, I was astounded by the heavy security presence at the court building. U.S. marshals and Homeland Security guards wearing bulletproof vests with K-9 dogs roamed the main entrance of the court building.
I waited in the lobby for a few minutes to observe the scene and then later approached the security screening around 8:20 a.m. Star Tribune reporter Stephen Montemayor was right in front of me. He offered his bag for clearance and went through the security.
When I tried to do the same, a security officer stopped me and told me to wait with the rest of the public. When I told the guards I was a reporter and showed my press pass, I was again told the court wasn't open to the public.
"I passed through security yesterday without issue," Montemayor tweeted the next morning. "[Mukhtar's] experience was vastly different. Unacceptable."
Four days later, after an outburst in the courtroom that led to the removal of a handful of spectators, Montemayor and I stepped outside the courtroom to the hallway to see what led to the outburst. A security officer ejected three men from the courthouse. One was just standing in the hallway and wasn't involved in the altercation.
To my surprise, a marshal walked up to my face and said, "You leave, too." He was so close I could smell his breath.
At that moment, I was just taking notes on my phone and wasn't part of the group that engaged in the argument.
But I'm Somali, like the men kicked out of the courthouse.
I wore a press pass larger than the one I had on the first day of the trial. I got the larger press pass so it could be more visible, but it didn't do any good until an officer nearby intervened.
"He's OK," he said to his colleague.
I was allowed to re-enter the courtroom and do my job.
Journalism's positive power
As a reporter who speaks Somali and grew up in the culture, I was able to open a window for audiences into the experiences of immigrants.
During the trial, there were moments I was the only reporter who understood what was going on in the courthouse.
When tension erupted in the courtroom, a young man who was later removed from the courtroom told a mother of a government witness that her son was "jaajuus," a spy.
Many Somalis have a special distaste for informants and are sensitive to government overreach.
I could feel mothers' anguish when they described in Somali how the trial gave them many sleepless nights, thinking about the fate of their sons.
I could feel how the whole case rocked the community, leaving many to ask why the government did not try to help the men who didn't practice strict religious rituals and who admitted to smoking marijuana, a strong taboo in Muslim culture.
For stories about immigrants to flow into the traditional news, it's imperative to have reporters who are reflective of our communities' diversity, reporters who appreciate covering immigrants in our midst and who, more importantly, have what anthropologists would call a "lived experience."
As a Somali from Minnesota, I get the issues in my community. No one has to explain them to me.
In the fall of 2015, I wrote a story about Asma Jama, an ethnic Somali woman who was assaulted in a suburban restaurant for speaking Swahili. I was the first reporter to contact the woman before the mainstream media even found out her name. That unparalleled access is something I highly value.
My story about Jama spurred a hate crime bill at the Minnesota Legislature that would toughen penalties for some bias crimes.
Gov. Mark Dayton invited Jama to his State of the State address. When he mentioned her name in his speech, Jama got a standing ovation. Dayton even used quotes from my story in his speech.
For me, that sort of impact is what makes working as a reporter worthwhile.
Journalists have an important task in society. Over the last few years, as I have studied and practiced journalism, I have viewed my work as a labor of love, a way to connect to people, a way to document history.
That's why some members of the Somali community began giving me an apt name: "Mukhtar MPR," the reporter.President-elect Donald Trump indicated in an interview with 60-Minutes last weekend that he may be done pursuing the Clintons, backing off campaign statements that the former Secretary of State should be in jail.
"She did some bad things, I mean she did some bad things," Trump said. "They’re good people. I don't want to hurt them."
But although Trump might be done with the Clintons, House Oversight Committee Chairman Jason Chaffetz is not, telling Fox News anchor Tucker Carlson Tuesday investigations into Hillary Clinton's use of a private email server and pay-to-play allegations between the State Department and Clinton Foundation will continue.
"We have to get to the truth. It was was never about a political targeting of Hillary Clinton. She created one of the biggest security breaches in the history of the State Department. We still have tens-of-thousands of documents we still haven't seen, there's more than Hillary Clinton involved in this, you have dozens of people within the bowels of the organization," Chaffetz said.
Watch the latest video at video.foxnews.com
Meanwhile, government watchdog Judicial Watch is also continuing its pursuit of investigations into the Clinton Foundation and Hillary Clinton's private server.Assessing the Economic Aftershocks of the March 11 earthquake, Stephen S. Roach warns us not to be complacent about the effects on the global economy.
After outlining a ‘narrow' view based on a declining global profile for the Japanese economy—a shrinking percentage of both global exports and GDP, a rising China, and an irreplaceable position in only a handful of critical upstream industrial components—Roach urges us not to accept the ‘superficial’ conclusions that might flow from this view: that Japan ‘doesn't really matter anymore’ and that disruptions to global economic activity from the quake and its aftermath will be ‘transitory’ and ‘small.’
Roach points out that this ‘narrow view misses the most critical consideration’—that this latest shock comes at a time of global economic fragility. In particular, with interest rates worldwide at historic lows, the usual levers of monetary policy—interest rate cuts—are no longer available to central bankers to pump up growth. And ‘outsize fiscal deficits’ suggest that fiscal stimulus may also be exhausted. That leaves policymakers with nothing but ‘untested’ and ‘unconventional’ measures such as the quantitative easing being implemented by the Federal Reserve—and, in the immediate wake of the earthquake, by the Bank of Japan.
Roach's fear (and he’s hardly alone in this) is that the cumulative effect of these ‘unconventional’ measures will be a collapse of confidence in fiat money of all types: dollars, yen, euros. As he writes, ‘the dreaded inflationary endgame suddenly looms as a real possibility’ as households and businesses worldwide dump all monetary holdings in favour of anything solid: land, commodities, gold.
So far, there has been no sign of this in the markets—certainly with respect to Japan or the yen. Indeed, monetary authorities in Tokyo and abroad seem most concerned not over any flight from the yen, but about the surge in the yen's value in dollar terms to postwar highs following the earthquake. Coordinated action by the world's major central banks on March 18—the first such actions since 2000—drove the yen back down to its pre-quake levels, but it's been climbing again this week. Given that Japan is going to need to buy hundreds of billions of dollars worth of commodities and manufactures from the rest of the world to rebuild its shattered northeast, it’s not clear how cheapening the currency benefits the country.
But the surge clearly rattled policymakers, underscoring the fragility Roach discusses. Roach has an impressive track record of getting things right, so when he writes that the Japanese economy has ‘been on the leading edge of many of the more serious problems that have afflicted the global economy in recent years’ and calls the country the ‘laboratory of our future’ it’s hard to disagree (indeed I concluded the same here). And when he ends his piece by noting that the more meaningful message for the global economy of the catastrophe Japan has endured is ‘how these shocks box the rest of us into an even tighter corner’ it’s worth pondering the implications of all this very closely.
(This is an edited version of an article that originally appeared at Japan Focus here.)
R. Taggart Murphy is Professor in the MBA Programme at the Tokyo campus of Tsukuba University and a Coordinator of Japan Focus.“My mother’s glamorous friend Ronnie gave her Where the Wild ThingsAre as a 40th birthday gift… it was 1978, and that Maurice Sendak classic was a perfectly sophisticated gift for a grown woman whose children were well past picture-book read-alouds.” M. Russo, The New York Times
ESL Voices Lesson Plan for this post with Answer Key
Excerpt: In Praise of Maurice Sendak, by Maria Russo, The New York Times
“Where the Wild Things Are is the first in what Sendak called his trilogy, books published many years apart and linked not by shared characters or settings but by a deeper affinity of theme: How we can access an inner life to wrest ourselves out of our childhood families and face the scary larger world, thereby growing up. By now, I’ve read the books many times to my own children, astonished at how much is in them for my grown-up self — about that growing-up process, and about the times I grew up in, too.
Where the Wild Things Are is not the famous six-page wordless sequence in which Max and the Wild Things have a ‘wild rumpus’ — even though, yes, it’s an enduring reminder of the importance of letting loose now and then (surely that’s what Ronnie had in mind for my upstanding mom as she turned 40).
It is the exhilarating moment before that, when Max first escapes from his punishment. He’s been sent to his room without supper, you may recall, for nailing stuff to the walls, chasing the dog with a fork, and yelling ‘I’ll eat you up!’ at his mother when she calls him a ‘wild thing.’ Then it happens: His room turns into a nighttime forest, and ‘an ocean tumbled by with a private boat for Max and he sailed off through night and day…When Max gets back home he finds that ‘his supper was waiting for him’ in his room — ‘and it was still hot.’
The second in the trilogy, In the Night Kitchen published in 1970, overflows with food. No surprise: Eating is a physical experience we carry with us relatively unchanged from childhood to adulthood. Our little protagonist, Mickey, awakens to a ‘racket’ from downstairs, falls through the dark, out of his clothes, and ends up in the ‘night kitchen’ with bakers who stay up working so we can have cake in the morn. Why did Sendak depict Mickey naked, once he falls out of bed? Defending his choice against the inevitable dre |
they be objects or enemies:
For the second part of this update, we thought we’d take you a bit behind the scenes, and show you how we put our levels together.
When brainstorming which features we wanted our tools to have - i.e., what we would use them for and how -, we came up with the following set of requirements:
- ability to create multi-layered tilemaps
- ability to easily place enemies in the level
- ability to easily place items / props in the level
- ability to easily place and edit lights in the level
- ability to assign loot to particular items / enemies
- ability to place triggers
Furthermore, if this summer’s demo is well received and we manage to secure funding to complete the game, we would really love for players to be able to mod the game as much as possible, therefore we felt the editor should be as easy and straightforward to use, even for non-experienced level designers!
With regards to the first step, the creation of the tile map, we knew there were already quite a few tools available out there - good tools! - so instead of re-inventing the wheel, we decided to evaluate a few of them, and ended up settling on Tiled (which I’m sure a lot of you are familiar with!). Why Tiled? It’s got a community, is somewhat well established, and has an open format which contains all the layer / tile / etc information that we needed ^^ ( Mapeditor.org )
For the remaining steps however, we created our own little tool to accomodate our needs. It all starts with dragging a TMX tile map into the editor:
Maps are comprised of several layers (pictured here, 2…):
You can easily pan around the map:
Once you have imported a tile map, you will need a dictionary of possible items and enemies for the level, so you have props etc to place around. This is also done by dragging an “item dictionary file” into the editor (this one is created using another in-house little tool which we may also show at some point if ppl express interest ^^’):
Once your items and enemies dictionary is loaded, you can start placing things around. It’s really just as easy as drag and drop:
Obivously you can zoom in and out, select entities, move them around, remove them, etc.:
Placing enemies is accomplished in a similar fashion:
As well as light sources:
That’s it for this week! I really hope everybody enjoyed it ^^ Next week we’ll showcase some new game mechanics again, so stay tuned for more!
Cheers!SAN FRANCISCO — The leader of popular microblogging site Reddit is out, and taking over the top position is Ellen Pao, a former venture capitalist who landed in the spotlight in 2012 after suing her firm for sex discrimination.
The leadership shuffle is the latest challenge for the Internet discussion site, which has been in a tumultuous period as it grapples with growing from a small, intimate community to a social network with more than 3 million users and high-profile investors to answer to. Last week, Yishan Wong resigned as CEO of Reddit, ending a rocky tenure during which he was credited with the company’s growth but also became involved in a heated debate over relocating the company’s employees, according to posts on Reddit.
Pao, Reddit’s business and partnerships strategist, and former partner at fabled Silicon Valley venture firm Kleiner Perkins Caufield and Byers, will serve as interim chief executive, according to a company blog post. The shuffle also brings back one of Reddit’s founders, Alexis Ohanian, who is also a writer and investor. He will be returning as full-time executive chairman.
Pao “has already shown tremendous capability and poise over the last two years holding the No. 2 role at the company,” Ohanian wrote in a blog.
Ohanian could not immediately be reached for an interview, and Reddit did not respond to this newspaper’s requests to speak with Pao. But in an interview with Fortune magazine, the company’s leaders suggested Pao’s “interim” title may be short-lived, and some are hopeful she will take the position permanently.
“Speaking as a board member and the executive chairman, I’m hopeful this is not an interim position,” Ohanian told Fortune.
Pao becomes the face of Reddit just three months before her high-profile case is scheduled to begin a jury trial in San Francisco Superior Court. In 2012, Pao sued Kleiner Perkins for sex discrimination. She alleges she was pressured into sex by a junior partner, and when she complained about his behavior, was retaliated against by management.
Pao says she had brought complaints to management since 2007 about the firm’s treatment of women. In January 2012, after the interaction with the junior partner, she filed a written complaint, and in October was told to leave the firm, according to her attorney, San Francisco-based Alan Exelrod.
Kleiner Perkins has said that Pao’s allegations are without merit.
Trouble began after the company raised $50 million in September; Reddit management, including Wong, required that the company’s global employees relocate to San Francisco — or leave the company — which caused discontent throughout the Reddit community. Some employees said Reddit didn’t pay them enough to move from places like Utah to one of the most expensive markets in the country.
According to Y Combinator president and Reddit investor Sam Altman, Wong left the company over a dispute about moving the company to the new office in San Francisco and how much to spend on a lease.
“The reason was a disagreement with the board about a new office (location and amount of money to spend on a lease). To be clear, though, we didn’t ask or suggest that he resign — he decided to when we didn’t approve the new office plan,” Altman wrote in a blog post Thursday.
Altman also praised Wong for the extraordinary growth Reddit experienced under his leadership.
Before the $50 million funding round, Reddit had mostly steered clear of the VC world, raising just $80,000 in seed funding. High-profile investors including Peter Thiel and Marc Andreessen joined the round, as did celebrities such as rapper Snoop Dogg and actor and musician Jared Leto. Reddit said it would use the investment to improve company infrastructure and hire staff, and plans to allocate around 10 percent of its shares to members of the online community.
Contact Heather Somerville at 510-208-6413. Follow her at Twitter.com/heathersomervil.An Autistic Speaks about Autism Speaks
[Note: This entry was originally posted at DailyKos; the original version of the post, with its comments, can be found here. I’m reposting it on my own blog, with some slight modifications so as to make it more timely and to reach an even wider audience.]
Imagine, if you will, that an organization existed by the name of “Womanhood Speaks,” which, on the surface, appeared to be in support of women’s rights.
Now imagine that the governing body of this organization only included members of the male gender, with not one female represented in its ranks. Imagine that its actual aim was to create a registry of all females and force them to become more masculine, completely disregarding the fact that a majority of females were perfectly content with their womanhood and even found it to be advantageous. Imagine that members of its leadership appeared on popular TV programs talking about the epidemic of womanhood and how it needed to be eradicated.
Doesn’t sound too appealing, does it?
This hypothetical situation may seem utterly absurd, but for one segment of the population— albeit a much smaller subset than that identifying as female* — it isn’t all too far from reality.
I’m speaking of autistics, and more specifically, of the organization known as “Autism Speaks.”
Such a deceptive name. After all, a fair number of autistics are unable to speak; the name Autism Speaks suggests an organization that is willing to speak on their part for greater acceptance and improved services that might enable them to more actively participate in the world while still being able to benefit from what strengths autism might provide.
And autism does have its associated strengths: a dogged persistence; an ability to look at matters objectively and logically; an ability to focus on details that others might miss entirely. If we get rid of the “bad” aspects of autism, we’re also likely to get rid of these traits that, to be honest, can be extremely advantageous in certain lines of work.
In truth, however, Autism Speaks is not very amiable to autistics.
First off, despite the group’s ostensible aim of speaking for autism, there is not one single autistic on its board of directors, or otherwise represented within the ranks of the organization. There are plenty of autistics who are fully able to advocate for themselves, who are fully able to express what sort of support they would benefit from, and would have benefited from as children; however, Autism Speaks wants very little to do with them.
Secondly, and more importantly, the public face of the organization belies its true intentions. Perhaps most notably, Autism Speaks recently allied with another organization that’s also somewhat infamous in autism circles, an organization by the rather presumptuous name of “Cure Autism Now.”
(Just for clarification’s sake, I should point out once again that, though I protest cures for autism, I am not against seeking services and support to aid autistics, or even to ease the lives of parents of autistics. This seems to be a very common misunderstanding; see, for instance, this blog post by autistic advocate Joel Smith on that subject.)
Indeed, I’d go so far as to say that some significant members of Autism Speaks’ leadership simply don’t understand the point of view of autistics.
Take, for instance, the case of Alison Tepper Singer, the vice president of communications and awareness for Autism Speaks, who was also prominently featured in “Autism Every Day,” a fundraising film made by her organization. In one rather famous— and controversial— scene, Singer describes a moment in which she was so exasperated, she had seriously contemplated driving off a bridge with her autistic daughter. A pretty callous thing for any parent to say, but particularly so in front of the child being described, as was precisely the case in this video. Should I mention that the child in question is clearly trying to show affection toward her mother, and being shrugged off, mere seconds before this statement is made?
For those who wish to watch the video in question and see the evidence for themselves, I’m not going to give that video any greater Google ranking by directly linking to it, but a link can be found in Wikipedia’s article on the film, which also discusses some of the criticism thereof.
And if you think this sort of rhetoric has no effect, tell that to the family of Katie McCarron, a three-year-old autistic child from Illinois who was suffocated to death by her mother slightly over a year ago. It may be mere coincidence, but it’s worth noting that this murder occurred just four days after the initial release of “Autism Every Day,” as pointed out by Kristina Chew of Autism Vox. Chew also quotes Katie’s grandfather Mike, who has no kind words for so-called “advocates” of the Autism Speaks sort. There’s not even the excuse of McCarron’s mother having been an overburdened parent in the vein of Singer; as the Coalition for Citizens with Disabilities in Illinois mentions, Katie had not lived with her mother for some 20 months before the incident. Yet that was the primary spin given to the story by the media: an expression of sympathy for the mother, with almost no attention given to the thoughts of those who were Katie’s primary caregivers.
Yet Autism Speaks has major clout. They’ve allied with popular children’s stores such as Toys R Us and Build-a-Bear Workshop, accepting donations from shoppers there (while not making it quite clear what those donations might be used for). Representatives have appeared on popular TV talk shows such as “Oprah,” “The View,” and “Larry King Live,” presenting a very one-sided view of what life with autism entails— while barely allowing critics the chance to present an alternate viewpoint.
Oh, and one of their biggest promoters by far was Don Imus. Draw from that whatever conclusions you wish; I’m not touching that one, other than to point out that he was no stranger to controversy and that he had a large captive audience.
And they’ve been hitting close to home for me lately, in the literal geographic sense. In Atlanta several weeks ago, the combined force of Autism Speaks and Cure Autism Now sponsored a so-called “walk for autism” that gained a fair amount of local and regional publicity. (An interesting definition of “for,” to be sure, when one of the organizations involved is clearly against autism judging from its name alone.)
And today, Autism Speaks is going to have an even larger audience, made up of NASCAR fans. No, I am seriously not making this up. The race that used to be known as the Dover 400 is being held this afternoon, but under a new name, thanks to the wonders of sponsorship; it is now the Autism Speaks 400. (Insert your own joke about autism and repetitive behaviors here.)
So that is why I’m posting this blog entry. It’s to get the word out from the other side of the autism debate, the one that doesn’t get all the media attention. It’s in the hope that someone, anyone, who participated in the walk might start to have second thoughts about it. And most of all, it is with the hope that others like myself can get the support we need to live in a sometimes frustrating society, not a cure that is forced on us without our acceptance.
Autism Speaks surely doesn’t speak for this autistic— nor do they speak for numerous other autistics and advocates, for that matter.The last time Enkelejda Shehaj competed at the Olympic Games, she was representing Albania.
That was in 1996. Three years later, with the government of her home nation collapsing and fearing for her family's safety, Shehaj flew to the United States with two suitcases: "One with my clothes," she told NBC Sports. "And one luggage, it sits there in my closet with all my medals, magazines, articles that were written about me and all the diplomas and everything that had related to the sport. That's it."
Shehaj completed the complicated process to become a U.S. citizen in 2012 and this week she's back at the Olympics, competing as a member of the U.S. team in Rio de Janerio.
Her story is one of the more dramatic ones, but Shehaj is far from being the only immigrant competing for the Stars and Stripes at this year's Summer Olympics. According to research from Alex Nowrasteh, an immigration policy analyst for the Cato Institute, there are 48 members of the Team USA who were born in other countries.
Edward King is another foreign-born Olympian, but this isn't the first time he's proudly represented his adopted homeland—though he was born in South Africa, he's been an officer in the U.S. Navy since 2011. King finished 10th this week as a member of the men's lightweight four rowing team.
Phillip Dutton made a bit of Olympic history this week. The Australian-born equestrian rider became the oldest American, at age 52, to win an Olympic medal when he claimed the bronze in individual eventing—a sport that combines three different horseback riding skills. Like Shehaj, Dutton had previously competed in the Olympics for his birth country before immigrating to the United States and becoming a U.S. citizen.
There's also Danell Leyva, the Cuban-born gymnast who gave maybe the best sound bite of the Olympics when asked about the number of condoms in Rio's Olympic Village. (There are reportedly 450,000 condoms available. "Will that be enough?" was the question. His reply: "For me?").
All told, there are 554 Americans competing at this year's Summer Olympics—the largest contingent from any single country. With 48 immigrants among them, that means 8.5 percent of Team USA was born in another country. That means immigrants are actually underrepresented, since they make up 13.3 percent of the U.S. population, Nowrasteh notes. The largest plurality of foreign-born American Olympians (11 of them) are competing in the track and field events, which got underway on Friday afternoon.
There's no accurate way to count the number of U.S. Olympians who are the children of immigrants, but that number would presumably be much larger.
The United States' foreign-born Olympians come from all over the world. The 48 competitors were born in 30 different counties on six different continents. Their reasons for coming to the U.S. are probably as diverse as those of any other set of immigrants to this country, but as highly skilled athletes they do have an advantage over other immigrants because they often qualify for EB-1 visas reserved for immigrants "of extraordinary ability in the arts, science, education, business, or athletics."
It makes sense to give some people a "fast lane" to becoming U.S. citizens if they have important skills—yes, you could argue about whether Olympic sports should count as important skills, but sports-based-nationalism isn't going away anytime soon so that's not going to change. If you're not an Olympic-caliber athlete, though, navigating the immigration process can be virtually impossible.
That's a shame, because immigrants make the country better off, and not just at the Olympic Games.
Despite the political rhetoric coming from portions of both major parties, immigration actually stimulates the American economy and generates more business. Rather than displacing native-born workers, both high-skilled and low-skilled immigrants complement and enhance the work force, according to research from the Manhattan Institute.
Shikha Dalmia, in the August edition of Reason, points out that globalization (and the immigration that comes with it) in the past few decades has helped America's middle class achieve a higher level of prosperity. Expensive wars and government-run entitlement schemes have done the most damage to the economy, not immigrants.
In short, you shouldn't have to be able to do the high jump or hurdle your way through years of red tape to get a visa or become an American citizen.ST. PETERSBURG — Mitt Romney took an emotional turn Friday night at a twilight rally on the shore of Tampa Bay.
Hours after delivering an economy-centric speech in "coal country" in rural Virginia, Romney told stories of three people who died, drawing lessons from their lives to testify to the greatness of America.
It was a striking and emotional moment for the candidate, whose public persona has generally been defined as somewhere between wooden and robotic.
For the first time in public since announcing his bid for the White House, Romney told the story himself of a 14-year-old dying boy, David Oparowski, who asked for the help of "Brother Romney" in drawing up a will. The boy's mother, Pat Oparowski, a member of Romney's Mormon ward, told the story of Romney assisting her son settle his affairs at the GOP convention in a story that left much of the hall in tears. Dozens could be spotted wiping their eyes as Romney retold the story himself.
Romney described meeting the boy, who had leukemia, at his home not long before he died.
"He said, 'Mitt, what’s next,'" Romney said. "He called me Brother Romney. What’s next? And I talked to him about what I believe is next."
"I went to David’s bedside and got a piece of legal paper, made it look very official," Romney said, recounting a meeting shortly afterwards at a hospital. "And then David proceeded to tell me what he wanted to give his friends. Talked about his fishing rod, and who would get that. He talked about his skateboard, who’d get that. And his rifle, that went to his brother."
Romney quoted from one of his favorite TV shows, "Friday Night Lights," to describe the character of Oparowski.
"I’ve seen the character of a young man like David, who wasn’t emotional or crying. He had his eyes wide open. There’s a saying, clear eyes, full heart, can’t lose. David couldn’t lose. I loved that young man," Romney said.
He also recounted meeting an old friend from his graduate school days at an Atlanta fundraiser three weeks ago. The man, Billy Hulse, was a quadriplegic following an accident.
"And I put my hand on Billy’s shoulder and I whispered into his ear, and I said, 'Billy, God bless you, I love ya,'" Romney said. "And he whispered right back to me — and I couldn’t quite hear what he said. He tried to speak loud enough for me to hear."
"He died the next day," Romney recounted, as the crowd deflated and expressed sympathy.
Fresh off a debate victory on Wednesday night which proved his bolstered his "presidential" image, Romney is trying to seal the deal with voters by allowing them to see his oft-hidden emotional side.
A third story recounted the story of Jane Horton, the wife of a military sharpshooter who was killed in Afghanistan:
On the day she’s packaging up some goodies to go in his birthday package, a knock comes at the door, and they inform her that her husband had been killed, and she decides to devote herself to helping the families of others who have lost their loved ones. He was killed on September 9th 2011. And this was a time when some very misguided people were protesting at the funerals of our servicemen and women—you recall that? And they came to the funeral of her husband. And she was asked, what do you think about this, and this is the quote—she said this: ‘Chris died for them to be able to protest.’ Chris died for them to be able to protest. This is quite a nation we live in, with some extraordinary people.“Roger is a legend, an icon and a stud,” said Pete Sampras, who had flown in from California to sit in the front row of the Royal Box to see his 14 slams being superseded.
It would seem that winning the men’s Wimbledon singles final in straight sets, or in anything approaching a straightforward manner, has gone out of tennis fashion.
Federer ’s 5-7, 7-6, 7-6, 3-6, 16-14 victory meant that, going on the number of games that had been played on Centre Court, this was the longest Wimbledon final of all time, plus the longest final played at any of the four majors, and the 30-game fifth set was the longest played in a title-match at the majors.
Just a year ago we had the longest Wimbledon men’s final, if you measure a match with the clock, as Rafael Nadal required 4hr 48min to beat Federer 9-7 in the fifth set, when the stadium was so dark that the umpire should have provided night-vision goggles.
This was half an hour shorter than last year’s final, and last summer’s Nadal-Federer match remains at the top of the leaderboard of greatest finals contested on these lawns. Though Federer started slowly on Sunday, he won a sixth Wimbledon trophy, putting him just one short of Sampras’s record seven titles – something to aim for next summer.
Roddick turned in one of the sharpest performances of his tennis life, and yet when he returned to the locker room he had pink-tinged eyes, and he was holding the silver runner-up’s plate, and not the champion’s golden, pineapple-shaped trophy.
This was the third time that Roddick had lost a Wimbledon final, after defeats to Federer in 2004 and 2005, but this was the most difficult for the American to accept. “Tennis is cruel,” said Federer, who was in Roddick’s position last summer; emotionally battered. Now Federer is the happiest that tennis has seen him. This month, he and his wife Mirka will become parents for the first time.
If Federer had not broken Roddick in the 30th game of the fifth set, they might have ended up playing through the night and into this morning.
The fifth set was extraordinary. Serving at 8-8, Federer found himself at 15-40, but he produced a couple of big serves to get back to deuce, and he held.
When Roddick came out to serve at 14-15, it was the 11th time that he had got up off his chair to serve to stay in the match. Roddick had won his previous 37 service games. A forehand error from Roddick’s racket brought up match point for Federer.
Another forehand mistake from Roddick, and the match was over. Federer had served 50 aces in the match, just one fewer than Ivo Karlovic’s Wimbledon record.
Federer’s reaction to victory was to leap into the air. Roddick’s reaction, after an embrace with Federer at the net, was to fling his racket on to the grass, and to then sit down on his changeover chair, and to put his head in his hands as he waited for the prize-giving ceremony. Meanwhile, Federer put on a white tracksuit with a golden “15” embroidered on the back.
It was not just the closeness of the fifth set that would have been so upsetting for the American, it was also the fact that he had held four points in the second-set tie-break to go two sets up, and on the fourth of those, when he had most of the court to play with, he could not keep his backhand volley inside the lines.
Sampras had jumped on a plane to watch Federer, a close friend. It was the American’s first visit to Wimbledon since he lost early in the 2002 Championships to a Swiss sub-journeyman player, George Bastl. This was not about Federer confirming his place as the greatest player to have picked up a racket and swished it at a tennis ball, as he had already done that by winning his first French Open last month. This was about the accumulation of grand slam titles, about Federer becoming the most successful player in history.
There were two very different tennis players out there on the grass. Federer walked out to play in a white-and-gold outfit of jacket, trousers and man-bag. If Sacha Baron Cohen’s camp Austrian fashionista, Bruno, was into tennis, he would not dress that differently to how Federer did.
Federer peeled off the jacket and trousers, and showed that he is a smooth and sophisticated presence on court.
Roddick emerged wearing his baseball cap, and then started banging down his serves. Roddick led 6-2 in that second-set tie-break, so holding four set points, only to then lose six points in a row. Many other players would have faded away. Roddick did not.
Roddick’s performance was a fine one; people have played tennis of a much lower quality and won Wimbledon’s Challenge Cup.
Longest game
Set
14-16 Roger Federer v Andy Roddick, 2009
13-11 Jaroslav Drobny v Ken Rosewall, 1954; Ashley Cooper v Neale Fraser, 1958
Most games
77 Roger Federer v Andy Roddick, 2009
62 Rafael Nadal v Roger Federer, 2008
Time
4hrs 48mins Roger Federer v Rafael Nadal 2008
4hrs 16mins Roger Federer v Andy Roddick, 2009; Jimmy Connors v John McEnroe 1982
The longest ever Wimbledon match...
Pancho Gonzales’s first-round encounter with Charlie Pasarell in 1969 was so long it prompted the introduction of the tie-break. After 5hrs 12mins and 112 games, Gonzales won 22-24, 1-6, 16-14, 6-3, 11-9.According to a recent Twitch stream that featured Oddworld‘s director Lorne Lanning, a remake of Abe’s Exoddus is in the works. As a follow up to New ‘n’ Tasty, the new remake had been mentioned before, saying that if New ‘n’ Tasty sold well enough, Abe’s Exoddus would get the remake treatment as well.
Lorne has delivered, saying that their intent now, after being asked time and again, is to bring Abe’s Exoddus to the new consoles as a remake built from the ground up.
You’re able to watch the whole Twitch stream here, but if you just want the meaty bit, skip ahead to about 01:09:30 – that’s where the news is. However, the whole stream was quite an enjoyable watch.
In case you missed it – you can get our review for Oddworld: New ‘n’ Tasty here.Grahamstown - A huge treasure trove of fossils, including of some species that have not been documented by scientists before, has been discovered during construction work on the N2 highway near Grahamstown.
"A number of new invertebrates, as well as excellently preserved plant fossils of the Devonian era, have been excavated and discovered in rock debris of the Witpoort Formation along the N2 between Grahamstown and Fish River," SA National Roads Agency Limited (Sanral) environmental manager Mpati Makoa announced on Wednesday.
The trove was discovered during "controlled rock cutting explosions".
Renowned palaeontologist Dr Robert Gess, who does consulting for Sanral, said the discovery was significant because "many species have not yet been documented by palaeontologists".
The Devonian era lasted from about 416 million years ago to 354 million years ago, and is often referred to as the "Age of Fishes" because of the varieties of fish that were spawned during that time.
Two large land masses at that time were the continent of Euramerica - which included what we now know as North America and Europe - and Gondwana, which was made up of South America, Africa, Antarctica, India and Australia.
The fossilised remains found during the roadworks are of life in a marine coastline environment when South Africa was part of Gondwana, nearly 360 million years ago.
"To advance scientific discourse and original research contributions of South African palaeontology and heritage scholars, we made provision in the environmental management programme for specialist examination and excavation of rock debris," Makoa said.
(Supplied to News24)
(Supplied to News24)
Significant find
According to Gess, the plant and invertebrate fossil discoveries are from ancient open river mouth ecosystems.
"It differs from the fossil discoveries of the closed lagoon ecosystem of Waterloo Farm, an important South African paleontological heritage site of the late Devonian period which is 20km away from the current excavation site where Sanral is working," he said.
"The discovery is significant as paleontological research and scholarship on marine ecosystems of the Devonian period was primarily anchored in the fossil discoveries of Waterloo Farm. Now, we are able to trace a much broader picture of life along an ancient coastline through the discovery of new plant and invertebrate species."
He said the remains of a shrub sized "Iridopterid plant" were collected, as well as a number of "lycopods" and "Zosterophylopsid plants".
Complete specimens of the fronds of the "Archaeopteris notosaria" tree was also collected. Gess says this is the "best preserved fertile material of this ancient tree" on record.
Gess and his team also discovered new marine invertebrate fossils.
"We are busy describing a new species of bivalve or mud clams from Waterloo Farm. However, at the new outcrops we are dealing with an entirely different bivalve that has never before been found," he said.
(Supplied to News24) (Supplied to News24)
Rest and observation area planned
Gess said roadworks in South Africa during 1985, 1999, 2008 and in 2016 have significantly shaped South African palaeontology research and studies.
"They have enabled discovery of the clues to virtually everything we know about high latitude latest Devonian life, not just in South Africa, but in the world," he said.
"Twenty late Devonian fish species would never before have been discovered had it not been for roadworks at Waterloo Farm."
He said between 20 and 30 types of fossil land plants, waterweeds and seaweeds have been collected from the rocks retrieved from roadworks at Waterloo Farm, and are being described by scientists. Some of the remains from Waterloo Farm include fragments of scorpions which represent the earliest known remains of land living creatures from the ancient supercontinent of Gondwana.
Sanral is now planning to create a "rest and observation" area for road users near the site.
"When we first met Dr Gess and he explained significant fossil finds, we thought how can we best preserve and allow public access to this to ensure it becomes general knowledge of what was in this area millions and millions of years ago?" said Steven Robertson, Sanral's project manager on the N2 Grahamstown to Fish River.
"So, we are converting the road design to accommodate a rest area that can be used as a picnic area, and we will be including information boards and displays on the significance of the fossils, their age how they fit into the evolutionary history of earth."
(Supplied to News24)
(Supplied to News24) (Supplied to News24)An almost nine-hour standoff ended just before midnight Sunday with the arrest of a San Bernardino man suspected of shooting at children gathering around an ice cream truck, then later at a SWAT armored vehicle.
A fire started in his house after authorities began firing “hot” or pyrotechnic tear gas inside, and he jumped out a window and was captured, Lt. Richard Lawhead said. The suspect was identified as Terry McKinny, 59, of San Bernardino.
RELATED: Man in standoff had previously acted erratically
Police received a report of shots being fired about 3 p.m. Sunday in the 700 block of West 19th Street, between G and H streets, Lawhead said.
Officers on scene during the standoff said the gunman fired at a group of about 10 children as they approached an ice cream truck, whose driver fled when the truck was struck three times. Lawhead said another car also was hit.
No one was injured by the gunfire.
McKinny then retreated into a house and barricaded himself inside. Police attempted to communicate with McKinny, but he was uncooperative, Lawhead said.
Police evacuated about 25-30 homes in the neighborhood and kept traffic out of a perimeter of several blocks.
McKinny was “ranting,” but refused to communicate directly with police, Lawhead said.
At one point during the standoff, McKinny came outside and dropped a bag — which police say might have contained a rifle — inside the gate of a fence that surrounds the property.
About 8 p.m., a police officer inside an armored vehicle known as a Bearcat tried to deliver a phone to the house in an effort to make contact.
“The suspect fired multiple rounds at officers, striking the vehicle,” Lawhead said.
After the standoff was over, San Bernardino Police Chief Jarrod Burguan tweeted a photo of the Bearcat where it was struck by the bullets, with the message: “Tonights armed suspect took a few shots at our Bearcat (armored). The veh did it’s job and protected our officers.”
Shortly after McKinney shot at the Bearcat, police began firing tear gas inside the house. They deployed about 20 rounds, Lawhead said, but still McKinny didn’t come out.
The San Bernardino County Sheriff’s Department arrived with another armored vehicle that was capable of deploying pyrotechnic tear gas.
The gas caused a small fire to begin burning in the house. McKinny jumped out the window and was taken into custody.
Lawhead said McKinny was injured, but he didn’t know the extent of his injuries beyond a dog bite suffered when he was captured.
Police said the department has had issues with McKinny before.
Jose Villa, 36, and girlfriend Cynthia Miranda live two doors down, said the man has been a problematic neighbor, including arguing with other residents and acting erratically. They said were glad police were responding Sunday.
Staff writer Nikie Johnson contributed to this report.GOP Pledge-O-Meter Publish the text of bills online at least three days before a House vote
Will "ensure that bills are debated and discussed in the public square by publishing the text online for at least three days before coming up for a vote in the House of Representatives."
Updates
Debt deal gets fast-track vote to avert government default
We've been following the House GOP's promise to put the text of bills online at least three days before a vote. As we've noted before (see our previous updates below), the House has sometimes squeaked by, posting a bill very late at night, waiting one day, and voting the next. They argued that having the bill posted -- even briefly -- on three separate days met the terms of House rules adopted at the beginning of the year, which specify that a bill cannot be considered until the third calendar day on which it has been posted. That squeaking by ended with the compromise legislation that extended the federal debt ceiling. It was posted Aug. 1, 2011, the same day that members of Congress voted on it.
We should point out that, technically speaking, the vote still met the terms of the House rules. Congressional staff told us that the requirement for three calendar days does not apply to amendments passed between the House and the Senate, which was how this legislation developed, so the rules were neither violated nor waived. They also made the point that the final bill was very similar to bills promoted by both Republican Speaker of the House John Boehner and Senate Democratic Majority Leader Harry Reid. Finally, the legislation could be considered an emergency as the U.S. government was about to exhaust its legal borrowing authority.
But we're not swayed by those arguments.
For one thing, the U.S. Treasury Department
And, while the rules of the House may not have been violated, the campaign pledge is a different matter. It didn't have stipulations or caveats for amendments or emergencies. It said simply and clearly that bills should be published online "for at least three days" (emphasis ours).
We didn't have to search far to find that even House Republicans complained the budget deal was worked out behind closed doors and only made public on the day it was to come to a vote.
Rep. Lynn Westmoreland, R-Ga., voted against the bill because he said it didn't include enough spending cuts. (Westmoreland is a member of the House Tea Party Caucus; its membership split 36-26 on voting for the bill, according to
But he For one thing, the U.S. Treasury Department warned Congress at the beginning of May that the debt limit would need to be increased by Aug. 2. So the deadline wasn't a surprise or an unforeseen turn of events.And, while the rules of the House may not have |
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Black Friday madness! 20% OFF ALL E-LIQUID this week - check out these new flavors! (News Item) It's that time of year - time to save big with crazy deals! Now take 20% off ALL e-liquid! For this entire week take 20% off our entire massive selection of e-liquid with the code BF2015 -...Nintendo showed off what's new in the latest Super Smash Bros. game. Here are some of the most notable features.
One of the significant reveals from the video event was that Mewtwo will be available to play as free downloadable content in 2015 for both Wii U and 3DS versions. This will mark his return since his only official debut in Super Smash Bros. Melee.
Exclusive to the Wii U version, Smash Tour has players gain power ups in a game board until they eventually fight each other. Target Smash and Home Run Contest will allow up to four players to see who can win. Also exclusive is an eight player mode where everyone can fight simultaneously in both foreground and background areas of large stages.
Returning from Super Smash Bros. Brawl is the stage builder. This updated mode provides Wii U Gamepad support to help make stages easier.
If you are planning to play SSB Wii U, Nintendo released an official list of supported controllers. Check out the video event showing a lot more new information after the jump!In Morgan’s voice, Twain wrote: “In order to give the thing vogue from the start, and place it out of the reach of criticism, I chose my nines by rank, not capacity. There wasn’t a knight in either team who wasn’t a sceptered sovereign. As for material of this sort, there was a glut of it always around Arthur. You couldn’t throw a brick in any direction and not cripple a king. Of course, I couldn’t get these people to leave off their armor; they wouldn’t do that when they bathed. They consented to differentiate the armor so that a body could tell one team from the other, but that was the most they would do.”
He went on to list the names of the starting nines for his two fictional teams, the Bessemers and the Ulsters. Twain finished his baseball-specific prose with what seems like a reference to Spalding’s venture: “The first public game would certainly draw 50,000 people; and for solid fun would be worth going around the world to see. Everything would be favorable.”
Twain appears to have been so taken by Spalding’s exploits that he booked a trip to Australia in September 1895. During his visit, Twain was interviewed about “A Connecticut Yankee” and commented to journalists that “some very powerful political and social lessons are cleverly interleaved with the satire of the story.”
By the time Twain arrived there, baseball had gained a foothold. Harry Simpson, Spalding’s assistant who had gone to Australia for Spalding before the tour and stayed when it departed, started organizing games in 1889. Simpson had assembled and guided the Newark Baseball and Cricket Association in New Jersey in 1883, Clark said, before signing on as the captain and manager of a semiprofessional team in Asbury Park in 1887.
From 1889 to 1891, Simpson arranged numerous games, including interstate contests between South Australia and Victoria. Simpson even wrote to The Sporting News in 1890 to express his belief that baseball in Australia was making good progress and that he intended to bring another American team there to play his rapidly improving teams. But Simpson died of typhoid fever in September 1891 before he could do so.
For his part, Twain kept supporting baseball. The South Australian Register reported that he would attend a four-team, opening day doubleheader in October 1895, featuring North Adelaide versus Goodwood and Norwood versus South Adelaide if his business schedule permitted. (He did not go.)
Still, baseball grew significantly in Australia during the next century and produced a handful of major league players, most notably Joe Quinn, a player-manager for the St. Louis Browns in 1895, and the more contemporary All-Stars Grant Balfour and David Nilsson. But baseball never overtook cricket as Australia’s principal summer game, despite the efforts of those who followed Spalding and Simpson.Pakistan Telecommunication Authority has contracted “InterConnect Communication”, a consultancy firm based out of UK, for provision of consultancy services for upcoming 3G/4G auction in the country, we have learned from sources who are aware of the development.
PTA, on directions of Ishaq Dar, Finance Minister of Pakistan, is aiming to conduct another round of 3G/4G auction in Pakistan with-in next few months.
Pakistan Telecommunication Authority, in order to speed up the process, recently finalized the consultancy firm for assistance in the auction of 3G and 4G spectrum.
A PTA spokesperson confirmed ProPakistani that an agreement with InterConnect Communication — for provision of consultancy services for auction of 3G and 4G spectrum — has been signed.
It maybe recalled that Pakistan sold four 3G and one 4G licenses in April 2014 for a total value of USD 1.182 Billion, while one block in 1800MHz and another in 850MHz was not sold then, which PTA is aiming to sell through an auction in next few months.
Any future 3G and 4G auction in Pakistan will be hugely challenged by variety of taxes on telecom sector
Our sources tell that InterConnect Communication has already begun its working to study the dynamics and details of Pakistani market. After this initial homework, consultants will assist PTA in preparing IM for the spectrum auction.
It won’t be out of place to mention that any future 3G and 4G auction in Pakistan will be hugely challenged by variety of taxes on telecom sector due to which mobile phones companies are reluctant to invest any further in their businesses in general and in spectrum in specific.
In fact mobile phone companies have already signaled to boycott upcoming 3G / 4G auction after recent taxes on data and other telecom services. Telcos are also concerned about government’s non-serious and stubborn behavior towards telecom sector.
With decreasing revenues of telecom sector, all thanks to inapt government policies, it will be interesting to see PTA will be able to generate any interest in local operators (let alone any new foreign operator) for the planned 3G and 4G auction.Moscow cops confiscate copies of book outing corrupt authorities
Police in Moscow have confiscated 3,500 copies of a book written by a Anna Sokolova (shown at left, she's on Twitter), investigative reporter with Forbes Russia, about links between regional authorities and corruption. From the Moscow Times:
The confiscation took place after Deputy Governor Igor Parkhomenko filed a libel complaint with the local police over the book, titled, "Corporation 'Moscow Region': How Russia's Richest Region Was Bankrupted."
The book had a total print run of 5,000. On his Facebook page, editorial director Leonid Bershidsky at Eksmo, the book's publisher, says the other 1,500 copies of the book had already been shipped to bookstores, but...
The confiscated books were not delivered to stores after an obscure company asked Eksmo to hold off on the shipments because it wanted to purchase them all, he said. The request came two days before the confiscation, but the company, Konsard, never picked the order.
Read the rest of the Moscow Times article here. Forbes Russia has an item up today about the police action here.
has released a sample chapter here, in Russian.
Journalists in Russia whose work runs afoul of authorities and/or crime syndicates are frequently the target of intimidation, violent attacks, disappearance, and murder. Sokolova and those close to her are now understandably concerned for her safety.Leave aside the lack of a public option and the fact that the weak exchanges are probably unworkable. And, for now, let’s ignore the poorly designed regulator framework and the huge give away to PhRMA. (I know, big stuff to leave aside). Let’s just look at Baucus’s bill from 10,000 feet.
For starters, being “covered” under Baucus’s reform really is no guaranty of financial security. The yearly cap on out-of-pocket expenses for a family is $11,900 (and that is not counting the cost of premiums, which could be double that). How many middle income families have the financial reserves to take that kind of hit if a spouse needs serious medical treatments over the course of a few years? This bill would reduce–but will not end–one of the greatest shames in our nation. That of “under-insured” Americans forced into medical bankruptcy.
The other major problem is that there is no major reduction in the number of uninsured until 2014. It will be roughly 44 months after the bill is signed before we start seeing a noticeable reduction in the number of uninsured. There is not one but two elections before anything really gets started. Looking closely at the new CBO report, it won’t be until 2014 or 2015 that we start seeing a serious reduction in the number of uninsured.
Even after the bill is in full swing, around 2015, the number of uninsured who will be “covered” is only 27-29 million. Even after reform is fully implemented their will still be 24-25 million people in this country without health insurance, a full 9% of our population. Ignoring undocumented immigrants you are still talking about 17 million Americans without health insurance. This bill will not produce universal health care. It will not even produce near universal health care. After this bill goes into effect we will need another almost equally massive reform effort if we want to get to universal health coverage.
Just to give you a comparison, let’s look at Switzerland (the second to last major industrialized nation to adopt universal health care). In 1994, the Swiss decided to reform their health care system partly because roughly 4% of the country was without health insurance. This number of 4% was considered to be unacceptable by the Swiss. I hope that sinks in. Baucus’s bill would hopefully get us to a place five years from now where we have 9% of people in our country without health insurance. That is still dramatically worse than where Switzerland was before it decided to undertake serious health care reform.
Even if Baucus’s bill works as hoped, we would still have the dramatically more of our people uninsured than any industrialized nation. We will still have the cruelest, least fair, most wasteful, and most expensive health care system of any rich nation. It will only get us to a place that any European nation would consider shockingly unacceptable.
Would Baucus’s bill be an improvement on the currently awful state our health care system? Yes, but starting from a terrible place is no excuse for aiming incredibly low. The nicest thing I could say about it, is that Baucus’s bill will improve the grade of our nation’s health care coverage from a F to a D-. We will still be the absolute bottom of the class compared to all other rich nations. Let’s not try to pretend that this is anything short of an awful bill that would still leave us with a terrible health insurance system. This is not change we can believe, this is the change than I might have expected from a President Mitt Romney.The Seattle Seahawks and Buffalo Bills are co-sponsoring a proposed rule change to be considered at the owners meeting next week in Arizona... and it’s a doozy.
In essence, the proposal permits coaches to challenge any official’s decision except scoring plays and turnovers. This includes the review of penalties, both called and uncalled, and will simplify the replay rules.
The likelihood of this proposal passing appears close to zero.
Bills and Seahawks will propose rule to allow replay review of penalties (called penalties and uncalled ones). That won't pass. — Bob Glauber (@BobGlauber) March 23, 2017
While the proposed rule change might seem logical and fair, it would dramatically slow down the sport. The NFL has recently stated its intention to improve the pace of games.
Similar rule changes have failed in the past, and the drastic nature of this year’s proposal just doesn’t jive with the way owners have recently voted.
These proposals will spark conversation and debate about further extending the reach of replays, especially those involving penalties, some of which beg to be overturned.
If nothing else, it’s a step in the right direction but will likely take years to finally iron out an acceptable resolution.
The Redskins are also seeking a rule change, eliminating the three-challenge limit per game.
Related Latest USA TODAY Sports mock draft has Seahawks selecting tackleSave this for later!
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Sorry, swimsuits everywhere.
Sorry for how delicious these are. Sorry for how easy they are to make. Sorry for the mass appeal that they have. Sorry for how impossible they are to pass up, or eat only one of, or be tempted to get into a fist fight over the last one.
Sorry for the crisp chocolate chip cookies and for the soft, warm, pillowy marshmallow sandwiched between them. And most of all, sorry for the thick, crispy coating of rich dark chocolate that cracks and crumbles when you bite into it that, in any other scenario but summertime, makes a mess, but when it’s hot and you may or may not feel the grass between your toes, is a source of an immense amount of glee. My most profound apologies for that.
Ooh and sorry for all of the creamy, silky melted chocolate that will be left over after you’ve prepared the s’mores, which will demand to be swiped off the sides of the bowl one fingerfull at a time.
Ok, well now that we have gotten that out of the way…how was your weekend? Did you camp? Did you build a bonfire? Did you toast marshmallows over said bonfire and make s’mores which you subsequently burned your tongue on a little bit (but it hurts so good)? Or, did you, as is my preference, skip the camping entirely and go straight for the s’mores? Orrrrr, do you just now regret how you actually spent your weekend, and really wish it had involved s’mores?
Sadly, I spent half of the weekend working – I don’t talk about it much, but I do have a pretty demanding day job which I enjoy, for the most part, except when I have to spend my Saturday crunching numbers. Hey, at least I wasn’t camping (yes, I hate camping more than I hate working on a beautiful sunny summer Saturday, so now you know how much I hate camping).
Luckily, I spent the other half in the best way possible: eating a delicious lunch with great friends and a staggeringly adorable baby. But after a full week-plus of work, I wasn’t in the mood to cook anything too elaborate (I was in charge of dessert), so I like to have desserts like this one in my back pocket. It feels elaborate, but is super easy, and can easily be prepped ahead of time.
There are basically three elements to this dessert, and I have a super-quick and a more leisurely option for each. Feel free to choose whatever suits your fancy and your schedule…
First, you have your cookies. I know I”m biased, but I really don’t think you can go wrong with my favorite grain free chocolate chip cookie recipe. For a flavor twist, try the ginger cherry version, or if you want a slightly healthier bent, this whole grain oatmeal version fits the bill. For true decadence, you might want to look into this double chocolate version – but we’re talking for expert level chocolate connoisseurs only. If you’re pressed for time, I beg of you, please don’t go buy a bag of cookies. Pleasepleaseplease. My favorite shortcut is Simple Mills chocolate chip cookies; yes it is technically a mix, but it is made of the same high quality ingredients that you’d mix together in your own kitchen (almond flour, coconut flour, arrowroot starch, coconut sugar, dairy-free chocolate chips, baking soda, and sea salt; you add eggs, vanilla and butter or oil), and none of the chemicals or preservatives that you would expect in a mix. After my own recipe, these are my favorite chocolate chip cookies. I should mention that they didn’t pay me to write this post or say any of this (although they do pay me to develop recipes for them on a regular basis). I am honestly a huge fan of the company and their products. So, in sum: lots of chocolate chip cookie recipes to choose from, but in a pinch, grab a box of Simple Mills mix.
Next, you have your marshmallows. Whole Foods and other health food stores carry respectable marshmallows, which I used here, but in the past I have had success with this recipe if you want to try making your own. Finding a successful refined-sugar-free marshmallow recipe is tough. I have tried a few and they always turn out with a strange taste, consistency or both. If you have any recommendations for naturally-sweetened homemade marshmallows, please leave me a comment below!
Finally, the chocolate. The easiest way to go is to melt a dark chocolate bar (or whatever potency you like best), but if you want to make you own, you can try this recipe – just know that you will have to keep these refrigerated because the homemade chocolate tends to melt easily in the summer heat.
I think I am making these sound way too complicated and they’re not. The point I am trying to make is that you have tons of options to customize these to your preferences!
If you make them, please send me a picture (acleanbake@gmail.com) or post them on social media with the hashtag #acleanbake, so I can see! I love seeing what you guys are making from the blog :).
Chocolate Chip Cookie S'Mores gluten free, grain free, paleo-friendly 5 from 1 vote Print Pin Author: Nora (A Clean Bake) Ingredients 1 batch grain-free chocolate chip cookie batter or recipe of choice, scooped into eight 2 tablespoon portions
4 large marshmallows or 12 mini marshmallows
5 ounces dark chocolate roughly chopped Instructions Bake the prepared cooke dough for 11-13 minutes (or, if using a different recipe, add about 2 minutes to the baking time) and transfer to a wire rack to cool completely.
When the cookies are cool and feel “sturdy” to the touch, heat the marshmallows in a lightly greased pan, on the grill, or in the microwave until softened.
Cover a large dinner plate of small cookie sheet with a piece of parchment or wax paper. Turn four of your eight cooled cookies upside down and place one large marshmallow or three small marshmallows on each of the upside down cookies, so that the marshmallow is laying on the flat side of the cookie. Sandwich another cookie on top (flat side toward the marshmallow, obviously) and put aside on the prepared plate or cookie sheet.
Repeat with the remaining cookies to make a total of 4 cookie sandwiches.
Place the plate in the refrigerator to chill the cookies while you slowly melt the chocolate in a double boiler or in the microwave in 30-second increments (stirring in between each). When the chocolate is melted and the marshmallows have chilled and solidified, dip each cookie sandwich into the chocolate, swirl it around a little bit to ensure a good coating of chocolate, and gently shake to remove the excess chocolate and then place back on the plate or cookie sheet.
Repeat with the remaining cookies, then place the plate or cookie sheet in the fridge to chill until the chocolate is hardened. Serve immediately. Notes These cookie sandwiches are ample, to say the least. If you’d like smaller portions, simply use 1 Tablespoon portions of dough, reduce the baking time to 8-10 minutes and use 1-2 mini marshmallows per sandwich.
The cookies and marshmallows can be prepared 1-2 days ahead of time if necessary.
The s'mores are best enjoyed immediately after assembly, but if you need to store them, do so in an airtight container at room temperature (in the fridge if it is very warm) for up to 5 days, and in the freezer for up to 3 months. Did you make this recipe? Mention @nora_acleanbake or tag #acleanbake to be featured!
Please note: This recipe was tested both with from-scratch and from-mix cookies, and photographed using Simple Mills’s chocolate chip cookies. The mix was provided to me by the brand, but this is not a sponsored post. I just thought you’d love this recipe as much as I (and my taste testers) did! You can see the original recipe on the brand’s blog here.
Thank you to Simple Mills for providing the ingredients that inspired this delicious recipe. This post contains affiliate links, which means that if you click through and purchase a product, A Clean Bake receives a small commission, which goes toward continuing to bring you delicious, healthy recipes every week. This does not affect the price you pay. Thanks for supporting A Clean Bake!A guy who can shed a tear really can drive females wild—among mice, at least.
According to a new study, male mouse tears contain a sex pheromone called ESP1, which makes female mice more receptive to mounting.
While sex pheromones are known to have similar effects in other animals, the new study shows for the first time how the interaction works "at the molecular level and also the brain level," said study co-author Kazushige Touhara of the University of Tokyo.
Male mice shed tears to keep their eyes from drying out. As they groom themselves, the tears—and the pheromone—get spread around their bodies and nests.
When female mice come in contact with a male or his nest, they pick up the pheromone via a nose organ called the vomeronasal, where the pheromone binds to a specific protein receptor.
"She has to touch it, because this is not a volatile compound like a fragrance," Touhara said, referring to the ease with which some chemicals turn into vapor.
Upon contact, the pheromone is sent to sex-specific regions in the female's brain. The female mouse is then three times more likely to engage in what's called lordosis behavior, a posture shown by many animals in heat in which they thrust their rumps and tails upward.
Tears as a Captive Breeding Tool?
Humans lack the gene that codes for ESP1 and its receptor, so men are unlikely to gain a sexual edge—chemically speaking—if they decide to show their more sensitive sides, Touhara noted. (Get a human genetics overview.)
"But the thing is, in human society we don't use chemical communication anymore, because we have good eyesight"—for visually sizing up attractive mates—"and we use language," he said. (Related: "True Love" in National Geographic magazine.)
The findings, however, may have real-world applications for mouse population control.
"Most of the wild mice express this pheromone robustly, but surprisingly, most of the laboratory mice don't," he said. This has led to a decrease in lab-mouse breeding efficiency, which means that researchers may be spending more time and money than necessary to get animals genetically suited for lab experiments.
Touhara's team has applied to patent the pheromone as a tool to "increase the mating chances for laboratory mice."Administration warns Congress pending WikiLeaks release will damage foreign relations
The Obama administration said Wednesday it has alerted Congress and begun notifying foreign governments that the WikiLeaks website is preparing to release sensitive U.S. diplomatic files that could damage U.S. relations with friends and allies across the globe.
“These revelations are harmful to the United States and our interests,” State Department spokesman P.J. Crowley said. “They are going to create tension in relationships between our diplomats and our friends around the world.”
In anticipation of the posting of the leaked diplomatic cables by the self-styled whistle-blower website, U.S. diplomatic outposts around the world have begun notifying other governments that it may happen within days, Crowley told reporters.
The release is expected this weekend, although WikiLeaks has not been specific about the timing.
Crowley said the State Department “has known all along” that WikiLeaks possesses classified State Department documents. He said it was not possible, however, to predict with precision the impact of their release because the State Department does not know which files will be released.
“We wish this would not happen, but we are obviously prepared for the possibility that it will,” he added.
In two previous releases of leaked secret U.S. government documents, in July and October, WikiLeaks provided them in advance to the New York Times, the Guardian newspaper in London and the German magazine Der Spiegel on condition that they publish their stories simultaneously.
The first leak contained thousands of military field reports on the war in Afghanistan; the second was a similar but larger file on the Iraq war.
No one has been charged with providing the documents to WikiLeaks, but a person of interest in the Pentagon’s investigation is Army Pfc. Bradley Manning, who was an intelligence analyst in Iraq when he was arrested by U.S. authorities in early June and jailed in Kuwait. On July 29 he was transferred to a brig at Quantico Marine Corps Base in Virginia.
Diplomatic cables are internal documents that would include a range of secret communications between U.S. diplomatic outposts and State Department headquarters in Washington.
The revelations they contain are likely to range from the mundane, in the case of routine reporting on meetings between U.S. and foreign government officials, to the explosive, in the case of candid assessments of foreign officials or the exposure of pressure tactics used by U.S. diplomats.
One concern, for example, is that the documents may reveal the kinds of pressure the Obama administration has put on various countries to accept the transfer of Guantanamo Bay detainees who have been cleared for release but are unwelcome in their home countries.
State Department officials said privately there was concern, too, that details about certain sensitive programs could be exposed. These might include details about surveillance at U.S. diplomatic compounds abroad.
A Pentagon spokesman, Marine Col. David Lapan, said the Pentagon also has notified congressional committees of an expected WikiLeaks release. He said the files are believed to be State Department documents, but they could contain information about military tactics or reveal the identities of sources.
A statement on WikiLeaks Twitter site Wednesday said “the Pentagon is hyperventilating again over fears of being held to account.”
The group bills itself as a website devoted to reforming governments worldwide by exposing their secrets, and its motto on its Twitter site is “We open governments.”
Another recent posting said: “The coming months will see a new world, where global history is redefined.”
___
Associated Press writers Lolita C. Baldor and Matthew Lee contributed to this report.
Source: AP News
Mochila insert follows…IKEA could open its first store in Aberdeen in time for Christmas, the Evening Express can reveal today.
It is understood the Swedish furniture giant is aiming to open in the city on November 30, in order to trade before the festive season.
The store would be created on part of the site currently occupied by Makro on the Wellington Industrial Estate in Nigg.
The focus will be on an order and collection service with a limited product range available in store.
There are also plans for a customer cafe.
Aberdeen will be the third city in Scotland to have an IKEA outlet, after Edinburgh and Glasgow.
An IKEA spokeswoman remained coy over its plans to open a store in the Granite City.
She said: “Over the next year, IKEA will test three order and collection points in the UK, exploring slightly different formats in each selected market and using this as an opportunity to find out more about how customers want to shop with IKEA in these areas.”German Shepherd / Aussie Mix For Adoption in Nashville TN – Adopt Bear Today!
Hi, My name is Bear!
There is a $75 adoption/rehoming fee. All supplies will be included.
Are you looking for your new best friend? Well here I am! I am a very handsome dog! I am a mix of German Shepherd and Australian Shepherd. I am super smart, very loyal, full of joy and always ready to please my owner. I am just 6 years old and very healthy. I have been neutered and am up to date on shots.
I am house broken and crate trained. I am not too big – just 45 pounds.
My owner loves me to bits. He wants the very best for me, and unfortunately, his circumstances make that impossible to acheive. He is working very long hours, and I am spending far too much time alone in my crate, or by myself out in the yard. I need exercise to keep me happy and healthy, and he just isn’t able to give me that with his long hours.
He is looking for the best home ever for me. I am such a good boy and really deserve to have a loving, attentive family. I would be best suited for a family with older children who have a big, securely fenced yard, and lots of time to spend with me. I would be in Heaven on a farm or acreage, too.
I am good with some dogs, but not all. It would depend on the dog. I do not have experience with small children or cats. Usually children older than 12 are the best choice as friends for a dog like me.
I will be rehomed with all my supplies. My owner would dearly love to keep in touch with me, but only if that is OK with my new owners.
Please offer me the loving home I need and deserve today. I can’t wait to show you my wonderful personality and wag and wiggle my way into your heart.
Love and licks,
Bear
All About Bear
Name of Pet: Bear Location: Nashville, TN, 37215 Type of Pet: Dog Breed of Pet: Mixed; likely shepherd mix Sex of Pet: Male
Age of Pet: 6 Spayed/Neutered?: Yes Health Problems: No Up To Date on Vaccinations: Yes Gets along with cats: Unknown Gets along with dogs: Yes, No Good with Children?: Unknown House Broken or Litter Trained?: Yes Crate Trained?: Yes Accessories Included: He can come with all supplies from leashes, food dishes, crate, etc.
Bear’s Personality
Smart
Loyal
Always happy to see me
Energetic
Eager to please
Bear’s Current Home Environment
Over the past year our home life has changed. I got married and we moved houses. Our new setup is not great for bear and has become a huge source of conflict.
Bear’s Current Family:
I am married and live in Nashville. I spend a lot of time at work, which is also a contributing factor.
Bear’s Favorite Toys, Foods, Activities?
He enjoys chew toys, going on walks, and going to the park.
Cute Bear Story:
Why is Bear Being Rehomed?
I do not take this decision lightly, but I honestly feel like he could thrive in a better situation. I work long unpredictable hours and my current home situation is no longer conducive to taking good care of bear. At our old home we had a dog door and a fenced in back yard where he could come in and out as he pleased. He spent much of the day outside running in a large backyard, but was able to come in from the elements whenever he wanted. I was overly optimistic that when we moved into a new house, we could come up with a setup that would work; however, this has not been the case and it has become a major stressor on my marriage. My wife’s dog and him play too rough for them both to be inside together unsupervised. I now work even longer hours and he ends up with less attention and more time either alone in the yard or in a crate. He does not seem to get along with my sister-in-law’s dog at all. So anytime they come over, it creates more stress and tension as well. I’m just hopeful to find a setup for him that is better than what we are currently providing.
Bear’s Perfect Adoptive Home Will Be:
Honestly I’m looking for somewhere that would be an improvement from his current situation. I do love him and care for him, but I just feel like maybe somebody else could give him a better life. I think if he went to someone with a large yard/land that would be best. He does enjoy being outside and being active, which helps as an outlet for his energy.
Additional Comments:
In a perfect situation I would like to have some sort of contact with Bear. That being said, I understand that it may not be realistic.
Request to Meet Bear HereFrench Cavalry Defeats Dutch Fleet? By Peter Davis Many sources refer to an extraordinary event at the end of the French advance into the "United Provinces" (the Netherlands) in the winter of 1794-5. It being a particularly severe winter, a significant part of the Dutch fleet, being icebound near the village of den Helder (at the tip of the peninsula between the North Sea and the Zuiderzee), was defeated and captured by French cavalry and horse artillery. This is described by a number of 19th Century authors: the Frenchmen Adolphe Thiers Lacretelle, and François Auguste Marie Mignet, the Swiss Antoine Henri Jomini, and the Scot Sir Archibald Alison. There are also a number of paintings or drawings of the event, the most famous of which is probably the painting by Charles Louis Mozin (1806-1862) originally (and presumably still) in the collection in the Palace of Versailles. More recently, A.G.M. Macdonell, in Napoleon and his Marshals speaks of "(when) the ragged men... thundered on their horses across the ice to capture with naked swords the battlefleet of Holland". Charles Mozin's Capture of the Dutch Fleet A study of J.C. de Jonge's Geschiedenis van het Nederlandse zeewezen ( History of Dutch MaritimeMatters ) sheds a somewhat different light on the matter. De Jonge describes the popular version as a myth and a slur on the Dutch nation and character perpetrated by invidious foreigners. After a period of near civil war between Orangists (supporters of the hereditary Prince Stadhouders), Regents (the commercial oligarchy) and Patriots (French-inspired progressives), the Stadhouder, Prince William V, fled the country to Britain on 18 January 1795 when military resistance to the advancing French forces under General Pichegru crumbled. General de Brigade Johan Willem de Winter (a former Dutch naval officer, since 1787 in French service, and subsequently to command the Dutch fleet in the battle of Camperduin) was sent by Pichegru at the head of a regiment of French hussars To prevent the strongpoint of den Helder falling into British hands To prevent the ships in the nearby Nieuwediep (15 in number, of which 11 were manned and seaworthy) from escaping to Britain or to the Dutch province of Zeeland, still in Orangist hands. His forces arrived in den Helder in the night of 23 January. The next morning (as, apparently uniquely, recorded in the log of the "Dolfijn", one of the Dutch ships), a number of French hussars rode across the ice to the ship of the line "Admiraal Piet Heyn", the captain of which, H. Reyntjes, was the oldest, and thus most senior, serving Dutch officer in the fleet. Ahlé, surgeon on the "Snelheid" wrote later to de Jonge: "on Saturday morning, my servant informed me that a French hussar stood near our ship. I looked out my porthole, and indeed, there stood an hussar." These hussars are assumed by de Jonge to have formed the core of the later myth. There is no record (for example from Reyntjes) what was discussed with the hussars, but it is presumed to have been an oral agreement to maintain the status quo until clear orders arrived. Five days later the officers and men of the fleet swore an oath (similar to that already sworn by the men of other ships in the port of Hellevoetsluis) to comply with French orders, not to sail the ships (which remained under the Dutch flag) without French authority, and to maintain naval discipline. This oath was taken in the presence of de Winter, who seems to have arrived in den Helder a couple of days after his troops. On 21 January, two days before the arrival of the first French forces, Reyntjes had received, via Luitenant-Admiraal van Kinsbergen, the Dutch naval Commander-in-Chief, an order from the Council of State of Holland and Westfriesland to all military forces not to attack or resist the French forces. This was followed up a couple of days later by a resolution of the States-General, the parliament of the United Provinces, dated the 21st, to the same effect. In February 1846, the French Lieutenant-General Baron Lahure published a letter in the newspaper "Echo de la Frontière" in response to the first edition of de Jonge's book. He claims that, being at the head of advancing French forces, he heard, in Alkmaar, that the Dutch fleet was icebound off Texel (the Friesian island opposite den Helder): "I departed immediately with a company of tirailleurs in wagons and a squadron of light cavalry; before dawn I had taken position in the dunes. When the ships saw us, they prepared their defences. I sent some tirailleurs ahead, and followed with the rest of my forces. The fleet was taken. The sailors received us 'de bonne grace' on board... This is the true story of the capture of the Dutch fleet, devised and executed by a 23 year old Chef de Bataillion". De Jonge considers that, allowing for some overestimation by Lahure of his own role (he also claims, in variance with the record, to have taken the town of Haarlem single-handed), this version is not really in conflict with his own. Lahure does not actually state that fighting took place, and the fact that his men were received 'de bonne grace' does not suggest hostile intent on the part of the Dutch. Conclusion De Jonge concludes: that there are no authentic primary references to hostilities or to the presence of artillery, that the winter, although severe, was not so severe as to allow massed troops to cross the ice, that the other authors derived the story from Jomini, and that his source is unknown, but probably an intentionally or unintentionally exaggerated account by one of the hussars involved. He quotes correspondence with three Dutch officers present in the fleet during or soon after the surrender as evidence that no hostilities were needed or took place. Bibliography Alison, Sir Archibald. History of Europe during the French Revolution Edinburgh : William Blackwood; 1833-42. Jomini, Antoine Henri |
usal
A right of first refusal is like an option, but it allows a player to test their market and get what they are worth. The way it works is that for the three months (or some such similar duration) after their contract ends, a player can go shop around and get as many offers as possible. Once the player finds an offer they like, the original team that has the right to match that offer. If they do, there is no bidding war, the player now must go back to the original team. Is that potentially going to make the player unhappy? Sure, but it’s still a heck of a lot better than an automatic option where the player would be stuck there regardless.
Buyouts
This is the thing that allowed most players under contract to still find a spot in OWL. A buyout is the amount that must be paid to a team to remove any contractual obligation a player has to that team. The term is thrown around incorrectly a lot, but it’s an important part of esports. What it is not is a transfer of the player’s old agreement. So, if Optic buys out a C9 player, that player is not forced to agree to anything or play for Optic. Optic is just removing any obligation that player has to C9. It is then up to the player (or usually us) to negotiate their new deal with Optic. The way this is done without Optic risking so much money, is that the buyout will be contingent on the player actually signing with the new org
So, Optic would say, “C9, we want this player. Let us buy him out from you.” The player sees brighter pastures ahead on the other org and tells C9 it’s okay and they’d like to go there. C9 agrees with Optic on a buyout price (usually NOT set in a contract, and instead negotiated by owners). That buyout price will not be paid right away, and instead only will go through if the player and the new team can agree on their own deal. That happens 99% of the time, but not always.
True Free Agency
Sometimes we see a player contract just end with no renegotiations, re-signings, options, or right of first refusals. This is when the player can slow play things, compare offers, hold out for more, and doesn’t have any kind of timeline or hurdles to overcome. It’s also the most obvious of all of these, and doesn’t require much more of an explanation.
Tryouts
Tryouts are not the most common thing in esports. As in most more established games, the players all have a record and resume and owners know who they want to sign. However, in the days coming up to OWL, we saw a lot of nonendemic teams come in and need to get their bearing before wanting to sign people. Part of that was trying out the vast array of talent out there. It was very clear what players had representation and what players did not, as part of an agent’s job is to get their players into tryouts. There really were a ton of players, and it really does go miles having some jerk from New York (me) screaming at a GM to give his guy a shot.
Now that said, the only people pushing players into tryouts for OWL spots are their current owners. Owners know they had a very valuable asset, but with a very fast approaching time limit. Once the OWL signing period was over, most players under contract would have to be released without a buyout, and they would be an overall loss for the team that had been paying them. As such, tryout fees don’t make sense for anyone. Not only does that hinder opportunities for a player and cost their current org potential money, it would also be severely hurting a player’s life and their representation would never have allowed for it. It just wouldn’t happen.
The Future
Now that all players in OWL are under very similar contracts, we will see a lot more structure and professionalism as we move forward. Players know their value, are taking their futures seriously, and I’m really excited to see where this all winds up. Keep on being skeptical of business ethics and practices from the big guys, but also please try to root your anger and fears in fact. There is terrible things happening in esports still (look at Denial Esports), so let’s fix the real problems.Photo by ISIPhotos.com
By CAITLIN MURRAY
The New York Red Bulls won’t be acquiring a National Women’s Soccer League team anytime soon.
Negotiations dating back to December 2012 between the Red Bulls and New Jersey-based NWSL club Sky Blue FC have fallen apart and Sky Blue is forging ahead with a new plan for 2014, club CEO Thomas Hofstetter told reporters Thursday.
“Both sides were very eager to make it work but at the end of the day, we couldn’t get on the same page,” Hofstetter said. “… The question was, do we go left or right? The deal with Red Bull didn’t work so we made the decision to go right.”
Going “right” meant on Thursday bringing in a new general manager in Tony Novo, former general manager of the now-defunct New Jersey Ironmen, to help the club strengthen attendance and increase revenue. This past season was the first time Sky Blue met financial targets, Hofstetter said.
Under the proposed deal, Major League Soccer’s Red Bulls would have been named part or majority owners of Sky Blue, which would have played home games at Red Bull Arena in Harrison, N.J.
Future negotiations remain possible, though. The negotiations ended “on good terms” and the next two years will put soccer front and center in America with the men’s World Cup in 2014 and the women’s World Cup the following year in Canada, Hofstetter said.
“If any of those things might strike Red Bull and us together again, then it’s to be,” he said. “If not, that might be OK too.”
There was no deal-breaker, Hofstetter added, but philosophical differences that stalled negotiations.
“It’s us being small and Red Bull being a big global corporation. They have other goals and priorities. I don’t mean this in a bad way – it just comes with the territory of being two completely different organizations,” Hofstetter said. “At the end of the day, we just didn’t feel from a business perspective that the deal we were discussing, that we could get on the same page. It was mainly business-driven, our decision, and that’s all it is, honestly.”
The Red Bulls haven’t been the only MLS franchise seeking to snag an NWSL club of their own. The Houston Dynamo began a strong, public push this week to get a franchise in Houston.
Without MLS backing, Sky Blue is looking to continue operations as they stood this past season.
“We’re not looking to do any major overhauls,” Novo said Thursday. “What we’re looking to do is basically grow with what we already have. I think there’s a good product – the team has had a good product on the field and had a respectable attendance and exposure. And we’re going to take that to the next level.”
Sky Blue has struggled with attendance since it was founded in 2007 though, a nagging issue for the club. During the 2013 NWSL season, the club had the distinction of averaging the lowest attendance of the eight-team league.
A 2014 venue is not finalized, but Hofstetter said the club will likely return to Rutgers University’s Yurcak Field, which he admitted was “out of the way” for fans.
Hofstetter said the club is committed to remaining a New Jersey-based team, but said they “looked at every single option we have” in the tri-state New York City area, adding, “there’s just not a lot of options.”
A spokesman for the Red Bulls did not return a request for comment Thursday.Re-elected Conservative MP Michael Chong is urging all 338 elected members of Parliament to vote in favour of strengthening their roles as his Reform Act comes into effect today.
"I urge my fellow MPs to vote for the Act's model rules which will empower them to represent their constituents' interests in Ottawa," said Chong.
"This is a once-in-a-generation opportunity for MPs to reclaim their influence in caucus, and by extension, in Parliament."
The Act requires MPs to vote as a caucus on whether they will have a say in four specific, party matters, namely:
The review and removal of the party leader.
The election and review of the caucus chair.
The expulsion and re-admission of caucus members.
The election of the interim leader.
The results will apply to their party for the duration of this Parliament.
"These four votes will determine which powers the party leader will have and which powers MPs will have," said Chong.
The controversial private member's bill nearly died on the order paper during the last session of Parliament, but eventually cleared the Senate after the House of Commons was adjourned and received Royal Assent.
Chong was elected in the new Ontario riding of Wellington-Halton Hills following last Monday's election, which saw the Liberals form a majority government and the Conservatives demoted to opposition status.
1st meeting next week
Conservatives will choose an interim leader when the caucus meets in Ottawa on Nov. 5, a day after prime minister-designate Justin Trudeau announces his cabinet.
New and returning Conservative MPs will cast a ballot to elect a temporary caretaker until a permanent leader is chosen. Defeated candidates have been invited to next week's meeting to vent, but will not vote.
Whether senators have a say on who leads the Tories in the interim will depend on how MPs vote.
"If a majority of Conservative MPs vote for the fourth model rule, which concerns the election of the interim leader," said Chong, "then only Conservative MPs would vote, by secret ballot, for the interim leader."
The new Act stipulates that votes will take place at the first meeting of House of Commons caucuses after the general election and will be reported to the Speaker of the House of Commons.
In an interview airing on CBC Radio's The House, Chong said that voter fatigue was at play during the election campaign.
"The Conservatives under the leadership of Stephen Harper had been in power for almost ten years, and I think there was a sense that it was time to change government."
We discuss the impact of Stephen Harper's legacy on his party with Conservative MPs Diane Finley, Tony Clement and Michael Chong. 23:20
The Conservative Party has already started a complete review of the 78-day election campaign as it moves to select an interim leader and start the process of electing a new permanent one.UPDATE: The NFL has denied Collins’ request.
NFL rejected La'el Collins' request to be removed from draft until police complete murder investigation, per source. No supp draft for him. — Adam Schefter (@AdamSchefter) April 30, 2015
It hasn’t been the greatest week for former LSU offensive lineman La’el Collins. His pregnant ex-girlfriend, Brittany Mills, 29, was tragically murdered in Louisiana, and police would like to talk to him to gather any information that would be beneficial to the investigation.
Police have said that Collins is not a suspect, but numerous teams want to wait to see how this case turns out before risking a draft pick. Collins, who was a potential first-round pick, is considered one of the best linemen in this draft class, but his agent is trying to take him out of the draft altogether as the murder investigation continues.
NFL's call if Collins can get pulled from this draft — Jay Glazer (@JayGlazer) April 30, 2015
Most are asking for a full police report clearing him before they are willing to draft him. Collins is slated to meet w police — Jay Glazer (@JayGlazer) April 30, 2015
Scoopage: Agent for LSU's La'el Collins trying to pull him from this draft allowing him time to clear his name then enter Supplemental Draft — Jay Glazer (@JayGlazer) April 30, 2015
Collins, who was in Chicago for the draft, left to go to Baton Rouge to talk with police, but he won’t until the draft is over. This is an extremely unfortunate situation for someone is not considered a suspect, but it’s understandable from the teams’ perspectives, especially seeing what happened with Aaron Hernandez.10 February 2014
firefox vulnerabilities
A security issue affects these releases of Ubuntu and its derivatives:
Ubuntu 13.10
Ubuntu 12.10
Ubuntu 12.04 LTS
Summary
Firefox could be made to crash or run programs as your login if it opened a malicious website.
Software Description
firefox - Mozilla Open Source web browser
Details
Christian Holler, Terrence Cole, Jesse Ruderman, Gary Kwong, Eric Rescorla, Jonathan Kew, Dan Gohman, Ryan VanderMeulen, Carsten Book, Andrew Sutherland, Byron Campen, Nicholas Nethercote, Paul Adenot, David Baron, Julian Seward and Sotaro Ikeda discovered multiple memory safety issues in Firefox. If a user were tricked in to opening a specially crafted website, an attacker could potentially exploit these to cause a denial of service via application crash, or execute arbitrary code with the privileges of the user invoking Firefox. (CVE-2014-1477, CVE-2014-1478)
Cody Crews discovered a method to bypass System Only Wrappers. An attacker could potentially exploit this to steal confidential data or execute code with the privileges of the user invoking Firefox. (CVE-2014-1479)
Jordi Chancel discovered that the downloads dialog did not implement a security timeout before button presses are processed. An attacker could potentially exploit this to conduct clickjacking attacks. (CVE-2014-1480)
Fredrik Lönnqvist discovered a use-after-free in Firefox. An attacker could potentially exploit this to cause a denial of service via application crash, or execute arbitrary code with the priviliges of the user invoking Firefox. (CVE-2014-1482)
Jordan Milne discovered a timing flaw when using document.elementFromPoint and document.caretPositionFromPoint on cross-origin iframes. An attacker could potentially exploit this to steal confidential imformation. (CVE-2014-1483)
Frederik Braun discovered that the CSP implementation in Firefox did not handle XSLT stylesheets in accordance with the specification, potentially resulting in unexpected script execution in some circumstances (CVE-2014-1485)
Arthur Gerkis discovered a use-after-free in Firefox. An attacker could potentially exploit this to cause a denial of service via application crash, or execute arbitrary code with the priviliges of the user invoking Firefox. (CVE-2014-1486)
Masato Kinugawa discovered a cross-origin information leak in web worker error messages. An attacker could potentially exploit this to steal confidential information. (CVE-2014-1487)
Yazan Tommalieh discovered that web pages could activate buttons on the default Firefox startpage (about:home) in some circumstances. An attacker could potentially exploit this to cause data loss by triggering a session restore. (CVE-2014-1489)
Soeren Balko discovered a crash in Firefox when terminating web workers running asm.js code in some circumstances. An attacker could potentially exploit this to execute arbitrary code with the priviliges of the user invoking Firefox. (CVE-2014-1488)
Several issues were discovered with ticket handling in NSS. An attacker could potentially exploit these to cause a denial of service or bypass cryptographic protection mechanisms. (CVE-2014-1490, CVE-2014-1491)
Boris Zbarsky discovered that security restrictions on window objects could be bypassed under certain circumstances. (CVE-2014-1481)
The problem can be corrected by updating your system to the following package versions:
Ubuntu 13.10 firefox - 27.0+build1-0ubuntu0.13.10.1 Ubuntu 12.10 firefox - 27.0+build1-0ubuntu0.12.10.1 Ubuntu 12.04 LTS firefox - 27.0+build1-0ubuntu0.12.04.1
To update your system, please follow these instructions: https://wiki.ubuntu.com/Security/Upgrades.
After a standard system update you need to restart Firefox to make all the necessary changes.
ReferencesInterest in whether Melania Trump’s Republican National Convention speech was plagiarized from 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 surged among Google search users as the controversy grew.
Google said on Tuesday morning that searches for “melania trump michelle obama” rose 1,250 percent and that the top question related to Melania Trump was “who wrote Melania’s speech?”
ADVERTISEMENT
The search term “plagiarized” was also one of the words most linked to searches for Melania Trump’s name.
Presumptive Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump Donald John TrumpREAD: Cohen testimony alleges Trump knew Stone talked with WikiLeaks about DNC emails Trump urges North Korea to denuclearize ahead of summit Venezuela's Maduro says he fears 'bad' people around Trump MORE introduced his wife in Cleveland on Monday night. But her speech was quickly overshadowed by the fact that a passage was noticeably similar, in some places word-for-word, to the address Obama delivered at the 2008 Democratic National Convention.
Trump’s campaign has vehemently pushed back against the accusations of plagiarism as the controversy threatened to consume the second day of the convention.
“Well there’s no cribbing of Michelle Obama’s speech. These were common words and values,” campaign manager Paul Manafort said on CNN Tuesday.
Jason Miller, a campaign spokesman, said that “Melania’s team of writers took notes on her life’s inspirations, and in some instances included fragments that reflected her own thinking.”
Complicating matters further, Melania Trump told an interviewer Monday that she had written the speech herself with “as little help as possible.”
Melania Trump has kept a relatively low profile throughout the campaign, making her Monday speech one of her most prominent appearances so far.Keyword
Company
EPIC/TIDM
SEDOL/ISIN
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RSS Frontier Dev PLC (FDEV) Add to Alerts list Print Mail a friend Tuesday 08 September, 2015 Frontier Dev PLC Final Results RNS Number : 3406Y Frontier Developments PLC 08 September 2015 8 September 2015 Frontier Developments plc Year End Results Frontier Developments plc (AIM: FDEV, "Frontier", the "Group"), a leading developer of video games based in Cambridge, UK has published its full year results for the year to 31 May 2015 showing record revenues and profit following the highly successful launch of Elite Dangerous in December 2014. Financial Highlights
2015 2014 % Change 2013 Net Cash Balance £10.5m £8.4m +24% £7.2m Revenue £22.8m £9.5m +139% £12.1m EBITDA £6.1m £0.3m +1,790% £2.9m Adjusted Operating Profit/(loss) £2.5m (£3.5m) +171% £1.8m Operating Profit/(loss) £1.6m (£1.7m) +192% £1.1m EPS/(LPS) 4.9p (5.8p) +185% 4.2p Adjusted EPS/(LPS) 7.4p (11.4p) +165% 7.3p Deferred Income £0.7m £2.5m (70%) £1.3m Operational Highlights · Strategic step: The first stage of transition was successfully completed as Elite Dangerous launched. At the end of August 2015 it had sold 825,000 paid units (excluding free 'demo' units) and generated 84% of Group revenues via a self-publishing business model including associated merchandise. · Self-publishing contributed significantly to record revenues, up 139% to £22.8 million, a cash increase of £2.1 million to £10.5 million, EBITDA up 1,730% to £6.1 million and an adjusted operating profit up 171% to £2.5 million whilst still in transition. · The Group expanded the reach of Elite Dangerous through subsequent releases on Mac and Xbox One platforms in addition to PC, and via the Steam and Xbox Live distribution channel in addition to the Group's own online store. The Group's COBRA technology facilitated the significant technological and logistical achievement of simultaneous multi-platform and multi-channel releases whilst players all share the same server environment. · All remaining work-for-hire projects were completed, as Tales from Deep Space with Amazon and ScreamRide with Microsoft released. · The organisation was restructured for fully self-published operations by centralising development in the Group's Cambridge headquarters and changing the staffing mix via targeted recruitment and redundancy at a cost of £0.3 million. · The Group started the development of its second self-published franchise, Planet Coaster, which was also publicly announced. Trading Update · Up to 31 August 2015 the Group had sold approximately 825,000 units of Elite Dangerous. At the Gamescom show it announced Elite Dangerous: Horizons, a new paid-for season of expansions for the game, to a positive critical reception. Net cash balances at 31 August were approximately £10.7 million. · An early video of Frontier's second franchise Planet Coaster was shown for the first time at E3's inaugural PC Gaming Show. The game is set to be publicly released in Q4 of 2016 and is available now on a pre-order basis. David Braben, Chief Executive of Frontier Developments, said: "This has been a great year for us, and the first part of our transition has been successfully completed. The process of the beta and then release of Elite Dangerous went very smoothly and the regular delivery of new elements for the game has helped build an ever-growing fan base. With our first franchise about to enter its second season, and the announcement of our second, Planet Coaster, Frontier is in a very strong position, and very well placed for an exciting future and further revenue growth." Enquiries: Frontier Developments +44 (0)1223 394 300 David Braben, CEO David Walsh, COO Neil Armstrong, CFO Numis - Nomad and Joint Broker +44 (0)20 7260 1000 Simon Willis / Jamie Lillywhite (Nomad)
Finncap +44 (0) 207 220 0500 Matt Goode/Giles Rolls Tulchan Communications +44 (0) 207 353 4200 James Macey White/Matt Low About Frontier Developments plc Frontier Developments plc, listed on the AIM stock market (AIM: FDEV), is a leading independent game developer founded in 1994 by David Braben, co-author of the seminal 'Elite' game. Based in Cambridge, Frontier uses its proprietary 'COBRA' game development technology to create innovative games across videogame consoles, computers, smartphones and tablets. www.frontier.co.uk Chairman's Statement This has been a landmark year for our Company. Two years ago we embarked on a transition plan. I am very pleased to report that the first stage of that transition is now complete. Last year 81% of our revenue was derived from 2 clients on whose behalf we developed games. This financial year 84% of our sales (including associated merchandise) have come from the consumers who bought our self-published game Elite Dangerous. In 2016 we expect 100% of our revenue to be booked from consumers buying our self-published games. This transition has involved significant internal re-organisation as well as adapting from a B2B to B2C model. I take this opportunity to thank all our employees for their dedication, long hours and hard work. In 2015 we also released the last of our games developed for third parties: Tales from Deep Space on behalf of Amazon and ScreamRide for Microsoft. We thank these customers and continue to maintain a close relationship with them as they play key parts in the distribution of our self-published games. 2015 above all else has been the year of Elite Dangerous. We have built a virtual galaxy with 400 billion star systems in which players can engage with each other in combat, explore the stars and their planets, mine resources and trade them. The second step in our transition is to take the success of Elite Dangerous to become a multi-franchise game publisher. We recently announced that our second franchise, Planet Coaster, is being built on our knowledge and long experience of roller coaster games. We expect to reveal details of a third franchise once Planet Coaster is released. This will keep our creative teams busy for many years ahead. As well as developing franchises, the core of our capability must focus on remaining at the forefront of game development technology. Our COBRA engine, which enables us to release games on many platforms, remains an important effort. Elite Dangerous was one of the first games to showcase the possibilities of Virtual Reality (VR) and we intend to stay in touch with hardware manufacturers of VR systems such as Facebook's Oculus Rift, Valve and HTC's Vive, Microsoft's HoloLens and Sony's Morpheus as 3D virtual reality becomes more commonplace. Elite Dangerous has now been released on PC, Mac and Xbox One, and we will continue to invest in releases to achieve the maximum customer reach. In last year's statement I said that "In future years, starting with 2015, we will see the harvest of the seeds we have sown." We have delivered a transformation in business model, achieved a record level of revenue, sold our first developed game to 825,000 consumers (the majority through our own web store), re-engineered our development capability (from third party published to self-published) and announced a net profit in the financial year. Looking ahead I see a multi-franchise game developer / publisher with its games being distributed on the most modern and best hardware platforms, achieving sustainable returns for our shareholders. Activision Blizzard Inc and Electronic Arts are good exemplars as to where we are heading. Our Company could not achieve its success without the hard work, creative talent, dedication and perspiration from our exceptional employees. I take this opportunity to thank them on behalf of all shareholders. Equally, our transition would not have been possible without the financial support of our shareholders and backers. I take this opportunity to thank them on behalf of all employees. Chief Executive's Statement We are delighted to have returned to profit this early in our transition. We raised funds during the Kickstarter crowd-funding at pre-IPO and IPO in order to fund the transition but, with hindsight, the process has been more successful and more cash generative than anticipated. We successfully launched Elite Dangerous via our own web-based store and have continued to support it with regular significant expansions. We reached new audiences for the game by supporting new distribution channels and platforms with Steam, Mac and Xbox One. As we completed our obligations to third party publishers, the success of Elite Dangerous allowed us to start investing in a second self-published franchise in anticipation of higher future returns. Planet Coaster is a game in the 'Tycoon' genre; a teaser trailer was launched during the E3 trade show in June. Planet Coaster will launch in 2016 and will allow the Group to make use of its proven expertise in the 'Tycoon' genre, as Elite Dangerous has in its genre. The significantly higher net receipts from self-publishing Elite Dangerous compared to our previous work-for-hire business model enabled Frontier to more than double headline revenue for the year to £22.8 million, and the net cash balance increased by £2.1 million to £10.5 million at 31 May 2015. This allowed us to generate a pre tax profit of £1.6 million (EBITDA of £6.1million) whilst still in a planned transition. Just over half of our developers are working on Elite Dangerous, and the rest are now working on Planet Coaster. The second stage of our transition will be complete in late 2016 when Planet Coaster is planned to ship. Sales of our first major franchise, Elite Dangerous, are tracking well. Sales figures of Elite Dangerous have already been made public over the year, and as of the end of August 2015 stood at approximately 825,000 unit sales. In addition to our major self-published franchises, we released a port of our classic PC game RollerCoaster Tycoon 3 for iOS (Apple) devices on 13 August 2015. Our work for external publishing partners in the financial year included Amazon Game Studios release of Tales from Deep Space for Kindle Fire devices, and subsequently on iOS. We also worked for Microsoft Game Studios on the release of ScreamRide for Xbox One, digitally available via Xbox Live in March. Overall we have had a great year. This is down to the hard work of our staff, and the great support from our many fans around the world. Strategy Transition to self-publishing The first stage of Frontier's transition to self-publishing is complete. Elite Dangerous, Frontier's first major franchise, is in the market. It is earning significantly more revenue with higher margins from unit sales than by working for third party publishing partners, despite the development process being the same. Having successfully completed its obligations to third party publishers during the financial year, Frontier used the staff who had been allocated to work-for-hire contracts to start investment in the creation of a second major self-published franchise in anticipation of higher returns in the longer term. The game is a strategy / simulation genre, rollercoaster-based title - Planet Coaster - due for release in Q4 2016. Since completion of external publisher contract work with Amazon Game Studio, shortly after the end of the financial year, just over half of Frontier's developers have been working on Elite Dangerous, with the rest working on Planet Coaster. The second stage of Frontier's transition will be complete in late 2016 when Planet Coaster is planned to ship Repeatable model over multiple franchises Frontier's strategy is to build up key franchises over time. Frontier is following the pattern of successful franchises in the games industry by planning for their growth over many years, releasing new content and new platforms to extend addressable markets, while working to build a supportive fan base. Frontier has used this model for Elite Dangerous and is now repeating this for Planet Coaster, which Frontier expects to follow a similar profile over time. The company plans to begin a third franchise around the time of Planet Coaster's launch, using the same philosophy. Elite Dangerous In addition to the launch of Elite Dangerous itself, Frontier has released three 'expansions' for Elite Dangerous, called 'Community Goals', 'Wings' and 'Powerplay', with two further expansions to come in calendar 2015. This represents a'season' of content, with each expansion creating new interest in the game. Frontier has also reached new audiences through the Valve's Steam distribution channel, and online market place, a community of 25 million gamers and added support for new platforms with Apple Mac and Microsoft XBox One. Subsequent to the end of the financial year, Frontier announced Elite Dangerous: Horizons. This is a second'season' of major gameplay expansions for Elite Dangerous on PC, announced during the Gamescom games show in Cologne, Germany. This announcement made clear Frontier's plans for continued monetization of the Elite Dangerous franchise. Additional expansions to the game will continue to be released in paid seasons - all players will fly together in the same galaxy but access different features depending on which season they have purchased. Planet Coaster The Group has a very successful track record in developing games of the strategy / simulation genre, for example RollerCoaster Tycoon 3 and Zoo Tycoon for PC and XBox One respectively. Originally titled 'Coaster Park Tycoon', Planet Coaster was renamed to help communicate the fresh approach the game will bring to the strategy / simulation genre and differentiate it from a plethora of games in the genre with the word 'Tycoon' in their title, using the sub-title 'Simulation Evolved'. 'Tycoon' has latterly become synonymous with a perception of low-quality in the minds of today's consumers. A trailer video for Planet Coaster premiered at the PC Gaming Show held during the E3 tradeshow in Los Angeles in June 2015. This was well received and Frontier believes it was successful in both raising awareness of the new game and establishing its position in the market as a modern-day continuation of the Group's previous work on high-quality strategy / simulation titles. COBRA Elite Dangerous was created using the latest evolution of the Group's COBRA technology and tools. It included several ground-breaking features such as a novel hybrid server architecture, which offers significant cost advantages over other approaches and an ongoing player-driven story. Additionally, the Group has used the cross-platform nature of COBRA to release Elite Dangerous on new platforms such as Apple's OS X operating system for Macintosh computers (the first time this platform has been supported by COBRA) and Microsoft Xbox One. The Group's support of additional distribution channels for Elite Dangerous from Valve and Microsoft was facilitated by linking its own online store with Steam and Xbox Live, two of the leading gaming digital eco-systems. COBRA technology facilitated the significant technological and logistical achievement of simultaneous multi-platform and multi-channel releases whilst players all share the same server environment. Key performance indicators Measure of growth: Revenue (£'000) 2015 22,766 2014 9,541 2013 12,072 Measure of profitability: Adjusted Operating Profit (£'000) 2015 2,474 2014 (3,470) 2013 1,830 Investment in self-publishing Man months 2015 1,531 2014 933 2013 376 Investment in technology Man months 2015 333 2014 301 2013 190 Diversifying revenue streams % of revenue by segment 2015 2014 2013 Self-published 82% 5% 4% External Publishers 15% 81% 94% Royalties, Merchandise and other income 3% 14% 2% Outlook and Current Trading update Following the successful completion of the first stage of our transition the Board expects the Group to be well placed as it develops its IP into world class franchises. Frontier is on course to launch the Xbox One version of Elite Dangerous in September 2015 and the follow up season of expansions, Elite Dangerous: Horizons, in the fourth calendar quarter of 2015. Elite Dangerous: Horizons is a season of major gameplay expansions for Elite Dangerous, beginning with Planetary Landings on 1:1 scale worlds across the Elite Dangerous galaxy. Elite Dangerous: Horizons will continue to introduce major new features and gameplay as the season continues into 2016, enriching the Elite Dangerous experience with new activities and new ways to play. The Board expects further strong revenue growth in the current financial year. The timing of the release of Elite Dangerous: Horizons, expected to be around our half year end, will likely have a significant impact on the half-on-half phasing of the current year's revenues. As planned, Frontier has started development on Planet Coaster, set for release in the fourth calendar quarter of 2016 as a second franchise. The launch of Planet Coaster will represent the end of the next stage of our transition, delivering a fully self-published revenue pipeline that maximises returns from the use of our established expertise and pool of IP. We will also continue to identify further franchises that would make full use of our established expertise and IP in order to further build our revenue pipeline for the longer term. Up to 31 August 2015 the Group had sold approximately 825,000 units of Elite Dangerous. At the Gamescom show it announced Elite Dangerous: Horizons, a new paid-for season of expansions for the game, to a positive critical reception. Net cash balances at 31 August were approximately £10.7m.An early video of Frontier's second franchise Planet Coaster was shown for the first time at E3's inaugural PC Gaming Show. The game is set to be publicly released in Q4 of 2016. Financial Review Trading Results In the financial year ended 31 May 2015, Frontier Developments delivered the first key milestone within a planned transitional period as it'self-published' its first major title, Elite Dangerous, on PC and Mac platforms. The Group's operating cashflow was £7.3 million (2014: £0.3 million) and its investment in non-current assets was £4.6 million (2014: £4.4 million), consequently net cash balances rose to £10.5 million from £8.4 million, and the Group was able to pay back early the interest free loan from the Atlantic Canada Opportunities Agency. The Group is once again debt free. Revenue more than doubled to £22.8 million from £9.5 million, and EBITDA rose to £6.1 million from £0.3 million. The Group delivered an operating profit of £1.6 million compared with an operating loss of £1.7 million in the prior year. Adjusted operating profit (being revenue less non-cash expenses) was £2.5 million (2014: loss (£1.3 million)). Basic earnings per share were 4.9 versus (5.8) pence loss per share in the prior year, and on an adjusted basis (this measure, set out in note 5, excludes amortisation, depreciation and R&D capitalised within the measure) the basic earnings per share was 7.4 pence, compared to a loss per share of 11.4 pence. The Group has made cashflow the primary financial statement as the Board believes it represents a clearer picture of the Group's performance. Frontier has also fine-tuned its key financial measures in conjunction with the business model transition; measuring revenue on an unadjusted basis as the differences to underlying revenue have become less material. The Group has presented adjusted operating profit as its preferred measure of profitability to provide an improved insight into performance over the transition period: adjusted operating profit seeks to add back funding related and all non cash overheads so as to measure the surplus resources available after re-investment in development costs of its self-publishing and tools and technology work. Group Trading Performance in Transition The Group continued the planned transitional investment phase to develop and launch Elite Dangerous in the year on both PC and Mac platforms, this being its first major large budget self-published title, together with associated technology development. The Group is in transition from being a developer of video games and related software technology, to becoming an independent publisher of its own video game franchises, while continuing to develop its own software in-house. By the end of the financial year the first franchise team, working on Elite Dangerous, represented approximately half of the development effort of the Company. Following the successful completion of work for external publishers, including Scream Ride for Microsoft and Tales from Deep Space for Amazon, the transition of the other half of the development effort began, developing second franchise "Planet Coaster" - this |
Trebek (no 8) and Michelle Obama (no 19).
The magazine said it conducted the poll of more than 1,000 US citizens in conjunction with research firm the Wagner Group to "discover which individuals and the ideals they represent have earned our confidence".
As the personification of all-American values in a string of films ranging from Saving Private Ryan and Apollo 13 to Toy Story, Hanks' status is perhaps understandable. More oddly, however, Miss Congeniality actor Sandra Bullock took second place, while Denzel Washington, whose most recent role was an airline pilot with substance abuse issues in Flight, came third. Moreover, six of the 10 most trusted Americans identified by the poll are movie-industry titans: Meryl Streep came fourth, Steven Spielberg sixth, and Julia Roberts claimed 10th place.
The highest non-Hollywood entry on the list is author and academic Maya Angelou, at no 5, while the most highly rated active former or current political officeholder (discounting the first lady) is Madeleine Albright, secretary of state from 1991 to 2001, at no 23. Activist academic Noam Chomsky came in ahead of Albright, at no 20.By
This weekend, the world is blessed with another movie from Will Ferrell. The Other Guys co-stars Mark Wahlberg and gives us Ferrell in his best type of role: over serious, socially unsavvy goofball.
Naturally we are all hoping that it’s closer to Old School/Anchorman than, say, Land of the Lost…but Ferrell’s track record includes many, many more hits than misses so I’ll be there expecting plenty of LOLs.
And speaking of Ferrell and LOLs, I decided that the eve of his new movie’s opening would be a great time to celebrate Ferrell’s voluminous catalog of hilarious characters, skits, and clips. So…I spent the last two hours poring through YouTube, Hulu, FunnyOrDie and other sites to come up with the following 25 videos, which I think represent a close-to-definitive list of the funniest Ferrell videos available online.
As always when I write posts like this (see past examples for Louis CK, Zach Galifianakis, Dave Chappelle, and Steve Carell/Paul Rudd) I’m sure I will leave out some good clips. Please post your amendments to this list in the comment section. You can even call me an idiot or an ass clown for forgetting your favorite Ferrell clip; I promise I won’t take it personally.
I’ll note that the videos are not posted in any particular order. They are simply posted in the order I found them. I was originally going to rank them, but after I had spent five minutes and still hadn’t come up with a choice I felt comfortable with for #1 I decided to scrap that idea.
So here they are, the 25 funniest reasons why Will Ferrell is kind of a big deal.
SNL: Celebrity Jeopardy w/ Turd Ferguson
There are a lot of Celebrity Jeopardy episodes so it’s tough to pick just one. I chose this one because a) it gave us Turd Ferguson; b) Sean Connery is in it; and c) Will Ferrell gets to wrestle with a sombrero at the end.
SNL: More Cowbell
Does this one really need any introduction? It might be the most famous, oft-quoted skit that Will Ferrell has ever been involved in. This was Ferrell at the height of his powers.
Old School: Pretty Nice Little Saturday
An underrated scene from Old School. Ferrell’s delivery of the “nice little Saturday” rant kills me every time. I could have used the “We’re going streaking!” clip too, but that would have required you seeing Ferrell’s barenaked butt cheeks…and no one wants to see that.
Old School: Dart Scene
The best scene from Old School. Sean William Scott is awesome in it, and Ferrell shows off his tremendous ability to pull off physical comedy.
Anchorman: I’m Kind of a Big Deal
Anchorman is a really, really, ridiculously funny movie, but it doesn’t work as well in clips as other Ferrell movies. It’s a movie that is much better in context and watched as a whole. That said, this clip is classic Ron Burgundy.
Ron Burgundy Auditions for ESPN
This clip isn’t even in the movie, but rather a special feature on the DVD. I love the part at the end when Burgundy puts the chair on the desk like a child and then sprints away.
SNL: Harry Caray Impression
My favorite Harry Caray impression by Will Ferrell is the episode of “Space: The Infinite Frontier” with Jeff Goldblum. That one cannot be embedded, but you can watch it here. The clip below is no slouch though. Ferrell’s Caray impression is spot-on hilarious; so much so that most Harry Caray impressions now are people impersonating Will Ferrell impersonating Caray.
Talladega Nights: Baby Jesus Prayer
The most oft-quoted scene from The Ballad of Ricky Bobby. And for good reason.
Will Ferrell and John C. Reilly make their demands for hosting the ESPYs
These two play off of eachother really well. This clip is from the ESPYs when Ferrell and Reilly had their run with Talladega Nights and Step Brothers. I think it’s time they made a third flick together.
Step Brothers: Job Interviews
Remember what I just said about these two playing off of eachother really well?
SNL: Goodbye Dan Marino
This video holds a special place in my heart because Dan Marino is my favorite NFL player of all-time. It also holds a special place because it’s hilarious.
SNL: Dodge Stratus
Classic. Needs no introduction. This man is a division manager!
SNL: Will Ferrell and Garth Brooks
I’ve always thought this was one of the more underrated skits by Will Ferrell. This is clearly the funniest use of the term “slacks” in the history of comedy.
SNL: Will Ferrell and Cheri O’Teri as The Cheerleaders
This is one of the characters that made Ferrell a star. And Cheri O’Teri is just a freak of nature. Together, they make what should be a pretty lame skit funny.
SNL: The Lovers
There are a few examples of “The Lovers” to choose from, but anytime you have Christopher Walken it trumps a giggling Jimmy Fallon.
SNL: Will Ferrell as George W. Bush (bonus appearance by Tina Fey as Sarah Palin)
George W. Bush is one of Ferrell’s most well-known and widely appreciated characters so obviously it had to make an appearance. I chose this one because we also get to appreciate Tina Fey’s spot-on impression of Sarah Palin.
Wedding Crashers: Chaz and his mom’s meatloaf
You know you’re funny when your short cameo in a really funny, popular movie is probably the funniest, most popular part of the movie.
Zoolander: Crazy Pills
Forgot about this, didn’t you? It’s okay, I did too. I laughed my ass off when I saw this again though. I think Ferrell’s performance in Zoolander, as ridiculous as it was, might be his best movie work ever after Anchorman. Seriously.
SNL: Sculpture Class
Best line: “Mighty Kong has awoken!”
SNL: Get Off the Shed
There’s not much too this skit, but it’s a classic example of what made Ferrell so funny early in his SNL career. Plus this one has sentimental value because it was an oft-quoted skit with a group of friends I hung out with in college.
SNL: Dale Sturtivent Talking Down to Dogs
The funniest clip from the earliest incarnation of Ron Burgundy.
SNL: Will Ferrell as James Lipton of Inside the Actors Studio
I love Ferrell’s James Lipton impression and, of course, the word scrumtrulescent.
SNL: Neil Diamond will smack you in the mouth!
Another of Ferrell’s most underrated SNL skits is his VH1 Storytellers impression of Neil Diamond. I could not find the entire skit for embedding, but did find this clip, which is the funniest part. A link to the whole skit is underneath the video.
Entire Will Ferrell as Neil Diamond skit: http://www.milkandcookies.com/link/31749/detail/
And one more short Neil Diamond clip for good measure:
Honorable Mention: Ian Tombelson
This skit does not actually feature Ferrell, just a picture of him (as I-swear-I’m-not-a-NARC Ian Tombelson). But when Ferrell and his stupid mustache flash up on the screen, it’s the funniest part of the whole skit. But since the skit is pretty funny overall, I figured it was worthy of posting.
Alright, what’d I miss? The comment section awaits a repository for more Ferrell hilarity. Lay it on us. And for more funny stuff to fill your weekend, I always recommend this site and this site. Good stuff always.Tesla made history with the introduction of its Model S sports sedan two-plus years ago, prompting approbation from car critics far and wide. This was the breakthrough electric car the world had seemingly been waiting for, offering attractive design, a remarkable interior, and entertaining performance. The price—starting at about $60,000 before the $7500 federal kickback—was far beyond the average household’s reach, and range anxiety will always be a concern for any pure electric, but the S was a refreshing interpretation of just how super a modern supersedan could be.
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The recent expansion of the lineup to provide four distinct Model S, er, models warrants an award grander than the 10Best Cars recognition we bestowed upon the S earlier this year: our nomination for “Car of the 21st Century” honors. Combining the aforementioned virtues with significant new features and a modest increase in price makes the Tesla Model S 70D reviewed here the new ultimate in four-door sedan engineering and technology. It’s worth noting that the 70D replaces the Model S 60 that picked up our 10Best accolade as the entry-level version. “D” signifies dual-motor all-wheel drive; the only RWD Model S available now is the 85.
View Photos MICHAEL SIMARI
The 70D Rundown
As with the rest of its Model S lineup mates, the 70D has mostly aluminum body and chassis construction, a battery pack built into the floor, comfortable seating for five (or up to seven with the optional jump seats), and attractive interior and exterior design. The huge, 17-inch touch screen providing navigation, entertainment, and car information and control functionality still smiles congenially from the center of the dash.
The big news here is a pair of 257-hp (Tesla’s before-the-transmission rating, the post-gearbox rating is 329 combined horsepower) AC motors driving all four wheels and a base price of $76,200 before federal tax credits. A 70-kWh battery provides an EPA-rated 240-mile driving range; your results will vary. Compared with the Signature Performance (P85) rear-driver we tested more than two years ago, the new 70D is 177 pounds lighter and delivers slightly poorer accelerating, braking, and cornering performance. That said, it consumed less energy, achieved a higher top speed, and is a bit quieter during acceleration and cruising. A major plus is the extra confidence in adverse weather conditions provided by the 70D’s all-wheel drive. (It improves in nearly all areas save for weight versus the now-defunct, rear-drive Model S 60 we tested.)
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View Photos MICHAEL SIMARI
Nearly 10 percent of our test car’s $83,950 bottom line was attributable to optional embellishments: 19-inch wheels and tires ($2500), nicer seats ($2500), metallic paint ($1000), special wood interior trim ($750), and a cold-weather package ($1000).
Crunching the Numbers
Comparing this 70D to Mercedes-Benz’s shot at world’s-best-sedan honors—the S550 S-class—is revealing. In rear-drive form, the Mercedes has a slight edge in acceleration and braking. The Tesla ties in cornering grip and wins in top speed. The S550 provides more passenger room but with a less hospitable center-rear seating position and only about 45 percent of the Model S’s cargo space, which is divided between front and rear trunks. The greatest difference between these epic rivals is price: The base S550 costs $95,325 and crowds $100K with 4MATIC all-wheel drive, versus $83,950 (again, before state and federal rebates) for the Model S 70D tested here. Of course, the money you’ll likely need to invest upgrading your home and/or office wiring for the fastest battery charging narrows the Tesla’s dollar advantage.
Nearly everyone who taps the accelerator in any Tesla Model S to enjoy the amusement-park surge becomes an instant electric-car convert. In raw numbers, this is the ability to jump from 30 to 50 mph in two seconds flat, and from 50 to 70 in 3.1 seconds with neither hesitation nor a gearchange (the 449-hp RWD Mercedes S550 achieves these tasks in 2.9 and 3.4 seconds). Then the reality sets in. To fully embrace any electric car, some lifestyle rearranging is necessary. Spur-of-the-moment trips are unwise. The next plug-in opportunity is always at the forefront of your consciousness. Speeding up when you’re running late may force an unplanned stop for a jolt of juice.It may have taken more than a year to learn if they would fly in the National Aeronautics and Space Administration's airborne observatory called the SOFIA.
But for Chinle Junior High School science teachers Melvin Gorman and Gordon Serkis, it was worth the wait.
Gorman and Serkis were selected by NASA's Airborne Astronomy Ambassador's Program in January 2012 to ride in the SOFIA, a highly modified Boeing 747SP airliner that has a 2.7-inch diameter telescope about the size of the famous orbiting Hubbell Space Telescope.
SOFIA, or Stratospheric Observatory for Infrared Astronomy, launches out of Palm Dale, Calif., and is a joint project of NASA and the German Aerospace Center.
The aircraft flies 9 miles-per-minute up to 45,000 feet in the air, according to NASA, to study star births and deaths, and the formation of new solar systems in the universe through infrared technology.
SOFIA also examines complex molecules in space, planets, comets, asteroids in the solar system, nebulae and dust in galaxies and black holes in the center of galaxies, which optical telescopes like Hubbell can't capture.
"It's going to be an opportunity of a lifetime," Serkis said in an interview with the Navajo Times on Wednesday. "To me, this is one of the greatest things that has happened to me."
For Gorman, he sees this as an opportunity to pave the way for a future Navajo astronomer.
"We are doing this for the kids we teach," he said, adding that the whole idea of riding in SOPHIA is being able to study the universe through the infrared telescope.
"You can see the infrared wavelength by riding in the airplane and observe what astronomers are looking at," he said.
Culturally, Gorman said he didn't know if infrared existed in Navajo vocabulary and astronomy, but added that the mission is an opportunity to teach students thirsty for the unknown realms of astronomy.
"Infrared will be a brand new idea for them and hopefully with our training they'll learn more about," Gorman said. "I'm very excited to be part of this mission."
On their June 11 and 13 missions, Gorman and Serkis will have the chance to interact and learn about the type of research scientists from Leiden University in Holland, Northern Arizona University in Flagstaff, Marx Planck Institute in Germany, University of Maryland and Cornell University are conducting.
According to Dan Backman, astrophysicist and director for NASA's Airborne Astronomy Ambassador's Program, three scientists are studying star formations, while one is looking at the star evolution and the other at planet formations.
"The prime goal is for them to understand how scientific research is conducted," Backman said about teachers in the program. "What we really want them to learn is how scientists came up with a project and how astronomers arrange what they do."
"They will find out that science is a lot of blood, sweat and tears," Backman added.
The Chinle science teachers were one team of 13 teacher teams to be selected out of 80 different groups from throughout the nation. They will be flying with a group of teachers from Colorado and Texas on their two 10-hour missions, held throughout night and concluding right before dawn.
With their training on the flight, which also required taking graduate level astronomy classes offered by Montana State University, Gorman and Serkis plan to share their knowledge with the Chinle community, students and schools – a major selling point for NASA officials to select them to be part of the Airborne Astronomy Ambassadors Program.
SOFIA is the successor to the Gerard Kuiper Airborne Observatory, which operated for 20 years from 1975 to 1995. Following the retirement of Kuiper in 1995, astronomers and Congress agreed to fund a larger observatory, Backman said.
"We're early in what's supposed to be a 20-year mission," Backman said, adding that SOFIA is 80 percent owned by the U.S. and 20 percent owned by Germany.
The first scientific operations on SOFIA began in December 2010, and this year is the first time teachers are being allowed to participate on the missions.
"With an infrared telescope, we can see into the center of the Milky Way Galaxy, which Hubbell can't," he added. "It's good at studying star and planet formations."
Following their SOFIA flight, Backman said teachers would continue being in contact with NASA officials and scientists.
"We'll continue and make sure … the teachers stay in contact with the scientists and watch the process of research being written up for publication," he said. "Science is a process and a way of thinking. Showing in the flesh is the way to do it."
CBS News Correspondent Edward Lawrence, along with Navajo Times reporter Alastair L. Bitsoi and photographer Donovan Quintero, are scheduled to be aboard SOFIA as well to provide media coverage of the missions.
For information: visit: www.sofia.usra.edu.
Back to top ^More than a decade after he helped found and sell PayPal for $1.5 billion, Max Levchin is finally getting over the fear of a sophomore slump.
To be fair, to call it a "slump" is an insult to everyone who hasn't created a billion-dollar company in his youth. But Levchin's struggle to redefine himself after PayPal gives some insight into Silicon Valley's obsession with hot new things, and the heavy expectation that one success will inevitably bring many more.
Affirm, Levchin's latest company, announced Wednesday that it has raised $275 million in debt and equity financing from Spark Capital, Andreessen Horowitz and others. The eye-popping figure promises to help Affirm, a lending service focused on millennials, grow its foothold in a competitive and complex market. At the same time, it serves as a loud and decisive declaration: Max Levchin is back and he's ready to bet big on financial services for the first time since PayPal.
Levchin, a Ukrainian computer science prodigy who was PayPal's original CTO and cofounder, left PayPal and the world of FinTech behind in 2002, following its acquisition by eBay. He went on to cement his position as one of the savvier investors in Silicon Valley. Levchin was the first to back Yelp and still serves as chairman of the $3 billion company. He also invested in a staggering list of billion-dollar startups, including Pinterest, Stripe and Square.
As an entrepreneur, however, Levchin's record is decidedly more mixed. His big post-PayPal project was Slide, a company that built social and gaming apps. Slide was eventually acquired by Google for around $200 million in 2010 — an impressive sum, but a pittance compared to PayPal's price tag. Worse still: Google killed Slide one year later to focus entirely on Google+.
Slide was in some sense doomed from the start. Levchin never really cared about social applications or games. His first love is math and financial technology. But he just couldn't bring himself to return to the financial services field again, with its inevitable comparisons to PayPal.
"It used to weigh on me," Levchin admitted in an interview this week with Mashable. "I spent a little bit of time running away from this. I did not want to be compared so directly to my past. What if I wind up with something smaller, how would that look?"
Looking back now, he adds a rhetorical line that sounds like a direct plea to his earlier self: "Why am I running away from the thing that I'm good at if I like it?"
Levchin's personal struggle sheds light on the large burden and larger egos of the technology industry's brightest minds. Those fortunate enough to be part of one startup that rises like a rocket ship often feel compelled to find or build an even bigger rocket ship next. That is particularly true for the group commonly referred to as the PayPal Mafia, whose members include Levchin's cofounders Peter Thiel, a billionaire investor and entrepreneur, and Elon Musk, who is literally building rocket ships at SpaceX. In that circle, selling a gaming service for a couple hundred million dollars sounds cute at best.
Late into his wilderness years, Levchin received some valuable career advice that helped set him straight. It didn't come from fellow entrepreneurs in the valley or his former PayPal colleagues. It came from his wife, who he describes as his chief cheerleader and chief critic.
"The best advice I got from her is to focus on things I'm already good at because that's where I have the most leverage," Levin said. "Don't be embarrassed to do another financial services company. You don't have to prove to the world you are a great dancer."
Max Levchin playing Guitar Hero while working on his startup Slide in 2008. He later sold the company to Google. Image: Flickr, Joi Ito
Levchin's next act
In early 2011, after having sold Slide and quickly exited Google, Levchin put together a startup incubator called HVF (it stands for "Hard Valuable Fun") to help steer the way to his next big thing. That led to two spun out companies: Glow, an app for tracking fertility, and Affirm. Perhaps unsurprisingly, Levchin decided to go with the latter as his full-time gig in 2014.
The short-term goal is Affirm is to make it easier for people to shop online and pay in installments. Affirm partners with select merchants — many of which are startups like Casper, a mattress service — to let customers break up a purchase in three, six, nine or 12 payments, with a flat interest rate ranging from 6%-30%, depending on the merchant and the item for sale.
By raising a huge pile of financing, the majority of which is in debt, Affirm hopes to appeal to larger merchants.
It may not sound sexy, but Affirm taps into the larger trend to re-think financial services for millennials, who have a healthy distrust of banks and prefer mobile-friendly solutions.
Levchin, 39, isn't part of the millennial demographic Affirm is targeting, but he does know a good opportunity when he sees one. "It's a huge and rapidly growing market," he says.
The longer-term goal for Affirm is to eventually build up a suite of consumer financial services, whether it's improving credit cards or "traditional depositing services," according to Levchin. "We expect your phone to be your primary financial tool, as opposed to an ATM or a bank branch."
If re-imagining the entire financial system sounds like a bold ambition, you can thank Levchin's wife (again). "Some of the earlier versions I ran by her... she said, 'This isn't big enough. Why fly to the moon? Fly to the next galaxy.'"
That's what he's trying for now. And if he happens to overtake PayPal in the process, well, all the better.
"I believe it can be much bigger than PayPal," Levchin says with renewed confidence. "But I also believe it can be much bigger than the biggest bank in the world."
Whatever happens, he claims to have come to terms with his past success. "I don't mind if people compare me to it."Even as Delhi debated over the 'even-odd' car strategy on Monday, foul air choked the capital's residents. Air quality readings across various places in the city showed PM 10, 19 times and PM 2.5 almost eight times above the prescribed limit. This has the potential to affect healthy people and seriously impact those with existing respiratory ailments. The sudden spike in pollutants across the capital was attributed by the meteorological department (IMD) to calm winds and an increase in humidity in the air.
Maximum temperature was recorded at 25.9 degrees Celsius, two notches above the season's average. The minimum temperature settled at 11 degrees, two notches above normal. Humidity in the air oscillated between 95 and 53 per cent. "Visibility extended a bit over a kilometre, but it would start coming down once the temperature drops,' the MeT department said.
The real time readings of Delhi Pollution Control Committee (DPCC) monitoring stations had PM 10 and PM 2.5 at 1903 and 452 microgram per cubic meter in Anand Vihar, east Delhi, as recorded at around 9 pm.
PM 10 was at 753 microgram per cubic meter in RK Puram, south of the city, at the same time.
In Punjabi Bagh, west Delhi, PM 10 and PM 2.5 were at 459 micrograms per cubic meter and 255 micrograms per cubic meter respectively. These are, collectively, the three most polluted locations in the city. Permissible levels of PM (Particulate Matter) 10 and PM 2.5 are 100 and 60 microgram per cubic meter respectively.
These particles, which are the major pollutants responsible for polluting the national capital's air, can harm the respiratory system as these particles tend to embed themselves deep inside the lungs. These particles are products of vehicle emissions, burning of waste, industrial plumes.
PM 2.5, especially, is considered by the World Health Organisation (WHO) as a cancer causing agent.
Anumita Roychowdhury, Executive Director, Research and Advocacy at Centre for Science and Environment, said, "Due to lack of proper winds, inversion conditions have already begun. This is when hot air is unable to rise above a certain level and dispersion of pollutants gets blocked."
"In October 2015, we registered only three per cent of the total days with'severe' air pollution level. The same rose up to 73 per cent in November. What worries us is that December might surpass these numbers as the winter sets in," she added.
National air quality index of CPCB also had'severe' readings recorded from the areas of Punjabi Bagh, Mandir Marg and R K Puram stations, where PM 2.5 was the most prominent pollutant.
System of Air Quality and Weather Due to lack of winds, inversion conditions have already begun. This is when hot air is unable to rise above a certain level and dispersion of pollutants gets blocked. - Anumita Roychowdhury, Centre for Science and Environment Forecasting And Research (SAFAR) stations in Delhi University, IGI Airport, Dhirpur had air in the'severe' category as well, bordering around 450 in most cases.
Interestingly, Beijing, China's Capital city, also issued its first red alert of the year on air pollution on Monday.
It happened as the city of over 22 million people was enveloped by a thick smog, which is being stated to be the worst in recent months.
"Beijing has upgraded its alert for air pollution from orange to red, the most serious level today. It will last from 7am on Tuesday to 12pm on Thursday,' state-run Xinhua news agency reported. Neighbouring provinces of Hebei, Henan and Shandong, as well as parts of eastern Jiangsu province, were also severely affected.
The notice, issued after days of heavy smog last week, also places traffic restrictions on certain types of vehicles in the city. Schools have been asked to keep children inside classrooms as much as possible and not to allow sports or outdoor activities to ensure limited exposure to heavy smog.
Save your kids, leave Delhi: Doctors
Leave Delhi, right now, if you want to save your children from fatal lungs disorders, severe respiratory problems, nausea, throat infection, pressure and fatigue - this is the suggestion from Delhi-based doctors
Delhi's air is getting polluted by the day. "If you want your kids to grow up into a normal, healthy person, then Delhi is not the place where he or she should be brought up. Around 22 lakh school children in the national capital are growing up with irreversible lung damage," Dr Sanjay Jain, ENT Specialist from SCI International Hospital said.
Delhi's children have more upper respiratory illnesses, such as sinusitis, running or stuffy nose, sneezing, sore throat and common cold with fever and two times more lower respiratory diseases like frequent dry cough, sputum-producing cough, wheezing breath, breathlessness on exertion, chest pain or tightness and disturbed sleep (due to breathing problems) than children from less polluted cities.
"Air pollution has come up as one of the major health challenges of modern Indian cities. With increasing respiratory problems and morbidities, it is now important to raise levels of knowledge about pollutants - outdoor as well as indoor -and the health hazards caused by these," Dr Raj Kumar, Head Of Department, Department of Respiratory Allergy & Applied Immunology, Vallabhbhai Patel Chest Institute said. Children's health is most acutely affected by exposure to air pollution. Therefore, potential adverse effects of air pollution on fetus, infants and children should be the main cause of concern while setting up standards for an air pollutants as well as during the revision of existing standards.
"People with a history of respiratory tract infections should stay more careful. This is the worst possible time of the year for them. High level of precautionary measures should be taken. People should cover their faces while travelling. Even staying indoors is not safe as suspended air particles tend to enter through windows," Dr JC Suri, Professor and Head of Pulmonary Medicine at Safdarjung hospital told Mail Today.Jordan Spence celebrated in front of the travelling fans
Jordan Spence's last-minute equaliser for Ipswich extended Hull's winless Championship run to four matches.
The 27-year-old turned the ball in off the post to cancel out an effort from Nouha Dicko, who had capitalised on a defensive error by Luke Chambers.
Town took an early lead through David McGoldrick but Jarrod Bowen rifled home to draw the hosts level.
Hull keeper Allan McGregor saved McGoldrick's second-half penalty but Spence ensured the points were shared.
With Hull and manager Leonid Slutsky under considerable pressure, the match began terribly as McGoldrick swept home in just the seventh minute after the home side failed to clear a corner.
Bowen tested Ipswich goalkeeper Bartosz Bialkowski from range before he met Kamil Grosicki's deflected cross at the far post to draw his side level.
As the Tigers pressed for a second goal after the break, Chambers' ill-judged header back to Bialkowski was pounced upon by Dicko.
When McGregor's brilliant low stop to the right denied McGoldrick a second goal from the spot, following Kevin Stewart's trip on Martyn Waghorn inside the box, Hull looked to have secured all three points.
But Spence bundled in an equaliser with two minutes left to play, and Hull striker Adama Diomande headed narrowly wide deep into added time as the hosts missed out on a much-needed victory.
Hull manager Leonid Slutsky:
"Last time out we had a lot of problems - I had a very difficult time. Today we again didn't win but I think - in terms of performance - we played our best match for the last three matches, absolutely.
"In the last two matches against Middlesbrough and against Sheffield United we played really terribly and I thought about how it was possible to change the quality of the game, change the performance because I can't change results.
"We conceded the first goal and I was really afraid in this situation because in the last matches when we conceded a goal we stopped playing.
"Of course I understand our supporters are very disappointed with the result but I think everybody understands we tried to play for our supporters and we tried to show our maximum level."
Ipswich manager Mick McCarthy:
"It was a valuable point - a well-earned point, I thought.
"I don't think we've nicked anything, by any stretch of the imagination. I thought we started well and I thought we let them off the hook in the first 20 minutes and then they got into it.
"In the first half they certainly had more possession and I thought we were well organised and disciplined. I was a bit disappointed with their goal.
"What really pleases me is, having had the penalty saved, it generally knocks the stuffing out of a team and gives the other side a lift. My lads kept going, which was great, and I think we got the point we deserved, to be quite honest."Show full PR text Nissan Rogue earns Institute's top safety award
ARLINGTON, Va. - The Nissan Rogue, a small SUV redesigned for the 2014 model year, earns the IIHS TOP SAFETY PICK+ award for good performance in each of the Institute's five crashworthiness evaluations, plus a basic rating for front crash prevention. To qualify for the Institute's highest designation, vehicles must earn good ratings in the moderate overlap front, side, roof strength and head restraint evaluations, as well as a good or acceptable rating in the small overlap front test. A new requirement for 2014 is that vehicles also must earn a basic, advanced or superior rating for front crash prevention. The Rogue's optional forward collision warning system is rated basic for meeting performance criteria established by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration.
In the small overlap test, the driver's space was maintained reasonably well. Injury measures recorded on the dummy indicated low risk of any significant injuries in a crash of this severity. The dummy's head made good contact with the front airbag, which stayed in position during the crash, and the side curtain airbag deployed to protect the head from contact with side structures.
The Institute added the small overlap test to its lineup of vehicle safety evaluations in 2012. It replicates what happens when the front corner of a vehicle strikes another vehicle or an object like a tree or a utility pole. In the test, 25 percent of a vehicle's front end on the driver side strikes a 5-foot-tall rigid barrier at 40 mph. A 50th percentile male Hybrid III dummy is belted in the driver seat.
The new Rogue is an improvement over the previous generation, which was rated marginal in the small overlap test and acceptable in the roof strength evaluation. The new Rogue offers an optional forward collision warning system, a first for the model. The old Rogue, manufactured since 2008, is still in production and sells as the Nissan Rogue Select.
The 2014 Nissan Rogue has scored a Top Safety Pick+ award following positive crash test results by the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety. The new crossover scored good results (the highest rating) in the group's five crashworthiness checks and a basic rating for front crash prevention.The IIHS found that the Rogue also performed well in its small overlap front test with a low risk of injuries, and the driver's space maintained its structure well. It was an improvement over the previous generation, which received a marginal rating in that evaluation. The Rogue's optional forward collision warning system was enough for a basic rating in avoiding accidents.To qualify as a Top Safety Pick, a vehicle must earn good ratings in the the moderate overlap front, side, roof strength and head restraint evaluations, plus a good or acceptable result in the small overlap front test. To receive the additional Plus rating in 2014, it must also have a basic, advanced or superior rating for front crash prevention. The IIHS scores vehicles as good, acceptable, marginal or poor, and avoidance systems are scored basic, advanced or superior, depending on the type of system and its performance. Scroll down to watch the videos of the small and moderate overlap crash tests and read the full IIHS statement....
A month or so ago, in one of my first assignments for IO, I reviewed the latest offering by Graveland, Cold Winter Blades. I had been anticipating a degree of backlash to this review, as it is impossible to review Graveland without someone bringing up Rob Darken’s xenophobic ideology, and so I had ready my usual responses of “I just separate art from artist/I don’t buy any of his records to keep the fascists from getting my money/controversial art is still art/et cetera”. However, I had both severely underestimated the amount of backlash to reviewing Graveland and also had not prepared myself for some serious questions about the ethics of listening to such music.
Some questioned my language in reviewing the piece, claiming that if I had truly wished to concentrate solely on the music, I would have left out politically loaded terms such as “ubermensch”. Others argued that, in the scheme of ethical dilemmas within metal, racist and ethnically charged music posed a greater threat to the outside listener through support of violent, bigoted causes, and that to enjoy such music, even on a mere aesthetic level, was the same as being actively in support of it (after all, by enjoying it, I was vindicating and justifying its existence). Frankly, I was fascinated by the breadth, and frequently depth, of these moral questions, and thus I decided to improve upon my review by fully exploring the questions of how we, as metalheads, approach ethical dilemmas in and surrounding our music. As a result, I decided to explore some of the major questions we, as metal listeners, must ask ourselves and consider when encountering controversial music. My intention is to spark an honest conversation on the matter.
In approaching this conversation, we have to address several factors: whether intent or externality matters in offensiveness, whether personal bias matters, and whether enjoying an aesthetic is in effect an endorsement. In |
anyone who might trade for him wants to see him at centre.
21. It’s a huge breakthrough for women’s hockey with Montreal of the Canadian Women’s Hockey League facing Boston of the National Women’s Hockey League outdoors on Dec. 31 as part of the Winter Classic.
This wasn’t easy. The two leagues eye each other warily and there was some animosity during initial meetings. But at the end of the day, it came down to, “Do you want a game or not?”
Fortunately, common sense prevailed this time and hopefully common sense can prevail a second time with USA Hockey allowing some of its top players to leave camp a day early for this spectacle.
22. The full feature will air Dec. 27, but a snippet of producer Chad Walker’s skills piece with John Tavares aired last weekend on Hockey Night in Canada.
Tavares, seeking to grow his game, spent time last summer with Darryl Belfry, a performance coach now employed by Toronto.
Another client (who preferred to remain anonymous), said Belfry teaches his highly-skilled pupils not to just fire it at the goalie, but to search for a legit scoring chance. With their ability, he does not want to waste a shot.
Belfry is in media jail like several other Maple Leaf employees, but looking at the video above, you can see that one of the things they worked on was Tavares’ drive from the corner to the net. This goal against the Rangers is almost a carbon copy of his work with Belfry.
23. One exec had an interesting take on the Boston/Calgary game last Friday in Alberta. The Flames were on a power-play tied 3-3 late in regulation. Dougie Hamilton interfered with Brad Marchand on a breakaway, leading to a penalty shot. Marchand scored, but Calgary kept the power-play.
Jiri Hudler tied it with less than two seconds left, and Johnny Gaudreau won it in OT. You’re never going to get rid of the penalty shot, it’s too exciting. But, this exec wondered, should Calgary get to keep the power play?
“Is there enough of a penalty there? Yes, Boston scores, but they lose the game because they have to stay shorthanded. And, if they don’t score on the penalty shot, it’s a huge disadvantage.”
It Wwas an interesting conversation.
24. Quote of the week: A scout predicted (tongue-in-cheek), “William Nylander will join Toronto with 39 games to go.”
If he spends less than 40 games on the Maple Leafs’ roster, Nylander doesn’t gain a season towards free agency or salary arbitration. We’ll see.
25. One of the guys who does my suits also works with Garret Sparks. I saw Sparks last year in the ECHL and asked him how he was doing. The goalie replied, “Don’t worry about me, I’ll be in the NHL.”
Confident lad.
26. The NHLPA’s concern about 3-on-3 overtime was the wear-and-tear on players. So something I wanted to do this season is keep track of what changes (if any) we’d see. At this time last season, no team averaged less than three minutes of overtime play. Boston, Dallas and Edmonton were the closest. This season, nine teams are averaging below three minutes, although it’s kind of cheating to include Colorado, since the Avalanche have reached extra time just once.
Chicago is under two minutes. The rest are Anaheim, Arizona, Carolina, Detroit, Edmonton, Philadelphia and Pittsburgh. Others, like Washington, have seen their average drop by approximately one minute, to about 3:30.
27. Whose time has gone up? Toronto. The Maple Leafs were at about 3:15 per OT at this point in 2014-15. Now they are No.1 by a good margin. Seven of their eight appearances have gone to a shootout, and the other was decided 2:17 in. The only other teams averaging above four minutes are Buffalo, the Rangers and St. Louis. But those three are right at 4:00.
28. The NHL looked at cameras inside the goalposts to help determine if pucks go over the goal line, but scrapped the idea because not enough could be seen around the netminders. Soon, there will be a different attempt, a camera looking down from inside the crossbar. The league will check to see if the view is any better.
Also, cameras inside the boards at the blue-line and in the air above it will be tested in the near future, including at All-Star Weekend. The hope is to help with offside reviews. As Damien Cox reported, GMs will consider a rule change in March: making it irrelevant if your skate is in the air above the blueline. You either break the plane, or you don’t.
29. Speaking of offsides, if there’s one surprise about replay, it’s how many goals have been erased because of it. The league was concerned linesmen would be sensitive, but told the officials to relax. It is such a tight call at high speed and many of the violations are by infinitesimal margins.
It’s tough to do much better with the naked eye.
30. This is the only inside joke I will ever do, but at Pebble Beach this past week during the Board of Governors meetings, one governor asked, “How are you doing for your blog? I have a suggestion.”
What?
“This is a nice place. That’s a thought.”
Yes it is.The following blog post, unless otherwise noted, was written by a member of Gamasutras community.
The thoughts and opinions expressed are those of the writer and not Gamasutra or its parent company.
Kris Graft (@krisgraft) is editor-in-chief, Gamasutra
Sitting in the audience last week at the Shrine Auditorium in L.A., I saw the sizzle reel for upcoming PlayStation VR games, cocked my eyebrow, and wondered how many (not if) people would be getting motion sick on the showfloor that week.
Do a quick Twitter search for “E3 VR sick,” or something similar, and get ready to be sad if you’re a VR developer or someone who wants the technology to succeed in the game market (below are tweets from journalists from influential tech and game websites).
Upside of the PlayStation VR’s awkward bits this E3: “Oh, Resident Evil made you sick too?” was a great icebreaker. — Adi Robertson (@thedextriarchy) June 21, 2016
I'm terribly excited for Resident Evil 7 in VR, but the E3 demo almost made me sick. Not a great sign. https://t.co/ivtXnGeMny — Patrick Klepek (@patrickklepek) June 20, 2016
People seem to be really into the RE7 demo. I played it in VR at E3 and was not impressed. It also made me motion sick, which never happens. — Chloi (@_chloi) June 18, 2016
Playing World Rally Championship 6 in VR made me a little sick and very, very sweary! https://t.co/WTUIVXr975 #e3 #engadgete3 — Timothy J. Seppala (@timseppala) June 17, 2016
Farpoint is well crafted and great fun. I also felt wildly sick after playing it. My first VR motion sickness. #e3 pic.twitter.com/YWLv8IQUI5 — Nic Healey (@dr_nic) June 15, 2016
It’s interesting seeing players, including some VR-seasoned journalists, try to figure out why they felt so awful after some VR experiences. I've seen speculation that an offending game must be dropping frames, causing a degree of barfiness, which could be partially to blame (60 frames per second is the absolute minimum for VR comfort). But I'm willing to bet that VR sickness at E3 was most often due to some developers essentially (or actually) retrofitting a first-person perspective game for a VR headset, with little care to VR-friendly locomotion.
It doesn’t matter if your game is moving at 60 million frames per second with 12K resolution—if a VR headset makes your eyes see something that doesn’t agree with your inner ear, your game will make a good chunk of people sick, and chances are, you will turn potential customers off of VR. Nauseating experiences are bad for players, therefore bad the VR market as a whole, therefore bad for game developers. That's just the plain truth.
The average person or the VR first-timer does not know why they felt sick from VR. Not even all game and tech journalists could pinpoint exactly why. What’s going to happen is that when people have one bad first VR experience, they may well assume that they just can’t do VR at all, which in most cases simply isn’t true.
During the PSVR segment of Sony’s conference, there certainly were a lot of “ooos” and “ahhhs” as we saw an FPS (Farpoint) in which you move smoothly across a desert landscape, or experience Resident Evil as if you were there. There was even an X-Wing VR mission that put you in the cockpit. Amazing, right? But just looking at these trailers, I knew that there’s no way that I would try them as-is at E3 because you’re moving by pushing the analog button up and around, and drifting through a virtual environment while looking around with your head (i.e. your noggin becomes the right analog stick). This breaks two very basic guidelines for anti-sickness VR locomotion: avoid virtual camera movement, and don’t accelerate the player while moving the camera. These broken rules are most obviously identifiable when you watch first-person VR gameplay that looks exactly as it might if it were being played on a standard screen.
This kind of gets into the VR marketing challenge as well. Making trailers and video for VR is tricky and there have been some brilliant solutions that required a lot of cleverness in order to make VR look appealing to someone who’s watching gameplay on Twitch or YouTube. At E3, trailers for VR games that show the player roaming the planetscape and being shot into hyperspace at lightspeed sure did look nice; nicer than someone pointing to where they want to be teleported, reappearing, and looking around. But you know what? Sexy or not, teleportation is the most comfortable solution VR has right now for locomotion in virtual environments bigger than a bedroom.
Now, I understand that a lot of people aren’t as prone to motion sickness as others. I don't have a problem with room-scale VR, but I have the tendency to get motion sick in vehicles. Car. Plane. Boat. If it moves and I’m a passenger, I might turn green. But my susceptibility to motion sickness also makes me a good test subject for VR developers who want to appeal even to the lowest rungs of the barfability ladder. I also understand that a lot of developers are ok with creating intense (as in, generally uncomfortable) experiences. There is an audience for those games, one that has stronger inner ears than I do. (I was pretty bummed when I found out that I can’t really play a racing game in VR—racing games and flight games break basic VR motion sickness guidelines.)
But it honestly was just surprising to me how blatantly so many games disregarded basic comfort-level practices at E3. That's in stark contrast to a Valve-HTC Vive event I attended this year. Valve in particular has been careful and outspoken about motion sickness in VR, even launching Vive with specialized controllers and a room-scale tracking system to encourage custom VR experiences from the get-go. Only one game out of many at that Vive event made anyone ill, and, no surprise, it was Elite Dangerous: Horizons, in which you're sitting down and zipping around in a spaceship or roaming hilly, low-gravity landscapes in a buggy. But overall, the fact that the Vive launched with VR controllers is a great, fundamental way to encourage anti-sickness VR design.
Then you have Oculus, which even though has also been outspoken about comfort levels in its games, launched its headset with a gamepad, which enables if not encourages devs to break basic VR sickness rules regarding locomotion. And with Sony showing off a number of nauseating games, not the least of which is Resident Evil VII, during its big E3 showcase, you have to wonder how seriously these companies are taking motion sickness as VR makes its nascent push into a wider market.
My theory(ies), for the reason why we’re seeing games that go against basic anti-sickness principles are a) there’s a rush to get on blue ocean platforms, so shoehorning an existing game into VR with no locomotion consideration is faster and more convenient b) for Oculus and PlayStation VR, a standard gamepad is their default controller for many players, so that shapes the kinds of gameplay (and locomotion) that devs adopt c) game devs know that only a limited amount of people will be able to handle their game comfort-wise, and they’re ok with that.
My suggestions for VR platform holders is they must carefully curate selections at events where they're showing VR games, advocate for anti-sickness design practices (creative, comfortable locomotion is a big one for first-person games), and going forward enable and encourage developers to make games for VR. I realize people have their own legitimate reasons to ignore such suggestions, and I’m certainly not the first one to say these things, but after seeing how E3 put a number of barf-inducers on the biggest stage in video games, I thought it’d bear repeating.MADISON, Wis. — The percentage of Wisconsinites with student loan debt continues to rise compared to the rest of the nation according to the results of a new study released by The Institute for College Access and Success (TICAS). The results of their comprehensive 50 state study on student loan debt for 2014 finds seventy percent of Wisconsin’s graduates have student loan debt, the third highest percentage in the nation, and the average debt load of over $28,800 they carry ranks Wisconsin seventeenth nationally.
“The latest data shows the student loan debt crisis continues to grow in Wisconsin with seventy percent of 2014 graduates leaving school with nearly $29,000 in debt,” commented One Wisconsin Now Student Loan Debt Program Director Analiese Eicher. “It’s time for Gov. Walker and Republican state leaders to stop offering sound bites and gimmicks and deliver the real reform that Wisconsin borrowers need.”
The TICAS study also found that over the last decade Wisconsin graduates were saddled with a seventy four percent increase in the amount of debt upon graduation and that ten percent more graduates were leaving school with student debt.
Original research from One Wisconsin Institute found that student loan debt has a significant and negative impact on the Wisconsin economy. Borrowers are much more likely to rent versus own their home and over $200 million in new car sales are lost annually due directly to student loan debt.
Groundbreaking state legislation, the Higher Ed, Lower Debt Act (SB 194 & AB 272), creating a state based authority to help student loan borrowers refinance their debt, just like you can with a mortgage and extending a state tax break to student loan payments, has been introduced again in the 2015 legislative session. However Gov. Walker and the Republicans in control of the legislature have allowed the bill with 49 sponsors to languish in committee. At the federal level efforts to allow the refinancing of student loans have failed with state Democrats supporting and Republicans opposing.
Eicher concluded, “Student loan borrowers in Wisconsin continue to pay the price for Gov. Walker and the Republican legislature’s indifference to the student loan debt crisis. While they wreak cronyism and corruption on the state, the hard-working borrowers who took on the personal responsibility to pay for their education go another year without the common sense reform that is desperately needed.”For Families: Mulle Mecks Playground
Author Lisa Ferland takes you behind the scenes of Mulle Mecks Playground for kids.
Has your child ever wondered what it would feel like to fly an airplane or drive a car? Maybe they dream of taking off in a rocket ship or steering a boat?
Mulle Mecks Playground, based on the children’s book character, mechanic, and carpenter Mulle Meck, was designed to foster children’s imagination, inventiveness, and willingness to try new things.
First opened in 2008 in Solna, the playground evokes the same imaginative spirit as Junibacken and children can explore fairytale environments like an airplane hangar, an old truck, and car located in Daisy Diesel’s garage, a boat in small water pond, rocket ship, flower maze, and a short zip-line. Designed by the same artist, Tor Svae, who constructed similar playscapes in Junibacken, children of all ages will love exploring this well-loved playground.
My kids, aged five- and two-years-old, absolutely loved racing from the boat to the airplane, to the rocket ship, eager to pull all of the levers, twist dials, and push buttons. At this playground, there are no rules and the more things there are to shift, pull, and spin, the better.
Mulle Mecks Playground is large enough to maintain a young child’s attention for a few hours and yet small enough that parents often feel comfortable allowing their children to explore unattended. Each play structure contains many interactive aspects to foster your child’s imagination.
Be prepared to go on a wild plane ride, take off on a rocket ship, or act as co-captain of the boat, as your child is in their childhood fantasies. Mulle Meck will spark curiosity, and his inventiveness is evident throughout the playground as scrap metals were used to build staircases, slides, and benches.
One of the staircases reminded my two-year-old daughter of the staircase Elsa creates in the movie, Frozen. She spent 20 minutes running up and down singing the song “Let it go” to the delight of those around us.
Children can climb into Daisy Diesel’s Garage, but keep in mind that it was not built for adult-sized people. Be sure that your child can navigate the playspace solo or be willing to convince them to climb and crawl back to you on their own.
There are some water features throughout the park: a water pump that sends a small stream of water down through various dams that children can pull up and down via pulleys, and a small pond near the boat. Bring a change of clothes or remove shoes and socks as adventurous children are likely to get a bit wet.
The creators of Mulle Mecks Playground believe that learning and play are inextricably linked, and this is reflected in their integration of a library within the playground itself. It’s red doors are open to reveal colorful children’s books for both reading on-site or to borrow to read at home. Mulle Meck also has other themed parks located throughout Sweden that also might be worth exploring.
The playground is open, free, and suitable for all ages, but children 2 to 7 years of age will probably enjoy it the most.
Things To Consider
There is no toilet at the playground. You have to walk approximately 10 minutes from the park to find a public toilet.
I’d strongly suggest bringing a picnic as the options for food are quite limited. There are plenty of shady areas to set up a picnic blanket. There is a small cafe located within the playground that is open during the summer season. Also, there is a mobile ice cream stand located across from the entrance that takes Swish payments only (no cash).
www.mullemeck.seCouple's goal: Visit theme parks in Orlando, California for Disney's 24-hour 'One More Disney Day'
The couple sketched out a 5,200-mile odyssey in order to visit not one, but both theme parks Wednesday as the Walt Disney Co. marked leap year with its "One More Disney Day" event.
When Disney announced Orlando's Magic Kingdom and Disneyland would open their gates 24 hours straight for the first time, Andy Bullard and Randi Teague took notice.
They were among thousands of Disney enthusiasts who stood shoulder to shoulder early Wednesday, crammed in the courtyard between Magic Kingdom's turnstiles and the train station, waiting for the park's 6 a.m. opening.
After a short welcome ceremony, many stopped to take pictures of the eerily foggy morning. Others headed straight for attractions to take advantage of short waits.
"We went on Snow White right away," said Cindy Morgan, a Disney passholder from Deltona who came for the day with her husband, John, and daughter Hannah Rose, 7.
Although Hannah was off to an enthusiastic start, Morgan wasn't sure how long her energy would last.
"We may have to take a little nap and come back," she confided.
Bullard and Teague, who honeymooned at Disney World in 2002, scheduled time to sleep on their cross-country trek, which took them from their home in Washington, D.C., to Orlando and then on to Los Angeles.
Teague, 36, is the bigger Disney fan. "I blame my mom," she laughs. "She came when she was pregnant with me and must have drunk something in the water."
Bullard's first visit didn't come until he was 17. "I missed the whole park when it was most magical. I was a jaded high-school kid."
But after their honeymoon, the visits increased. Bullard, an attorney, and Teague, a consultant, travel frequently for work; they have annual passes to both Disneyland and Disney World.
Although they will spend more than $1,000 on the trip, frequent-traveler points will subsidize the expense.
Besides, they agree, it's about the challenge, not the cost. To increase the adventure, the couple set themselves the goal of riding every attraction found in both the Magic Kingdom and Disneyland.
By 11 a.m., every one of their must-do attractions, including Space Mountain and Peter Pan's Flight, was checked off Teague's color-coded list: Time for a relaxing lunch at The Wave in Disney's Contemporary Resort and a side trip to Epcot for a beer in the Rose and Crown Pub.
The couple knew they would face increased challenges in California: Disneyland is apt to be more crowded than the Magic Kingdom, meaning longer wait times. In the overnight hours, some attractions were scheduled for required maintenance closures of up to three hours.The newspaper publisher formerly known as Tribune Publishing has rebranded itself "Tronc" as part of an ambitious plan to reinvent itself as an online news organization. A key plank of its new strategy: producing 2,000 videos per day.
You might think that sounds unrealistic — the Vox.com video team, for example, has produced only a few hundred videos in its two-year history — but a New York Times article explains how Tronc expects to accomplish the goal: automation. Tronc is going to deemphasize the traditional, labor-intensive process for producing video content in favor of software tools that allow it to churn out hundreds of videos per day with minimal human involvement.
Tronc’s business logic is straightforward: Advertisers pay top dollar to run ads before videos. So if Tronc can produce a lot of videos, it will be able to sell a lot of high-dollars ads and make a lot of money.
"Video is video," Tronc’s chief technology officer, Malcolm CasSelle, told the Times. "We’re producing it because it’s strategic and important."
The strategy Tronc is pursuing here isn’t really new. For at least a decade, some media companies have churned out text-based articles in a process known as "content farming." Tronc appears to be updating this strategy for the video age. The problem is that content farming has been a total disaster for companies that have tried it.
Churning out content isn’t necessarily a winning strategy
A company called Demand Media provides an object lesson in the dangers of this strategy. Starting in 2006, it produced a huge amount of content optimized for prominent placement in search engine results.
Demand Media paid writers a fraction of what more traditional outlets would pay — one writer reported making between $7.50 and $15 per article in 2010, a rate that hadn’t changed significantly by 2015. Obviously, the only way to make a living at this is to write extremely quickly, churning out one or more articles per hour. These articles would appear on Demand-owned websites like eHow.
Google’s algorithms couldn’t tell the difference between a bad article and a good one, but its human programmers could
Articles written this quickly aren’t very likely to be good. But Demand Media was betting this wouldn’t matter very much. Demand Media’s goal was to rank highly in Google, and Google’s search algorithms can’t tell the difference between a well-reported, in-depth article and one dashed off in an hour.
Traditionalists wrung their hands, but for a while it looked like Demand Content’s model was working. The company even signed a syndication deal with Hearst Newspapers in 2010 to provide some content for the San Francisco Chronicle and the Houston Chronicle. Demand was briefly worth more than $1 billion after its 2011 IPO.
But then disaster struck. Or, more specifically, Google’s search quality engineers struck. Because while Google’s algorithms couldn’t tell the difference between a bad article and a good one, its human programmers sure could. A few weeks after Demand Media’s IPO, those engineers tweaked Google’s algorithm to downgrade spammy sites. Within days, Demand Media’s eHow site lost more than 50 percent of its traffic, and other content farming sites saw even more severe traffic declines.
Demand Media never really recovered. The company is still around, but its stock has plummeted, and nobody thinks its business model represents the future of online content.
Quality actually matters for online content
The broader lesson here isn’t just that media companies should stay on Google’s good side. It’s that quality actually matters — even if it doesn’t look like it in the short run.
For a little while, you can generate traffic by stuffing garbage articles full of relevant keywords. If you’d looked at Demand Media’s traffic and revenue data around 2009, you could have fooled yourself into believing the company had found a new model for producing content profitably.
But people aren’t stupid. They gradually realized that articles on sites like eHow were no good. Google realized that its users didn’t want to be shown a bunch of garbage articles when they searched, so it changed its algorithm to show people articles they were more likely to actually enjoy and value.
Tronc’s "video is video" strategy appears to be updating the Demand Media business strategy for the video age. And it’s probably true that in the short run, a low-quality video with a catchy title and cover image will generate as many clicks as a high-quality one.
But as with Demand Media’s content, you can’t fool people for very long. If Tronc videos aren’t good, Tronc’s audience will figure it out and stop clicking on them. Facebook will figure it out and stop putting them in people's newsfeeds. Advertisers will figure it out and take their money elsewhere.
And while Demand Media started from scratch, Tronc is starting with high-quality brands like the Los Angeles Times and the Chicago Tribune. Stuffing their articles full of low-quality video isn’t just going to fail to produce a sustainable business model — this spammy video business model is likely to tarnish these newspaper brands for years to come.Kenyon College is a private liberal arts college in Gambier, Ohio, United States, founded in 1824 by Philander Chase.[5][6][7] Kenyon College is accredited by The Higher Learning Commission.[8]
Kenyon has currently 1,708 undergraduates enrolled in it and the campus size is 1,000 acres. It has a rural setting and uses a semester-based academic calendar. The campus is home to the Brown Family Environmental Center, whose 382 acres host seven different ecosystems and academic opportunities including the Summer Science Scholars program. Here, students also engage in activities like bird watching and hiking. There are more than 120 student clubs and organizations on campus, including approximately 12 fraternities and sororities. Kenyon athletes are called Lords and Ladies which compete in the NCAA Division III North Coast Athletic Conference.[9] According to 2018 U.S. News & World Report rankings, Kenyon had 13th best undergraduate teaching in the U.S.[10] Additionally, Kenyon was rated as the 983rd best value college by the 2018 PayScale College Return on Investment Report.[11][12] Time (magazine)'s 2018-2019 "Best Colleges in America" report ranked Kenyon as the 214th best college in the country, respectively.[13][14]
Despite its small size, Kenyon's alumni have gone on to make advances in their field. Notable alumni include 6 Rhodes Scholars,[15] 10 Marshall Scholarship winners, 12 Truman Scholarship winners, and numerous Watson Fellowship holders and Fulbright scholarship recipients.[16] Famous graduates include U.S. President Rutherford B. Hayes, Swedish prime minister Olof Palme, actors Paul Newman and Allison Janney, University of Texas basketball coach Shaka Smart, and writers Josh Radnor, John Green, and E. L. Doctorow.
History [ edit ]
Founding [ edit ]
After becoming the first Episcopal Bishop of Ohio in 1818, Philander Chase found a severe lack of trained clergy on the Ohio frontier. He planned to create a seminary to rectify this problem, but could find little support. Undeterred, he sailed to England and solicited donations from Lord Kenyon, Lord Gambier, and the writer and philanthropist Hannah More, and the College was incorporated in December, 1824. Dissatisfied with the original location of the College in Worthington, Chase purchased 8,000 acres (3,200 ha) of land in Knox County (with the Mount Vernon lawyer Henry Curtis), and reached what he would name Gambier Hill on July 24, 1825. There is a legend that Bishop Chase exclaimed, "Well, this will do" upon reaching the crest of the hill.[17][18]
The Kenyon Review [ edit ]
Kenyon's English department gained national recognition with the arrival of the poet and critic John Crowe Ransom in 1937 as Professor of Poetry and first editor of The Kenyon Review, a literary journal. During his 21-year tenure, Ransom published such internationally known writers as Allen Tate, Robert Penn Warren, William Empson, Mark Van Doren, Kenneth Burke, and Delmore Schwartz, as well as younger writers: Flannery O'Connor, Robert Lowell, and Peter Taylor, to name a few. It was perhaps the best known and most influential literary magazine in the English-speaking world during the 1940s and 1950s.[19]
Academics [ edit ]
Kenyon requires students to take classes in each of the four academic divisions: Fine Arts (encompassing the departments of Art and Art History; Dance, Drama, and Film; Music); Humanities (Classics, English, Modern Languages and Literatures, Philosophy, Religious Studies); Natural Sciences (Biology, Chemistry, Mathematics, Physics, Psychology); and Social Sciences (Anthropology, Economics, History, Political Science, Sociology). In addition, students must take the equivalent of a year's worth of courses in a foreign language, unless they place out, and undertake a comprehensive senior exercise for their major, the specifications of which vary by department.
The Gund Gallery, a 31,000 square feet (2,900 m2) visual arts center and exhibition space, was founded in 2011. It hosts lectures, public programming and temporary exhibitions that are free and open to both the campus community and the wider public.[20]
Kenyon is also home to the Beta of Ohio Chapter of the Phi Beta Kappa Society.
Admissions [ edit ]
Ransom Hall (1910-1912), home of the Admissions Department.
Kenyon is considered one of the "most selective" colleges by U.S. News & World Report.[21] For the class of 2021, Kenyon admitted 24% of applicants. 73% of enrolled freshmen were in the top 10% of their high school classes. The middle 50% range of SAT scores were 680-750 for evidence-based reading and writing and 670-750 for math, with 45% of students submitting scores. The middle 50% range of the ACT was 30-33, with 68% of students submitting scores. "Common Data Set".
Rankings [ edit ]
In the 2018 U.S. News & World Report rankings, Kenyon is the No. 26 liberal arts college in the United States. In the 2018-19 Forbes rankings, Kenyon is placed at 19th position amongst liberal arts colleges and 53rd position amongst all national colleges in the USA.[24] In 2006 Newsweek selected Kenyon College as one of twenty-five "New Ivies" on the basis of admissions statistics as well as interviews with administrators, students, faculty and alumni.[25] It was also listed in Greene's list of Hidden Ivies in 2000.
Kenyon's campus also garners acclaim for its beauty; for example, it ranked 2nd on The Best College's "50 Most Amazing College Campuses for 2014" and again in 2017.[26]
Although Kenyon has been ranked favorably in the past, new methods that rank colleges based on their calculated return on investment (ROI) have been critical of Kenyon's value. The 2018 Payscale College ROI Report ranked Kenyon as the 983rd best value college in the country.[27] Moreover, Time (magazine)'s 2018-2019 "Best Colleges in America" report ranked Kenyon as the 214th best college in the country.[28][29] Predictably, Kenyon President Sean M. Decatur has criticized ROI-based ranking systems. Despite a crippling student-loan crisis that has raised nation-wide concerns about the return on investment (ROI) of a college education[30][31][32][33][34], Kenyon's President has publicly stated that "to use salary and earnings as the sole proxy for measuring success after completion of an undergraduate education is deeply flawed".[35] Notably, the annual compensation of Kenyon's President was last reported to be $620,374 (2016).[36] President Decatur's executive compensation is significantly larger than many executives at colleges with considerably better ROI outcomes than Kenyon (ranked 983rd). For example, the executive compensation at Connecticut College (female President Katherine Bergeron, totaling $455,868 annually[37]) was much lower than Kenyon despite Connecticut College scoring substantially better on PayScale's ROI report (511th).[38]
Athletics [ edit ]
Kenyon's sports teams, which compete in the North Coast Athletic Conference (NCAC), are referred to as the Lords and Ladies, and their colors are purple, white, and black with gold often added as an accent.
The men's swim team is notable in NCAA Division III, for having won, from 1980 through 2010, a record 31 consecutive NCAA national championships as well as consecutive titles between 2012 and 2015. The women's swim team is also considered among the best, having won 23 non-consecutive titles of their own since 1984. Former Swim Coach Jim Steen has coached the most conference titles in any sport in NCAA history. During the 1980s and 90s, Diving Coach Fletcher Gilders led his athletes to fourteen consecutive North Coast Athletic Conference championships and eight individual NCAA Division III titles; Gilders would also earn NCAA D3 Coach of the Year honors on three separate occasions. In 2013, under Head Coach Jess Book, the men's team won the national title and the women's team took second. Book was voted the 2013 NCAA Men's Coach of the Year and the 2013 NCAA Women's Coach of the Year, and Head Diving Coach Andy Scott was voted the 2013 NCAA Division III Women's Diving Coach of the Year.
In 2006, Kenyon opened the $70 million Kenyon Athletic Center (KAC), a 263,000-square-foot (24,400 m2) building that houses an Olympic-sized swimming pool, two basketball courts, eight squash courts, a weight room, a 400m track, four tennis courts and other facilities. Field hockey, football and men's lacrosse are played at McBride Field which has a seating capacity of 1,762.[39]
Traditions [ edit ]
As Ohio's oldest private college, Kenyon has upheld some traditions for more than 180 years. All students in each entering class are expected to take the Matriculation Oath and sign a Matriculation Book that dates back at least a century.
Another tradition is the "First-Year Sing." Each year, entering first-years gather on the steps of Rosse Hall to sing Kenyon songs before they are officially part of the Kenyon community. On the day before Commencement, seniors gather on the steps of Rosse Hall to sing the same songs again.
Whenever a new president begins a term at the college, candles are lit in every window of Old Kenyon, as a sign of welcome. Kenyon has had twenty-five presidents; former president S. Georgia Nugent was Kenyon's first female president, and current president Sean Decatur is Kenyon's first African-American president.[40]
Student organizations [ edit ]
Arts [ edit ]
Beyond Therapy is a student-run sketch comedy group. Founded in 1994, the group puts up two shows each year.
Billy Shakes Project
The Broken Legs is the college's premier musical theater a cappella group. Started in the spring of 2015, the group performs songs from a broad range of stage musicals
The Chamber Singers, under the direction of Professor Benjamin Locke, is a select mixed choir consisting each year of approximately fifty undergraduate musicians who regard singing as an integral part of a liberal arts education. The group rehearses daily in order to prepare programs of a cappella music for Kenyon concerts as well as their annual Spring Tour.
The Chasers are a co-ed collegiate a cappella group. Founded in 1964, the group is the oldest student singing group at the college, and the second oldest a cappella group on campus. Originally a folk-oriented vocal group accompanied by guitars, the Chasers switched to an a cappella-only format in the late 1960s, and continue this tradition today. They have recorded several albums over the course of the last 40 years, perform several times per year on campus, and tour throughout the country during January.
Cinearts
Colla Voce is a treble-voice ensemble dedicated to the classical and folk traditions. A recent addition to the Kenyon's a capella scene, Colla Voce formed in the fall of 2009 and performs on campus once a semester, as well as at additional events in the surrounding community as needed.
The Company is Kenyon's premiere musical theater student group. Students present full productions and musical revues every semester, specializing in |
They now know they have to keep Trump from firing Mueller to save themselves.If you’re in need of a more rugged smartphone to suit your lifestyle, but still want some top of the line hardware specs, then the Galaxy S4 Active might give you everything you need. The handset is now on sale in the UK, sim-free, with prices starting at £465 from Unlocked Mobiles, and the high-street retailer Carphone Warehouse is stocking the smartphone for £530 online.
Amazon is by far the most expensive seller that I’ve seen so far, but is offering the handset as a pre-order set for an August 1st delivery, whilst charging a whopping £676 for the wait. If those prices seem a little steep, you might want to hold off your purchase for a week or so, as several other internet sellers are currently listing the Galaxy S4 Active as delayed until next week.
If you haven’t checked out any of our coverage on the S4 Active before, the smartphone offers pretty much the same package as the regular UK Galaxy S4: a 5-inch 1080p display, although it’s an LCD display rather than AMOLED, 2GB of RAM, 16GB of internal storage, and 1.9GHz quad-core Snapdragon 600 processor, but with a tougher, water resistant outer casing. The only major internal hardware difference is the change down to an 8 megapixel camera, but at least you can use it to take pictures underwater.
If you’re thinking about purchasing a Galaxy S4 Active, make sure to check out Joshua Vergara’s video comparison with the regular Galaxy S4.Jamie Elliott will make his return to football on Thursday night.
Collingwood captain Scott Pendlebury feared that Jamie Elliott's back injury would spell the end of his AFL career.
The livewire forward is set to make an emotional return in Thursday night's JLT Community Series game against Essendon after being sidelined for all of last year.
Elliott has been named in an extended 29-man squad for the Etihad Stadium clash, with youngsters Matthew Scharenberg and Jackson Ramsay also set to return after undergoing knee reconstructions.
The 24-year-old struggled with a pars defect injury in his back that was operated on in May, but has trained strongly and made it through last week's intra-club match unscathed.
Pendlebury, who will sit out Thursday's game, says it will be special to see Elliott return from an injury many of his teammates feared could have been career-ending.
"I think everyone had concerns that he wasn't going to get back," he said on Tuesday.
"He was pretty nervous at the time. Any time you have to go and have back surgery, it's pretty scary.
"Since day one of the pre-season, he's been back out here. You can just see the love of football he's got. He appreciates it that much more now that he's had 12 months out so we're looking forward to him coming back."
Elliott last week said he expected to shed a tear when he made his AFL return, prompting some gentle ribbing from his teammates.
"I hope he doesn't tear up because there's a lot worse things than missing a season of football," Pendlebury joked.
With senior Magpies Pendlebury, Brodie Grundy, Adam Treloar, Taylor Adams and Ben Reid all rested, Thursday's clash looms as an opportunity for their younger teammates to show their value.
With Collingwood seeking a finals berth for the first time since 2013, Pendlebury said his side needed to start the regular season strongly after winning just two of their first seven games last year.
"You've just got to get off to a fairly good start, build that confidence and once you're into the season, anything can happen," he said.London-based brand to supply clothing on and off the bike; confirms Rapha-Condor to continue
Team Sky will be outfitted by London-based clothing brand Rapha Performance Roadwear from next year, the team has announced. The London-based brand, best known for its classic style of clothing that harks back to cycling’s golden age, is to provide on and off the bike clothing for the British ProTeam in a new four-year deal.
“Team Sky has achieved this year’s level of success because of a strong and steady vision to find improvement at every level to help our riders win,” said Dave Brailsford, Team Principal of Sky Pro Cycling. “I see Rapha joining us next year as another step in that direction. They share our ambition and vision for cycling.”
Until now, Team Sky has had its clothing provided by German company adidas, through its long-standing relationship with British Cycling, but the current deal will expire at the end of the year.
“We are delighted that, after only eight years as a business, we have been chosen by Team Sky, the world’s number one team, as their partner,” said Simon Mottram, Founder and CEO of Rapha. “We share their passion for performance and team ethic and are enthusiastic to inspire and engage a wider fan base around the globe.”
Rapha has long since been involved with its own, British-based Continental team, Rapha Condor-Sharp; despite losing co-sponsor Sharp, through its own new deal with ProTeam Garmin-Sharp, Rapha has confirmed to VeloNation at the Eurobike show that it remains committed and the team will continue.TotalBiscuit Profile Blog Joined March 2010 United Kingdom 5415 Posts Last Edited: 2012-01-16 21:39:48 #1
Let's get the numbers out of the way first before we talk about anything else.
Total donations towards the next tournament - $3904.66
Money left over from last time $1131.23
SCI5 = Fully Funded.
In fact, we're overfunded at this point. Due to the gap inbetween SCI3 and SCI4, there's been a few months of streaming and monthly subscriptions inbetween that. Basically SCI5, SCI6 and some of SCI7 are all fully funded now based on my estimations and projections. The only other costs we're incurring right now are Apollo's expenses (since we paid for his flight and such) and paypal/wire fees to pay players their prizemoney. Our graphic designer is paid a monthly salary anyway for the work he does on my main channel so that's not coming out of the cash we raise for SCI. So what does that mean?
Well it means we could easily do at least one tournament where we do not take any donations at all. That potentially means more cash for the players via the tip-jar and also ensures that the burden of paying for these events is taken away from donors. We're not yet at the point where we can guarantee a monthly tournament that is fully funded by the channel. The subscriptions count is healthy, but as you're well aware, CPM and ad revenue are all over the place on Twitch right now. In fact, January is the worst month for CPM across the board. Myself and other Youtube partners always dread January, because it flat-out sucks for CPM. Nobody wants to advertise because people don't have cash to spend after Christmas, so we all get hit pretty hard. While the donation count this tournament was incredible, the ad revenue was not. Factors that contributed to this are as follows.
1) January CPM
2) Twitch's continued issues with getting "fill", meaning the eCPM (effective CPM) is lower because less people see ads
3) System problems that caused ads to not actually play during parts of the tournament, regardless of whether the command was given.
Twitch is not to blame for most of this. They can't change the way CPM varies on a predictable yearly basis and they are trying to sell more advertising and get a better fillrate. It's in their best interests to do that so I have no doubt that they're not slacking on the matter. The system problems that occurred are of course something that need to be looked at. I have no idea what caused the issues, but it hurt us quite a bit. The full figures aren't in yet but ad revenue from this tournament is noticeably lower than previous events, even though this one blew the number of viewers we had completely out of the water. As far as I'm concerned, one of Twitch's priorities should be to ensure the ad system is rock solid and doesn't break down in the middle of a live event.
Anyway, it's not that big a deal, the money we lost from the ad issues was more than covered by the extra donations and additional paid subscriptions we gained so I'm not going to stress out over it. I'm still not 100% sure that I can fully fund every tournament in future myself based on Showcraft streams and subscriptions, but it's getting to that point and that's very good news. Severing our reliance on community funding permanently would be the ultimate goal of this thing.
Speaking of numbers, let's talk tips! Among the many records broken during SCI4 is the amount of money given as tips to players.
- $187.50
$252.50
$133.01
$545.50
$371.94
$570.44
$793.45
$224.78
------
Total - $3079.12
Well, that almost triples the amount that was given during SCI3 when the system debuted. It also breaks the record for most-tipped player. TLO gathered $455 in tips last time, this time Darkforce blew that out of the water with almost $800. What I really like about Darkforce getting that much is that out of our lineup, he was one of the least well-known. He has not had prominent results lately and even though he went out in the group stage he showed 2 of the most incredible games on Taldarim we've seen in a very long time. His astonishing comeback against Nightend and absolute refusal to give up was inspiring to watch. I want to talk more about the tipping system and the ethics of giving money to players that isn't proportional to their tournament results a little later on.
Now the big numbers.
* 14617 SCI2 Day 1 average concurrents
* 15386 SCI2 Day 2 average concurrents
* 189730 SCI2 Day 1 Total views
* 299415 SCI2 Day 2 Total views
* 14789 SCI3 Day 1 average concurrents
* 14109 SCI3 Day 2 average concurrents
* 156531 SCI3 Day 1 Total views
* 255443 SCI 3 Day 2 Total views
* 23376 SCI4 Day 1 average concurrents
* 33601 SCI4 Day 2 average concurrents
* 449405 SCI4 Day 1 Total views
* 445978 SCI4 Day 2 Total views
Twitch has also significantly improved their analytics system so for the first time I can bring you some new statistics.
* 198120 SCI4 Day 1 Unique viewers
* 184462 SCI4 Day 2 Unique viewers
* SCI4 Day 1 hours cast - 13.5
* SCI4 Day 2 hours cast - 8
* SCI4 Day 1 Maximum concurrent viewers - 32152
* SCI4 Day 2 Maximum concurrent viewers - 49337
* SCI4 Day 1 total hours of SCI4 watched - 309734
* SCI4 Day 2 total hours of SCI4 watched - 254804
Stats are fun, we like stats. Well I think I can safely say SCI4 crushed every previous SCI tournament in terms of raw numbers. The tournament was a run away success. Views-wise it equalled HSC4 at times and came close to beating it's maximum concurrent views. From memory, the only online tournament to manage more live viewers than this was TSL3 and our event gained more viewers than many large off-line tournaments. Yeah, it's safe to say I'm happy with how things turned out in that respect and greatly humbled by the support the community has shown SCI4. You might think it's a little odd that Day 2 had fewer unique viewers than Day 1 when we had more concurrent viewers during Day 2. That's simply down to the fact that Day 1 was over 50% longer, allowing it to reach more timezones over the course of it's duration. We had more Australian viewers than usual for instance because we started earlier and gained the American viewers as the day went on. SCI's appeal is unquestionably global at this point. Perhaps next time we will get a Korean commentary team too.
Onward and Upward
It's safe to say that after SCI3 I was not happy. I felt I'd compromised the tournament by inviting too many "fan favourites" rather than focussed purely on recent results and performance. This resulted in a lot of 3-0 games and while every player had the potential to win, only a fraction of them realistically had a shot at it based on their current form and results. After SCI3, I was determined that the next tournament would be a massive step up in terms of game quality and skill on display. I immediately went into planning the SCKI, SHOUTCraft Korean Invitational. Going through a contact in Korea I started making contact with various teams and gathering a roster which included foreigners training in Korea (including HuK, as we teased at the end of SCI3) and competitive Korean Code-S level players. Unfortunately we ran into a lot of problems. Communication is obviously an issue and was even worse back then than it is now. Korean teams have a broader global outlook now than they did several months ago and it's easier to talk to them now. Some teams flat-out refused to take part, others offered their lowest profile and least skilled players. Some teams did play ball and we have a few extremely talented players ready and willing to play in a future SCI, but as we were continuing to try and setup an already delayed tournament, our point of contact left Korea and we lost our link to those teams. After that we entered the "month of hell" where myself and Apollo were constantly travelling and casting and there was absolutely no time to even consider an SCI tournament.
I abandoned the idea of the Korean tournament until 2012 and built a roster of strong foreigners. We ran into problems there too because a couple of those guys ended up going to Korea to train (IdrA being one of them as many of you suspected) and the IEM Kiev qualifiers pretty much killed any chance of us getting SCI4 done before the New Year.
Eventually after a lot of consideration we came up with our SCI4 lineup which ended up being all-European this time around. It consisted of high profile players, recent successes and competitive players who we knew could give a good fight against anyone in the line-up. I'm happy to say that I think our choices were correct. The group stages showed that we put together the most balanced line-up yet. Every single player won at least one series in the group stages, there was not a single white-wash where it was obvious that one player had a massive upper-hand against the other. Even Stephano, the eventual victor, dropped a map against EVERY player in his group. When we said "every group is a group of death", we meant it. Game quality was, in my opinion, the highest it's ever been. There are so many memorable series I don't know where to begin. Darkforce vs Thorzain was an unbelievable clash where Thorzain wore down and eventually broke the spirit of Darkforce over the course of 50 minutes, resulting in a second game in which Thorzain quickly destroyed his opponent with little effort. Darkforce vs Nightend played host to one of the greatest comebacks and underdog stories I've ever seen. On the verge of defeat, Darkforce executed a series of tactically brilliant defenses that resulted in the destruction of his opponent. Neural parasite, clutch transfuses, that series had it all. What about Thorzain throwing the TvP metagame rulebook out of the window and demonstrating the viability of late-game reaper compositions to break a zealot-heavy maxed deathball? How about Grubby's creative finesse on display time and again as he defeated Ret, who up until that point looked unstoppable, going 2-0 twice in his group. What about Thorzain vs Ret, a matchup Thorzain was expected to lose based on his past history with the King of Drones, which resulted in a dramatic tense final game? The list goes on and on, every player deserved to be there and every player proved that in their play.
I wouldn't even call the grand final disappointing. Despite a 4-0 sweep for Stephano, the games were not one-sided. Game 1 demonstrated some of the things we love most about long macro games as well as some of the things we hate. One way or the other, it was memorable. At the end of the day though, Stephano showed masterful ZvT once again, even getting the opportunity to go back to his original style which the Koreans have been trying to pick apart (and succeeded at times). Stephano shows us what you can do with lings, don't be surprised to see a lot more of that on the ladder over the next few weeks.
Overall I feel my choices were correct in terms of the roster.There are always people we want to invite but can't because we only have 7 spots (plus winner). I do feel somewhat guilty for not bringing DDE back, however we had a lot of feedback that indicated bringing back 1st and 2nd place from the previous tournament was not welcome and resulted in more stagnant and less interesting rosters. Hopefully we'll see DDE again in future tournaments, he's been a bit off his game lately due to various RL issues.
Korea?
When are the Koreans coming? The most frequently asked question. SCI5, is the answer. We are dedicated to making it happen this time around. We have impressive stats to show the Korean teams which will draw interest. We have a good format and a solid pedigree. The plan for SCI5 right now (subject to change just like every other time) is to have a "Welcome to Korea" tournament where 4 foreigners and 4 Koreans battle for supremacy. We want to take the level of skill up a notch once again by including the best we can get. No doubt some you will be shouting "MVP! NESTEA! MMA!" right now and while we'd love to do that, you've gotta bear in mind a few things. Those guys are important, really important, the most important as far as their teams are concerned. They are EXTREMELY selective about the tournaments they play in and as regards to money, they aren't short of it. You can't tempt players that have earned between $135k-255k with a $5000 prizepool and being an online tournament based outside of Korea puts us in a position where we don't have a lot of bargaining power. That doesn't mean we can't get great players and we've got a few in store already. It should be easy to guess some of the players we're inviting for SCI5, though as to how many are able to accept is a different matter. It's an open secret that Naniwa wants in, because he posted in the thread about it and we're certainly not going to refuse his request. Expect Naniwa in SCI5 even if we don't end up getting the Korean-server tournament together, assuming he doesn't have a sudden change of heart.
Format
While the first day was very tiring since we cast for 13 hours with no scheduled breaks, myself and Apollo are happier with the group-based format than the single elimination BO5 bracket. As far as I'm concerned it shows people more of the matches they want to see, generates a more accurate result and is more player friendly. There is one thing I need to address and that is how we determined who went through in a tie-break situation.
Based on the rules we gave out to players, we used the following priority order to determine the 1st and 2nd seeds from the group stages.
Series won (obviously)
Performance ratio (percentage of maps won vs maps lost)
Head-to-Head score
Head to Head is the lowest priority, it's a last resort in-case we have absolutely identical scores otherwise. I really dislike head-to-head as a determining factor, which is why it's lowest down the priority list. This is common in large tournaments, they tend to consider map-score more important than head-to-head. The difference in our tournament from some of the majors is how we approach map-score. There are a few ways to look at it. One of the most common is simply "maps won", which takes priority over "maps lost". If we used this system, we could have ended up with the following result in Group B.
If Grubby had beaten Ret 2-0, he would have ended up with a score of 5-3, having conceeded a map to Socke and lost 2-1 to ClouD. This would have left Ret with a score of 4-2, beating Socke and ClouD 2-0 but losing to Grubby 2-0. In a "maps won" priority system, Grubby would have advanced as 1st seed to play Thorzain and Ret would have advanced as Seed 2 and played Stephano. However, that is not the system we used. In our hypothetical example, Ret earns a 66% performance ratio based on his 4:2 record in the group. Grubby earns a 62.5% win ratio with his 5:3 record. In this scenario, Ret goes through 1st seed regardless of his result against Grubby. Grubby ended up winning but dropped a map against Ret, resulting in a 5-2 record for Ret and a 5-4 record for Grubby, a clear 1st seed group victory for Ret.
Why am I even going through those hypotheticals? Because there was some controversy regarding our statements on the stream about who would go through as what seed in what scenario. Based on the system we used, we were correct. As to whether or not our system is better or worse than the "maps won" priority system, I honestly don't know. I feel that performance ratio rewards the more solid, consistent player. 2 2-0 victories are significant, they show a clear dominance of one player over another. I think that a player who can achieve that should have an edge when the scores are tallied, as opposed to a player who wins his games, but drops maps every time. We are open to feedback on this issue though, as I feel it is contentious and worthy of discussion.
Tipping the Balance
The tipping system of SCI is unique. No other tournament does this. We devised it because SCI originally came about to help the pros while also providing a great tournament for the fans. The tipping system allowed fans to directly say to a player "I enjoyed what you just did, let me show you my appreciation". It is a morale boost to players to see fans directly willing to give them a contribution. SCI3 saw TLO win big in terms of tips, but this time around we saw one of the least known players in the line-up, Darkforce, walk away with an astonishing amount of tip money. A thread began on Teamliquid about the tipping system and whether other tournaments should look into implementing it. Opinions are strong and tempers have run high, with some outright condemning the system as anti-competitive, open to abuse and match-fixing and downright stupid. I believe the words "hurting/killing esports" may have been used at some point. While I do not think that this system is suitable for every tournament, it is certainly something that smaller invitationals should be considering doing. Being a pro-player is not an easy life as some people would have you believe. Depending on where you live, holding a sustainable income to the point where you can pay your bills and focus on practice is very difficult. The UK's pro-scene is effectively dead as a result, whereas countries where living costs are lower such as Poland and the Ukraine have a strong roster of pro-players. One way or the other, the only way the foreign scene is going to be able to compete with the Korean way of doing things is to ensure pros can dedicate 100% to their practice and treat it as a career. The tipping system assists in this. It also, along with our bounty system, largely removes the "meaningless game" from the equation (though we still arguably had one in the groupstage battle between Stephano and Thorzain, since Thorzain could not advance as first seed, but needed to win one map to go through to the RO4 instead of Nightend). I guess you can't get rid of meaningless games entirely in that format, but for the most part, as Darkforce displays beyond a shadow of a doubt, you can encourage players to pull off outstanding performances even when they have no chance of going forward in the tournament, rather than simply throwing their games resulting in a sub-par experience for the audience.
Regardless of what anyone may think about whether or not a last-place player should earn more than the 3rd place finisher, the fact remains that the tip system is personal choice. People can give to whomever they want for whatever reason they wish. We are merely enabling them to do so easily. Results are not, in fact, the only thing that matters in competitive Starcraft 2, they never have been and they never will be, regardless of whether or not we continue using the tip-jar system.
The Technical Side of things
Oh thank god, a tournament without major technical problems. We had no sound issues, no dropped stream, no overlays left on obscuring the game. Every mistake we made was minor (though still not excusable and will hopefully not happen again), in the form of things like getting the player race wrong on the scoreboard, once leaving a player nameplate on the bottom bar for most of the game and having the "next game" text header be out of date on multiple occassions in-between matches. The text issue is easily solved with the use of Xsplit's remote title system (basically means someone who isn't the guy on the computer that's doing the streaming can update the text. This is important because Xsplit has no preview feature to allow you to make changes to a scene without putting it live on air, a glaring issue in the software that needs resolving). Everything else is simply a case of keeping an eye on everything and not fucking up. This'll be easier once I get a second monitor and a bigger desk. We were also able to use Twitch's beta broadcast delay system which is much more reliable than Xsplit's, so we had a smoother stream throughout and eliminated the ever-present threat of stream-cheating once again (as we have every SCI tournament). As far as we're concerned, replay based tournaments are for the most part irrelevant now. The biggest argument for replays being used in tournaments was to prevent stream-cheating that could occur during a live, online event. Broadcast delay prevents that from happening and as viewers crave the live experience more and more, I believe replays should only be a last resort in future tournaments.
Aside from that we were able to use Dropbox to live-update our bracket and group image directly into Xsplit, a big improvement over previous tournaments where we've had to try and overlay a webpage into the screen-capture area which often ended up being the wrong size. The site also kept going down so we couldn't always put up the up-to-date brackets. We also implemented a snazzier overlay which answers the feedback given in previous tournaments that a simple video loop was not sufficient. We added a caster camera for the first time which we incorporated into the scene. We don't feel that a caster camera is appropriate during matches, but in pre and post game it does add just a little bit more engagement for the viewers since they have something visual to focus on. Overall we pushed the production value higher this time around.
Thanks
The thanks list is always large and I hope once again that I don't forget anyone.
Genna, my loyal wife and manager, who did the legwork in organising this event, booking Apollo's travel arrangements, managing the finances (and paying out the prize-money to all the players within an hour of the tournament ending), coding and maintaining the website at shoutcraft.com as well as putting up with my nonsense.
Cristian, our full-time graphics designer who is responsible for the new overlay, all the tournament art assets, promotional materials and live-updating the bracket images which we used. The tournament was a hell of a lot slicker thanks to your talents.
Apollo, for travelling back from Sweden to commentate this event and once again providing his peerless analysis and personality.
Twitch.tv and it's staff, who were kind enough to put us in their regular newsletter, frontpage the event on Twitch.tv and also keep an eye on the stream, resulting in a more stable and enjoyable tournament experience for the viewers.
Teamliquid, for their support and promotion as well as all the forum regulars who contributed to be a very active and lively thread.
Reddit, for it's support and promotion, which contributed a great deal to the tournament's momentum and build-up over the course of the week prior to the event.
The Teams, for sending us their players, in no particular order, Alternate Attax, Fnatic, Mousesports, Teamliquid, Millenium and of course, Team Grubby.
The Players, Socke, Grubby, Nightend, Thorzain, Cloud, Darkforce, Ret and Stephano for putting on a fantastic show.
The Viewers, for their support and time, as well as financial aid, resulting in a record breaking amount given to SCI and the players who participated within it.
Colin Smith, we named this tournament after him and once again he showed his generosity, donating $1337 to the next tournament.
We will see you in the next tournament, which we hope to hold in March.
Well well, another SCI ends and it's time to have a look at what happened and how to proceed in the future. No audio this time around I'm afraid, my voice is completely shot.Let's get the numbers out of the way first before we talk about anything else.Total donations towards the next tournament - $3904.66Money left over from last time $1131.23SCI5 =In fact, we're overfunded at this point. Due to the gap inbetween SCI3 and SCI4, there's been a few months of streaming and monthly subscriptions inbetween that. Basically SCI5, SCI6 and some of SCI7 are all fully funded now based on my estimations and projections. The only other costs we're incurring right now are Apollo's expenses (since we paid for his flight and such) and paypal/wire fees to pay players their prizemoney. Our graphic designer is paid a monthly salary anyway for the work he does on my main channel so that's not coming out of the cash we raise for SCI. So what does that mean?Well it means we could easily do at least one tournament where we do not take any donations at all. That potentially means more cash for the players via the tip-jar and also ensures that the burden of paying for these events is taken away from donors. We're not yet at the point where we can guarantee a monthly tournament that is fully funded by the channel. The subscriptions count is healthy, but as you're well aware, CPM and ad revenue are all over the place on Twitch right now. In fact, January is the worst month for CPM across the board. Myself and other Youtube partners always dread January, because it flat-out sucks for CPM. Nobody wants to advertise because people don't have cash to spend after Christmas, so we all get hit pretty hard. While the donation count this tournament was incredible, the ad revenue was not. Factors that contributed to this are as follows.1) January CPM2) Twitch's continued issues with getting "fill", meaning the eCPM (effective CPM) is lower because less people see ads3) System problems that caused ads to not actually play during parts of the tournament, regardless of whether the command was given.Twitch is not to blame for most of this. They can't change the way CPM varies on a predictable yearly basis and they are trying to sell more advertising and get a better fillrate. It's in their best interests to do that so I have no doubt that they're not slacking on the matter. The system problems that occurred are of course something that need to be looked at. I have no idea what caused the issues, but it hurt us quite a bit. The full figures aren't in yet but ad revenue from this tournament is noticeably lower than previous events, even though this one blew the number of viewers we had completely out of the water. As far as I'm concerned, one of Twitch's priorities should be to ensure the ad system is rock solid and doesn't break down in the middle of a live event.Anyway, it's not that big a deal, the money we lost from the ad issues was more than covered by the extra donations and additional paid subscriptions we gained so I'm not going to stress out over it. I'm still not 100% sure that I can fully fund every tournament in future myself based on Showcraft streams and subscriptions, but it's getting to that point and that's very good news. Severing our reliance on community funding permanently would be the ultimate goal of this thing.Speaking of numbers, let's talk tips! Among the many records broken during SCI4 is the amount of money given as tips to players. Socke - $187.50 Ret $252.50 ClouD $133.01 Grubby $545.50 Stephano $371.94 ThorZaIN $570.44 DarKFoRcE $793.45 NightEnD $224.78------Total - $3079.12Well, that almost triples the amount that was given during SCI3 when the system debuted. It also breaks the record for most-tipped player. TLO gathered $455 in tips last time, this time Darkforce blew that out of the water with almost $800. What I really like about Darkforce getting that much is that out of our lineup, he was one of the least well-known. He has not had prominent results lately and even though he went out in the group stage he showed 2 of the most incredible games on Taldarim we've seen in a very long time. His astonishing comeback against Nightend and absolute refusal to give up was inspiring to watch. I want to talk more about the tipping system and the ethics of giving money to players that isn't proportional to their tournament results a little later on.Now the big numbers.* 14617 SCI2 Day 1 average concurrents* 15386 SCI2 Day 2 average concurrents* 189730 SCI2 Day 1 Total views* 299415 SCI2 Day 2 Total views* 14789 SCI3 Day 1 average concurrents* 14109 SCI3 Day 2 average concurrents* 156531 SCI3 Day 1 Total views* 255443 SCI 3 Day 2 Total views* 23376 SCI4 Day 1 average concurrents* 33601 SCI4 Day 2 average concurrents* 449405 SCI4 Day 1 Total views* 445978 SCI4 Day 2 Total viewsTwitch has also significantly improved their analytics system so for the first time I can bring you some new statistics.* 198120 SCI4 Day 1 Unique viewers* 184462 SCI4 Day 2 Unique viewers* SCI4 Day 1 hours cast - 13.5* SCI4 Day 2 hours cast - 8* SCI4 Day 1 Maximum concurrent viewers - 32152* SCI4 Day 2 Maximum concurrent viewers - 49337* SCI4 Day 1 total hours of SCI4 watched - 309734* SCI4 Day 2 total hours of SCI4 watched - 254804Stats are fun, we like stats. Well I think I can safely say SCI4 crushed every previous SCI tournament in terms of raw numbers. The tournament was a run away success. Views-wise it equalled HSC4 at times and came close to beating it's maximum concurrent views. From memory, the only online tournament to manage more live viewers than this was TSL3 and our event gained more viewers than many large off-line tournaments. Yeah, it's safe to say I'm happy with how things turned out in that respect and greatly humbled by the support the community has shown SCI4. You might think it's a little odd that Day 2 had fewer unique viewers than Day 1 when we had more concurrent viewers during Day 2. That's simply down to the fact that Day 1 was over 50% longer, allowing it to reach more timezones over the course of it's duration. We had more Australian viewers than usual for instance because we started earlier and gained the American viewers as the day went on. SCI's appeal is unquestionably global at this point. Perhaps next time we will get a Korean commentary team too.It's safe to say that after SCI3 I was not happy. I felt I'd compromised the tournament by inviting too many "fan favourites" rather than focussed purely on recent results and performance. This resulted in a lot of 3-0 games and while every player had the potential to win, only a fraction of them realistically had a shot at it based on their current form and results. After SCI3, I was determined that the next tournament would be a massive step up in terms of game quality and skill on display. I immediately went into planning the SCKI, SHOUTCraft Korean Invitational. Going through a contact in Korea I started making contact with various teams and gathering a roster which included foreigners training in Korea (including HuK, as we teased at the end of SCI3) and competitive Korean Code-S level players. Unfortunately we ran into a lot of problems. Communication is obviously an issue and was even worse back then than it is now. Korean teams have a broader global outlook now than they did several months ago and it's easier to talk to them now. Some teams flat-out refused to take part, others offered their lowest profile and least skilled players. Some teams did play ball and we have a few extremely talented players ready and willing to play in a future SCI, but as we were continuing to try and setup an already delayed tournament, our point of contact left Korea and we lost our link to those teams. After that we entered the "month of hell" where myself and Apollo were constantly travelling and casting and there was absolutely no time to even consider an SCI tournament.I abandoned the idea of the Korean tournament until 2012 and built a roster of strong foreigners. We ran into problems there too because a couple of those guys ended up going to Korea to train (IdrA being one of them as many of you suspected) and the IEM Kiev qualifiers pretty much killed any chance of us getting SCI4 done before the New Year.Eventually after a lot of consideration we came up with our SCI4 lineup which ended up being all-European this time around. It consisted of high profile players, recent successes and competitive players who we knew could give a good fight against anyone in the line-up |
strains in debt financing in the future, possibly within 10 years, as its ageing and declining population could shrink its private savings. (Writing by Hideyuki Sano; Editing by Joseph Radford and Nathan Layne)Miners turn in their weapons on Sept. 4, 1921, following the Battle of Blair Mountain, the culmination of the largest armed insurrection in the United States since the Civil War.
Activists want to protect the site of a deadly labor struggle—and stop mountaintop removal coal mining.
From his trailer home in the old coal camp of Sunbeam, W.Va., Kenny King has been working for the past two decades to preserve nearby Blair Mountain in Logan County. He wants it listed on the National Register of Historic Places and, ultimately, protected as a national historic park.
What’s so important about a mountain most Americans have never heard of?
“It’s part of our heritage, our history,” King says. “It was [the site of] the biggest armed insurrection since the Civil War.” In the summer of 1921, 10,000 coal miners–including King’s grandfather– fought a private force of strikebreakers supported by mine bosses for nine days for the right to join the United Mine Workers of America (UMWA). In August that year, miners–incensed by the murder of some of their supporters earlier that month and the mass firings of pro-union miners–marched about 50 miles from the town of Marmet, near Charleston, the capital, to Blair Mountain. They were met by an anti-union sheriff supported by a private security force. More than 100 people–mostly miners–lost their lives before federal troops arrived.
According to a historian’s account on the Friends of Blair Mountain website, “The U.S. Army and Air Corps ultimately crushed the rebellion without firing a shot. The union surrendered rather than fire upon American soldiers, making clear their patriotism.” Although the coalfields weren’t organized until the 1930s, when, helped by the Roosevelt administration, the UMWA welcomed most miners into its ranks, the Battle of Blair Mountain became a rallying cry for labor as it fought to organize workers in all major industries.
“I want to preserve the history and the legacy of all those guys who were fighting,” King says. The biggest threat to his dream is mountaintop removal (MTR) mining, which would literally blast apart the mountain. He says two mining companies–Arch Coal and Massey Energy–have applied for up to six permits, and already been granted others, to begin operations on the former battlefield. “There’s one active [MTR site] moving closer to the battlefield,” King says, “There’s another the state … has already approved that will completely wipe out the southern end of the battlefield.”
On June 6, labor and environmental activists will begin a five-day march from Marmet to Blair Mountain to commemorate the 90th anniversary of the miners’ rebellion. They’ll call for the permanent protection of the mountain, an end to MTR and strengthening labor rights and sustainable job creation.
King says many of the groups supporting the march were involved in last September’s Appalachia Rising events in Washington, D.C., during which activists demanded an end to MTR. That’s a problem for the union most closely associated with Blair Mountain: UMWA, which supports MTR. “The UMWA absolutely supports the designation of Blair Mountain as a national historic site,” UMWA Communications Director Phil Smith said via e-mail. “We believe the focus of preservation efforts at Blair Mountain should be the … story of corporate excess and greed… [The mountain] should be remembered for reasons that bring all people who live in southern West Virginia together, not drive them apart. In many respects, this march serves the latter purpose.”
After reading Smith’s comments, King remarks, “All they do is come out with these statements saying they support the nomination, but there’s never been any real action taken.” He says that the UMWA isn’t trying to stop Blair Mountain from being destroyed because it hopes to unionize those worksites.
King says he’s happy to have the support of 60 national and regional environmental groups (including 350.org, Rainforest Action Network and Appalachian Voices) and that organizers are also reaching out to labor unions across the country to join the march. They expect 400 marchers and up to 1,000 people at the rally on June 11. As of May 5, the West Virginia AFL-CIO is backing it, along with a number of locals around the state.
In nearby Raleigh County, Debbie Jarrell, the daughter and granddaughter of coal miners and an anti-mountaintop removal activist, is helping to spread the word about the march. She condemns the way coal companies have treated the mountains and the local residents, including miners.
“They like to blame environmentalists and the regulations for the decline of the labor force in the mining industry, when in fact the coal companies themselves are responsible for that because mountaintop removal or strip mining employs far less people,” Jarrell says. “It’s really affecting a lot of working-class people [by] eliminating living-wage jobs.”LOS ANGELES, Dec. 14, 2017 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Giftz™, a blockchain rewards network, and BLOCKv, a dynamic visual interface layer for blockchain, announced today that they are initiating an alliance. Together, they will enhance customer loyalty and rewards by utilizing blockchain, crypto-points and augmented reality technology. This promising alliance may produce the first blockchain program to get mainstream adoption.
Giftz and BLOCKv aim to dramatically improve how consumers shop and earn rewards. Using blockchain as the underlying technology, Giftz eliminates the need for costly loyalty systems, management personnel, and point of sale infrastructure. Customers earn loyalty tokens via GPS Airdrops, Beacons or QR codes and redeem to a value-based Giftz Card (and app).
BLOCKv provides a much-needed visual display layer for blockchain that includes augmented reality, or virtual objects, called vAtoms.
“I am very excited to work with the BLOCKv team,” said Giftz Founder John Paukulis. "We share the goal of helping drive foot traffic back to local merchants -- and envision a day when you can hold your smartphone up in a mall and walk toward deals floating on your screen displaying price and corresponding rewards value.”
Together these two innovative companies offer any size business a simple and cost-effective way to participate in an enterprise-level loyalty rewards program. Traditional loyalty programs can cost millions of dollars to develop and maintain -- an investment only large corporations can afford. Blockchain solutions, like those offered in the Giftz Network, can disrupt the industry, by dramatically cutting costs and allowing smaller stores to get involved.
This Alliance is significant because large companies, such as Starbucks, have budgets to build and maintain their own mobile apps, but consumers don’t want a myriad of loyalty apps for every store they frequent. Customers want one loyalty currency they can earn everywhere and spend anywhere. Collecting crypto-rewards will be the future of loyalty. According to a TrustNodes survey, 57 percent of shoppers would switch to a competitor that offers cryptocurrency rewards.
The Giftz Network offers tiered rewards tokens called itCoin Silver, itCoin Gold and itCoin Black, their premier token for sale now at giftz.io.
About Giftz
Giftz.io, by Rewards Media, Inc., provides a cost-effective, omnichannel solution for any business to “gift" crypto-rewards called itCoin® (ITC) for customer acquisition, retention and engagement. Giftz is currently rewarding buyers at their TokenSale, which has been rated as one of the top 10 ICOs of 2018 by Inc. Magazine.
About BLOCKv
BLOCKv provides a platform for the developer community to create and distribute vAtoms, which are dynamic, compelling digital goods that provide new models of blockchain utility and commerce potential. The BLOCKv platform provides a trust layer for consumers and businesses to transact with virtual objects in Augmented Reality. During their ICO, BLOCKv raised almost 72,000 Ethereum (ETH).
Contact: Frank Tortorici (908) 875-8908One of the upcoming TV shows we're most excited by is The River, a found footage horror outing created by the minds behind Paranormal Activity. Straight-up horror is rare on television, and we're hopeful this show will make its mark.
To celebrate, we've rounded up a list of the best horror shows that blazed a trail on television.
The River is backed by a heap of talent, Steven Spielberg is producing, Oren Peli (Paranormal Activity, Insidious) is also producing (and helped with the story idea), plus it stars Bruce Greenwood and Joe Anderson (the deputy from The Crazies that went nuts). We're not sure how this series could go on for more than two years, but we're completely sold on the "Dr. Livingstone, I Presume" premise. Plus, if you're going to make a mockumentary style show, use the best — and right now Peli is the best at this type of genre. Here's the brand new trailer for the ABC series.
Crafting a popular TV horror show is a difficult task. Most of the classics either fall on one end of the spectrum or the other. (Crypt went straight for the gore while Are You Afraid of the Dark remained kid friendly.) And while we loved them all, we have to admit to being a bit biased towards those rare shows that managed to walk the middle between intense drama and horror, such as Twin Peaks or X-Files. But they're all an important part of TV horror, and this is our list of the best of the best.
Tales From The Crypt
We're not sure what was more frightening: the Danny Elfman intro, the terrifying TV gore, or merely the Crypt Keeper's face. Crypt raised the bar for the anthology shows that were popular at the time. If you were going to use a narrator, you had to beat out the Crypt Keeper, which was an impossible task. This HBO series was on for 7 seasons, launched a number of horror movies, comic books, and radio series. It even had a spin-off Saturday morning cartoon!
American Gothic
Someone's at the door! The small town of Trinity, SC had a lot of big problems. Specifically, the evil Sheriff Buck who was a murderer, rapist, and basically the devil on Earth. This series was all sorts of terrifying. The main character (Caleb) is a little boy whose mother was raped by the sheriff, then committed suicide after giving birth to Caleb. It was packed with horror, and one moment that will forever plague us is when a local bug lover chains Bruce Campbell in a box and dumps a bucket of flesh eating beetles into his lap.
The Walking Dead
A perfect example of a drama/horror mix. Based off the comic books by Robert Kirkman and directed and produced by Frank Darrabont, The Walking Dead is oppressive with the horrific dread it dumps on the viewers. It forces you to stare the undead reality right in the face as people become monsters (both alive and dead). Plus, it doesn't scrimp on the good scares here and there.
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X-Files
Has any other series come up with more terrifying creatures than the aliens from X-Files with their elaborate plans and black oil dealings? What made X-Files truly horror wasn't the freak of the week monsters, but the elaborate conspiracy theory beasts that were never fully revealed until the final showdown. And the pay off was always epic. OK, the freak of the week beasts were pretty scary too! The episode "Home" still haunts our dreams.
Are You Afraid Of The Dark?
It might have aired on Nickelodeon, but don't lie. Every time the theme song started to play you got the chills and turned off the volume.
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The Twilight Zone
The Twilight Zone loved to scare us by giving each character exactly what they wanted! Take the little man with the huge glasses, Burgess Meredith. All he wanted was peace and quiet so he could read, then the world ends and he's the last man on the face of the Earth with plenty of reading material. Then he breaks his giant coke-bottle glasses. The Twilight Zone revelled in giving each character his or her just desserts.
The Outer Limits
Twisty endings galore. Anyone remember the episode "Nightmare," where a group of alien-abducted soldiers begin to turn on one another in a horrific "survival of the cruelest" twist? Between that and the horrible smiling spider creatures, Outer Limits won on scifi horror alone.
Alfred Hitchcock Presents
Hosted by the puppet master of suspense himself. These short stories were more scary due to the dark secrets each character kept, and the way everyone responded. Rather than actual shock and fake skin flaps squirting red dye awe!
Supernatural
Supernatural may be loved for its comedy, but it's been carrying the banner of great TV horror for several years. When you're dealing with the end of the world and the fires of hell, things get pretty scary pretty quick. "Sympathy for the Devil" and "No Rest For The Wicked" are two completely different "kinds" of Supernatural episodes, that both delivered the horror.
Twin Peaks
There is nothing creepier than Twin Peaks, nothing. Especially when they go full crazy "Beyond Life and Death" style. Created by David Lynch and Mark Frost, what started out as a mystery about the murder of Laura Palmer slowly developed into a cult sensation with possessions, time travel, tiny computer-voiced characters, and acid mind trips. May we never have to sit in the waiting room of Agent Cooper's mind job ever again.
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Runners-Up:
Millennium
Kolchak: The Night Stalker
Night GalleryIn honor of the 13th anniversary of the release of the one of the best-selling PC games of all time, we present this classic postmortem, which first appeared in the January 2005 issue of Game Developer magazine. This in-depth look at what went right and what went wrong during development was written by Lucy Bradshaw with contributions from fellow Maxis devs Matt Brown, Tim LeTouneau, and Paul Boyle.
***
Sequels to successful games may seem obvious—maybe even too obvious. And with The Sims, we at Maxis had a lot of content to work with and many leaps in technology to take advantage of since the first game was shipped back in 2000.
Even so, sequels pose a unique challenge. The Sims 2 team had to understand what led to the success of the original and devise a way to evolve (and ultimately how to innovate) while juggling colossal expectations from fans, critics, and the company.
WHAT WENT RIGHT
1) PROTOTYPING
Maxis has always been a major proponent of rapid prototyping when kicking off a new game. We used early prototypes to resolve look and feel issues, to help understand the key emotional connection, and most importantly, to test out the new gameplay concepts. Building these prototypes during the concept and pre-production phases instead of during the full steam production phase just makes sense.
Many of these prototypes significantly affected the final design of the game. The look-and-feel prototype, for example, established how The Sims look, particularly in the adult and teen years, and set the tone for the new 3D environments.
The HeadToy prototype helped evolve the Create A Sim tool. Later in the project, the "aspiration, wants, and fears" prototype guided the way we created the new gameplay. All of these prototypes were done as separate applications, using existing tools, such as Maya and.Net, and executed by one or two engineers or artists.
Our key to success is being rapid, staying focused on what we're trying to solve and moving quickly. We aim to show progress and iterate frequently. If someone working on a prototype has not shown us something each day of the week, it's probably going sideways.
Each of these prototypes was different in its implementation. The visual look-and-feel prototype was simply a movie, but it set the bar for the lighting, camera, environment, and characters.
The HeadToy prototype gave us a chance to explore some rather extreme possibilities in the new Sims's appearances. It also inspired Sim DNA, the virtual genes that are passed along to Sim descendants. One of the core design concepts that came out of this stage of the project was that The Sims 2 would grow up in The Sims 2.
The prototype not only nailed the various ages and the creative possibilities, but also validated the Sim DNA concept. This influenced the user interface, changed the way we talked about the game, and ultimately became part of the marketing campaign: "Genes, Dreams & Extremes."
We used the "wants and fears" prototype later in the project, but it was critical in providing the major innovation in regard to player focus and gameplay pacing. The prototype, built by Matt Brown and his team, let the designers and the engineers play through the wants and fears trees and establish the logic involved.
2) UNDERSTANDING THE AUDIENCE
Our challenges in making a sequel to The Sims was to intrigue the currently active players as well as recapture players who had uninstalled long ago. The audience of The Sims has changed rather dramatically since the original—they've evolved from hardcore players to ones who are very casual or new to games all together.
We focused on what we felt were some of the key factors of success in The Sims. We worked with our publishing partners to get a picture of our player base.
We also spent a lot of time on the forums in our web site, as well as other fan-sites and bulletin boards. We came to several conclusions. One was on the topic of The Sims: a game about people is something that most folks can connect with.
Other factors that we felt were critical were the creativity, the open-ended nature of the experience, and the sense of irreverent humor. We spent a lot of time brainstorming ways to improve these aspects of the game. We enhanced the creativity by improving the Create A Sim module, refining the building and designing options, and by creating a new means of storytelling via moviemaking.
We bolstered the open-ended nature of the game by keeping the same depth and breadth, and by making the lives of the Sims feel richer through additions to the social landscape. Finally, the key to this audience was the addition of growing Sims and playing through the generations of their families.
We recognized that we needed to attract our previous players through innovation. A major lure for these lapsed Sims players was the move to full 3D. This gave us an instant leg-up on the original, but we also parsed a lot of feedback from reviews, player suggestions, and focus groups.
From these outlets, we heard that players were tired of managing the mundane aspects of their Sims' lives—they wanted a new focus and pacing. Another thing we identified from listening to focus groups and player testimonials is that a great many players had not discovered some of the crazy things that could happen in The Sims and its expansions. Players had simply not put together the right combinations of actions and objects to discover these bits.
We boiled this down to the need for new pacing and rewards as well as a need to refine and maintain the open-ended gameplay. We had to find a better way to guide players and expose them to more of the possibilities that we had created.
The entirety of these observations drove much of our brainstorming about features and rewards, and led to the composition of features that we eventually included.
3) KLEENEX TESTING
Use once, throw away. Kleenex testing, in our vocabulary, means using disposable testers throughout the design process—from alpha to release candidate. The key to fresh feedback is using each tester only once: just like Kleenex. Since so much of our game hinges on players immediately understanding the gameplay and the interface, and that the rewards hit with good pacing, we elicited feedback and acted upon it regularly throughout the development process.
The most important part of Kleenex testing is finding people who can play a game with someone looking over their shoulders and while voicing the thoughts that go through their heads. Not everyone is cut out to be a piece of Kleenex.
We completely iterated the Create A Sim interface three times because of feedback received during Kleenex testing. This testing allowed us to better categorize the steps and make the flow of Sim design more natural and clear to players. There's quite a bit of depth to creating a Sim, and since a Sim's appearance can be very important to the player, this is an area in which we had to supply both complexity and simplicity (ease of use).
4) CUSTOM CONTENT AND COMMUNITY
At Maxis, we believe that a great deal of the success of The Sims came from the wealth of content and characters created by our user-base and enthusiast communities. When we initially shipped The Sims in February 2000, we had already created and released tools that enabled fans to create Sim skins. We continued to foster this community by adding more tools to a frequently updated and community oriented web site.
When we embarked upon The Sims 2, our philosophy was: If you could see it on the screen, you should be able to customize it. We also wanted to integrate this capability more seamlessly into the game, making it easier for players to manage the content they gathered or created.
We designed the user interface for data management to realize this goal. We also integrated our web site directly into the game through an in-game browser that allows players to download skins or objects and use them immediately.
In addition to this, we continued to keep an open dialog with the fans and webmasters supporting The Sims. We asked their opinions, got their feedback, and even kept up a weekly mailing on the progress of The Sims 2. We maintained this mailing list for a full year before we shipped.
One very successful event was the launch of The Sims 2 Body Shop, our tool for creating The Sims 2 skins. We made this available to the community on the opening day of E3 2004, when we premiered the game on the show floor. We had more than 80,000 skins on the site by the time we shipped the game.
One problem we encountered with this simple-to-use tool, however, was that we made it easy for users to brand the work of others as their own. We built some solutions into the shipping product and web site to make sure the creator identity is seen (if desired) and made sure we created strong community ethics for our site.
Today, the community is thriving, and player-created content made with The Sims 2 Movie Maker is something we are very proud of.
5) SWAT TEAMS
SWATs are small, cross-discipline teams within the larger development team that tackle key features and technical issues. SWATs (some call them pods or cells) helped The Sims 2 team focus on several fronts, thanks to strong leadership in each group responsible for decisions, communication, and tasks, such as pushing for the completion of their team's projects. On a large team such as ours, this requires an essential tactic. These SWATs evolved over the course of the project, coming together and disbanding as their objectives were initiated or met.
We had a neighborhood SWAT, which was responsible for all the visual features in the neighborhood: everything from the on-the-fly creation of house imposters to the landscape and effects. There was also a neighborhood story SWAT, which built all the finished neighborhoods. This team created all the prebuilt content, relationships, and ephemera so players could jump right in and experience the game.
The Create A Sim SWAT was the team that created the workflow and technology behind the Create A Sim module. The Sims 2 Body Shop SWAT shipped a "product" twice during the production of The Sims 2. The Body Shop had to go through Q/A, CQC, localization, and all the other processes a stand-alone product must weather. This was an amazing team of people.
One of the most distinctive teams on the project was the believe SWAT. They were saddled with the duty of changing the behavior of our Sims to match the new, more detailed aesthetic.
This team worked together to really put our animation engine, which was designed by David Miller, through its paces. Human beings know how human beings behave.
One of the major challenges we faced in The Sims 2 was matching the motion to the meat. We had to experiment with using the animation engine to its fullest, which extended all the way to adding a breath channel and a very subtle but effective facial movement channel (before we put this in, Sims just looked too noticeably mechanical and creepy—see Steve Theodore's "Uncanny Valley," December 2004).
As for behavior, the challenge was to create new routing, awareness, moods, and personalities which would work autonomously, be eminently interruptible by the player, and provide clear feedback about what was going on with the Sim in question. We knew we had it right when our testers didn't notice it. When we got to that point, we figured we had believable Sims.
There were many other excellent SWAT teams on our project, and they all contributed to the final feature set in ways that could not have occurred without this specific compartmentalization.
WHAT WENT WRONG
1) NOISY FEEDBACK
Players need to be able to read how their actions affect the game structure. Feedback, therefore, must be simple and intuitive. The believe SWAT team had to experiment a great deal with the behavior and movements of the new Sims in order strike a successful balance. One of these experiments was a bust, which ate up a lot of time and effort.
We were experimenting with bringing the personality dimensions of each Sim to the forefront by enabling players to affect this area to a greater degree. We experimented with animations and behaviors that were intended to show off the extremes of the five personality sliders: neat, nice, outgoing, playful, and active. What we ended up with were crazy looking Sims that were difficult for players to read. We learned a few things from this experiment that ultimately helped us make sharper decisions later in the project.
First, the player really does need simple UI devices that tie well to the Sims' behavior. In the case of the personality sliders, having five that all worked at the same time didn't clearly demonstrate to the user what was happening.
Second, more behavior and angles of interaction are not necessarily better. In the end, we did keep some of these animations and behaviors, but we made them function as additions to Sim characterization rather than another whole dimension of Sim management. The learning from this experiment gone awry also came to bear when we implemented the desperation behavior of our aspiration-challenged Sims. When they exhibit desperation, the behavior is tied to one dimension of the UI with a very clear means of affecting it positively.
2) THAT'S A LOT OF CONTENT
In terms of total volume of content, we bit off a lot. The goal of aging Sims meant creating three separate Sim skeletons and designing a rich variety of skins in for five age categories—toddler, child, teen, adult, and elder—and two sexes. In addition, we had to execute unique animations for each age, as well as unique behaviors and voices for each age and sex.
There are more than 11,000 animations, 1,200 skin meshes (textures increase the variety by re-using the same mesh), 40,000 voice samples, not to mention the models, design modes, effects, cinematics, sounds, full text in 21 languages, and music.
During the development, we felt like we were constantly playing catch-up. Getting all the content executed, tracked, and reviewed took a great deal of process invention. Initially, our tracking was not as detailed as it needed to be to follow each asset through the pipeline and transfer the information to the various sections of the team. Even the design specificity needed to be greatly enhanced.
We had to fix these problems after the content generation had already begun. Creating build processes, databases, and pipeline tools that helped validate the accuracy of this content should have been implemented right at the start. Some exceptional work by our development directors, engineers, configuration management team, and technical art director really got us on track.
Needless to say, generating all that content required dedication from a fantastic team of artists, engineers, audio specialists, and producers.
3) NEW ENGINE, NEW PIPELINES, LEARNING CURVE
While we were still learning the capabilities of the new animation engine and putting together our pipelines, we were simultaneously breaking down design elements, for example the animation trees. Early on, some assumptions were made based on knowledge of how things used to work in the original The Sims engine instead of how things would work in The Sims 2 engine.
We had to go back and re-work content to better utilize the capabilities of our system. We also found that we really needed to train our new hires better—there were many technical tricks and steps to understand, and training them on these tasks would greatly improve the pipeline. This was not insurmountable, but it certainly made for better execution once we invested the proper attention to training and reviewing content in not only the content viewer but the game as well.
4) SEQUELITIS
Pursuing features that add complexity to existing gameplay is a trap that we almost fell into early in the project. There was a great passion from some of the team members to improve systems that they had lived with for so long. If you read some of the fan boards and our BBS, you'd think that this direction would have been met with great success. It is actually a natural thing to want to do.
An example of this was an early design inclination to add to the Sims' motives, that is, their basic needs. Numerous posts on our forums extolled the virtues of this. For a while, we experimented by adding thirst and stress to the mix of needs that the player must manage. I think we realized this was the wrong direction when we saw mockups that showed how additions to the Needs Bars would look: too overwhelming.
Another factor was that we re-read the reviews and player feedback that indicated players were tiring of taking care of their Sims' more basic needs. They wanted a new approach. Since we were already pursuing the growing-up angle, we instead focused on distinguishing the different age ranges by how it affected their needs. For example, teen Sims crave social interaction, a need that decays faster than that of non-teen Sims.
5) BIG TEAM COMMUNICATIONS
By the mid-production phase, we had about 100 people on the team, and by the latter part of the production phase, about 140. It was a big team to manage and we were working on several fronts simultaneously. Our SWAT teams were spread out across the map, each one tackling new problems and tasks as they arose.
It's true what they say about how growing a team from 25 to 35 can require major re-thinking of processes. At 140, we had lots of challenges in key areas: making sure we communicated and had a shared vision, giving people a sense of ownership, and enabling decision-making at the most appropriate levels and then communicating those decisions. Establishing workflow procedures between groups was critical. This was a really tough aspect of the project to keep up with.
Some tactics we developed helped to curve these problems. The SWAT teams helped individuals get a clearer sense of how they shaped the project, giving them a sense of ownership too. Having a seasoned lead on each SWAT team was critical.
We worked on the communication channels and project management visibility throughout the development. Elements of the work flow included: team meetings, walls on which we posted milestones, lead meetings (to stay synchronized), training, dailies, content reviews, and even playing the game on a projector screen in the team area. I can't say that it was a completely rosy situation, but we did our best.
SHIPPING OUT AND PLODDING ON
We shipped the game Sept. 17, 2004, and we are all very proud of the final product. The Sims 2 team really came through on the objectives we had for the game, in terms of evolving the elements of the game that have made its predecessor so successful, and continuing to involve the players in ways that go beyond the product that shipped, through movies, stories, and original content.
It's very rewarding that The Sims 2 has met critical success. We're pleased that it's selling so well and that players are actively sharing and creating via the web. Many of us breathed a little easier when we saw the first week of sales and the first posts on the web from players who had spent the entire night playing.
The Sims 2 team overcame some very big challenges on a project that was massive in scope. We've followed a great practice of immediately capturing feedback in discipline and project postmortems and then reviewing and acting upon it. There's a team working away as I write this, building the first The Sims 2 expansion, taking advantage of this learning, and making the actionable improvements happen.Aliens Series 6 is coming soon to retailers!
Just in time for the holidays, our newest Aliens action figures are shipping to stores in the coming days. Series 6 focuses on the terrifying hit video game Alien Isolation – look for these figures on shelves soon!
Aliens – 7″ Scale Action Figures – Series 6 (Alien Isolation)
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Series 6 in our best-selling Alien action figure collection is a tribute to Alien Isolation, the acclaimed video game that continued Ripley’s story through her daughter, Amanda.
The assortment includes two versions of Amanda (one in a jumpsuit and one in a spacesuit) and the Isolation Xenomorph. Amanda Ripley (Jumpsuit) comes with motion detector, flamethrower and backpack accessories. Amanda Ripley (Torrens Spacesuit) features a removable helmet and comes with a handgun accessory. The Isolation Xenomorph features a bendable tail.
Figures range from 7” to 10” tall. Each is highly articulated and entirely authentic to the video game.
More info: Aliens – 7″ Scale Action Figures – Series 6 (Alien Isolation)
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Related ProductsIn June 1991, the second largest volcanic eruption of the twentieth century* took place on the island of Luzon in the Philippines, a mere 90 kilometers (55 miles) northwest of the capital city Manila. Up to 800 people were killed and 100,000 became homeless following the Mount Pinatubo eruption, which climaxed with nine hours of the eruption on June 15, 1991. On June 15, millions of tons of sulfur dioxide were discharged into the atmosphere, resulting in a decrease in the temperature worldwide over the next few years.
The Luzon Arc
Mount Pinatubo is part of a chain of composite volcanoes along the Luzon arc on the west coast of the island (area map). The arc of volcanoes is due to the subduction of the Manila trench to the west. The volcano experienced major eruptions approximately 500, 3000, and 5500 years ago.
The events of the 1991 Mount Pinatubo eruption began in July 1990, when a magnitude 7.8 earthquake occurred 100 kilometers (62 miles) northeast of the Pinatubo region, determined to be a result of the reawakening of Mount Pinatubo.
Before the Eruption
In mid-March 1991, villagers around Mount Pinatubo began feeling earthquakes and vulcanologists began to study the mountain. (Approximately 30,000 people lived on the flanks of the volcano prior to the disaster.) On April 2, small explosions from vents dusted local villages with ash. The first evacuations of 5,000 people were ordered later that month.
Earthquakes and explosions continued. On June 5, a Level 3 alert was issued for two weeks due to the possibility of a major eruption. The extrusion of a lava dome on June 7 led to the issuance of a Level 5 alert on June 9, indicating an eruption in progress. An evacuation area 20 kilometers (12.4 miles) away from the volcano was established and 25,000 people were evacuated.
The following day (June 10), Clark Air Base, a U.S. military installation near the volcano, was evacuated. The 18,000 personnel and their families were transported to Subic Bay Naval Station and most were returned to the United States. On June 12, the danger radius was extended to 30 kilometers (18.6 miles) from the volcano resulting in the total evacuation of 58,000 people.
The Eruption
On June 15, the eruption of Mount Pinatubo began at 1:42 p.m. local time. The eruption lasted for nine hours and caused numerous large earthquakes due to the collapse of the summit of Mount Pinatubo and the creation of a caldera. The caldera reduced the peak from 1745 meters (5725 feet) to 1485 meters (4872 feet) high is 2.5 kilometers (1.5 miles) in diameter.
Unfortunately, at the time of the eruption Tropical Storm Yunya was passing 75 km (47 miles) to the northeast of Mount Pinatubo, causing a large amount of rainfall in the region. The ash that was ejected from the volcano mixed with the water vapor in the air to cause a rainfall of tephra that fell across almost the entire island of Luzon. The greatest thickness of ash deposited 33 centimeters (13 inches) approximately 10.5 km (6.5 mi) southwest of the volcano. There was 10 cm of ash covering an area of 2000 square kilometers (772 square miles). Most of the 200 to 800 people (accounts vary) who died during the eruption died due to the weight of the ash collapsing roofs and killing two occupants. Had Tropical Storm Yunya not been nearby, the death toll from the volcano would have been much lower.
In addition to the ash, Mount Pinatubo ejected between 15 and 30 million tons of sulfur dioxide gas. Sulfur dioxide in the atmosphere mixes with water and oxygen in the atmosphere to become sulfuric acid, which in turn triggers ozone depletion. Over 90% of the material released from the volcano was ejected during the nine-hour eruption of June 15.
The eruption plume of Mount Pinatubo's various gasses and ash reached high into the atmosphere within two hours of the eruption, attaining an altitude of 34 km (21 miles) high and over 400 km (250 miles) wide. This eruption was the largest disturbance of the stratosphere since the eruption of Krakatau in 1883 (but ten times larger than Mount St. Helens in 1980). The aerosol cloud spread around the earth in two weeks and covered the planet within a year. During 1992 and 1993, the Ozone hole over Antarctica reached an unprecedented size.
The cloud over the earth reduced global temperatures. In 1992 and 1993, the average temperature in the Northern Hemisphere was reduced 0.5 to 0.6°C and the entire planet was cooled 0.4 to 0.5°C. The maximum reduction in global temperature occurred in August 1992 with a reduction of 0.73°C. The eruption is believed to have influenced such events as 1993 floods along the Mississippi River and the drought in the Sahel region of Africa. The United States experienced its third coldest and third wettest |
that decentralisation can be a means to help end the conflict and rebuild the country.
SUMMARY
Syria now suffers from deep divisions along both ethno-sectarian and geographic lines.
While economic links and interdependency persist between the various parts of the country, and most Syrians remain remarkably attached to the idea of national unity, the country is fragmenting into competing centres of power. This fragmentation extends to government-held areas where local power brokers are also asserting independence, challenging Damascus’s ability to hold on to power.
Interview with the author
Political and economic decentralisation, including a special status for Kurdish areas, is fast becoming a necessary condition for solving the conflict. For this to become a reality, there needs to be a formal devolution process, fairer allocation of resources – particularly oil revenues -, and efforts to reduce disparities in economic development.
European actors should recognise the reality on the ground and shift their focus away from achieving a centralised power-sharing agreement and towards negotiations based on a devolved politics. A decentralised model will be difficult to implement, but ironically may offer one of the few means of holding the country together.
POLICY RECOMMENDATIONS Syria should adopt a decentralised political system based on the transfer of power away from Damascus and towards the governorate and district levels. Kurdish regions should get a special status with enhanced powers, as part of asymmetric decentralisation.
While decentralisation is implemented and communities are recognised as political actors, the central state should retain a monopoly on a number of key sovereign attributes including defence, foreign affairs, and the printing of money.
Syria’s official name should no longer contain the word “Arab”. This symbolic move would be in line with the overwhelming number of Arabic countries, including Iraq and Lebanon, and would send a positive signal to non-Arab Syrians.
The state should teach all children from minority groups in their mother tongue. In Kurdish areas in the northeast, and Kurdish-majority districts of Damascus and Aleppo, schools should teach in Kurdish as well as Arabic.
The state should ensure that it uses its available tools to limit geographic disparities in economic development. For instance, access to employment in each governorate should be based on its share of the country’s total population. Where possible, the same rule should apply to public investments.
Oil export revenue should be reallocated, guaranteeing a proportion equal to each province’s population, on the principle that oil resources are equally owned by the entire country.
Sectarian and ethnic communities should get some form of political representation at the central level. A bicameral system could be a solution. However, the Russian proposal to appoint government members on the basis of their religious or ethnic affiliation would go too far in terms of institutionalising these divisions, and would be a recipe for gridlock. Instead, community representation should be pushed at the legislative level, in an upper house tasked with monitoring and control and with preventing discrimination. At the executive level, there should be no appointments or allocation of official positions based on sectarian or ethnic affiliations.
INTRODUCTION
On 17 March 2016, while delegations from the Syrian regime and opposition were meeting in Geneva to discuss the prospects of a peace agreement, Kurdish groups met near the Iraqi border to announce the establishment of an autonomous federal region in northeast Syria.
The announcement was timed to signal to those attempting to decide the fate of the country that the conflict gripping Syria is not restricted to a binary struggle between the opposition and the regime, and that no long-term solution will be possible without the Kurds. Of no less significance was the location. Rather than meeting in Qamishli, the de-facto capital of the region now under its control, the Kurdish Democratic Union Party (PYD) chose the small town of Rumeilan, which is the oil capital of northeast Syria.[1] To other Syrians, the Kurds were saying “this oil is ours” – and that there would be no end to the conflict without a new agreement on the allocation of the country’s resources.
This event marked a symbolic moment in Syria’s post-uprising history, highlighting the complex fault lines that divide Syrians and the issues over which the coming struggle for redistribution of power and resources will be fought.
More than five years after the beginning of the popular uprising, which has mushroomed into a war involving local, regional, and international players, deep divides have appeared among Syrians. These run along sectarian and ethnic lines as well as along the rural/urban divide. These divisions have created new geographical centres of power, backed by local military might and institutions that have gained independence from Damascus, to which they will not easily cede power again, as well as significant degrees of local legitimacy.
This paper sets out how these different regions are moving towards diverging systems of governance. Even today, some parts of the country continue to function better than many would expect. In areas controlled by the regime the pre-war order is largely in place, and the state still provides services and maintains law and order. Areas outside regime control have developed alternative institutions for education, security, and basic services – and some Kurdish areas have ceased to teach children Arabic altogether.
But, at the same time, most Syrians show a remarkable attachment to what still binds them together, including a shared history and a relatively well-functioning state, and overwhelmingly reject anything that could lead to a partition of their country. Economic links and interdependency persist between the various parts of the country, including across warring lines, as well as social ties.
In this context, this paper will argue that some form of political decentralisation, including a special status for areas of high Kurdish concentration, is a necessary condition for finding a solution to the current conflict, as well as beginning to rebuild the country. While not sufficient in itself, decentralisation offers one of the few means to include the competing local power centres that have emerged across the country during the course of the war; to better meet the wishes of Syria’s citizens, including the Kurds, for a fairer allocation of the country’s resources; and to reduce the risk of renewed conflict, while also ensuring that Syrians share a common future. The prospect of significantly enhanced local empowerment could also offer a critical political accompaniment to ongoing military efforts against the Islamic State (IS), which has exploited local grievances at the long-standing discriminatory and brutal hand of the central government to rally support.
In time, and once levels of violence subside, a decentralised Syria should take steps to reduce geographic disparities in economic development, dividing public investment and state jobs between governorates according to population, and allocating a fairer share of oil revenue to oil-producing regions. The district and governorate levels of government should be given far greater authority.
Moving Syria from the strong centralised state of the pre-uprising era to a decentralised model will be immensely challenging, but offers one of the few ways to chart a path out of the current conflict and hold the country together, albeit in a looser form. The alternative could well be complete breakup, despite the commitment of most Syrians to a unified Syria. As they look at the conflict, European governments should accept this, shifting their approach away from an unattainable central power-sharing agreement and towards negotiations based on the political and geographical division of power that is now the Syrian reality.
Of course, Syria is still in the midst of an all-out war. It has experienced more than five years of fighting, with enormous human and physical destruction, and the violence is likely to continue in the near future. Therefore, while the recommendations set out in this paper are not a short-term prospect, the changes that have already affected Syria should be taken into account in any settlement that might result from political negotiations.
A Kurdish fighter from the People’s Protection Units (YPG) walks past a shop with Syrian national flags painted on its shutter in the southeast of Qamishli city, Syria, April 22, 2016. REUTERS/Rodi Said
BEFORE THE UPRISING
The main features of the decade that preceded the uprising include the arrival to power of Bashar al-Assad, the liberalisation of the economy and gradual sidelining of the state, which acted until then as an engine of wealth redistribution and as a social ladder for the country’s rural elites.
Until 2000, when Bashar succeeded his father, Syria’s central state was still relatively strong. State institutions delivered services across the country and the government remained the largest employer and investor. Much of the government apparatus was still made up of members of the rural elites, including the Alawite community, as well as those from traditional Ba’athist heartlands such as the Hauran region in the south, the Ghab region in the centre of the country, and the city of Deir ez-Zor.
Under Bashar, however, the state began to withdraw from its role. After 2005, in particular, subsidies for most goods and services were cut and public investment decreased. The government liberalised its trade and investment policies, gearing them towards the service sector – which was located in the urban centres and controlled by Assad cronies – at the expense of the suburbs, the countryside, and the more remote parts of the country, namely the northern countryside as well as the eastern and southern parts of Syria, which were the poorest and least developed parts of the country. The farming sector was hit by the surge in the cost of agricultural inputs imposed by subsidy cuts, as well as the government’s mismanaged response to several years of drought.
It is not insignificant that five years after the beginning of the uprising, the areas outside regime control largely correspond to those parts of the country that were economically and politically sidelined, while the relatively prosperous west of the country remains firmly under the regime’s grip.
THE WAR FRAGMENTS SYRIA
The economic losses from Syria’s conflict are estimated at over $200 billion, while data on falling school enrolment, rising poverty, and increasing divorce rates highlight the destruction of the country’s social fabric. Besides the huge human, economic, and social toll on Syria, one of the effects of the war likely to be lasting is the country’s division into distinct areas controlled and influenced by different, often competing, groups.
Syria is now divided into four main zones, one controlled by the regime, another by the Islamic State (ISIS), a third by the Kurdish PYD, and a fourth by various opposition groups including Jabhat Fateh al-Sham (formerly the al-Qaeda-affiliated al-Nusra Front). This latter area is itself not continuous, and is split between various small and large pockets of territory across the country. The frontlines, which have been broadly stable for at least two years, have raised barriers to trade, transport, and networking between the different parts of the country, without entirely breaking the links between them.
Broadly speaking, the areas outside regime control form a large crescent, running from the north-western province of Idlib along the Syrian-Turkish border, which is mostly under the control of the PYD, then the Syrian-Iraqi border, mostly ruled by ISIS. The zone ends south of Damascus, in the Daraa province, which is mainly in the hands of armed groups affiliated with the opposition.
In regime-controlled areas, the state is broadly unchanged from before the uprising. State institutions continue to function and maintain law and order, while the legal system remains unaltered. By contrast, areas outside of regime control have had to adapt to the almost complete withdrawal of the state. Local communities have created alternative systems to impose law and order, provide water and electricity as well as social services, to educate children, and to manage the economy. Opposition areas now have Sharia courts, while Kurdish areas have attempted to impose a cooperative system to run the economy.
In most opposition areas, children know of the Syrian state only through the barrel bombs falling from the sky, while in Kurdish areas the youngest are taught only Kurdish and do not speak Arabic, the country’s only official language. Residents of Douma, located just a few kilometres from Damascus, have not visited the capital for more than four years. In mid-2016, there were at least four different school curriculums taught to Syrian children, and three currencies circulating in relatively large amounts: the Syrian pound, the US dollar, and the Turkish lira – in July 2016, ISIS even reportedly started to mint its own coins.
In other words, not only Syria has fragmented politically, but also its various parts are spinning off in different directions, adopting opposing systems of governance that are becoming increasingly entrenched.
Regime areas
The regime-held areas include most of the western part of the country, and almost all of the main urban centres, with some two thirds of its population, and nearly all the Druze, Alawites, Ismailis, Circassians, and Christians still living in the country. These areas are not only geographically contiguous with each other, unlike those under the control of the opposition, but have more of a link with pre-2011 Syria. In these areas, the state still plays its role as a supplier of subsidised goods and services such as bread, education, health, electricity, and water, as the country’s main employer – civil servants are now estimated at more than 50 percent of the total working population, and a higher percentage of wage earners – and guarantor of law and order. The provision of state services, in contrast to the perceived chaos in other areas, especially those held by the opposition, is among the most powerful sources of regime legitimacy.
Amid the poverty and economic destruction, state employment and investment are used for social and political mobilisation; the coastal area, inhabited by Alawites who form the core of the regime support base, and military manpower, gets preferential treatment. In autumn 2015, for instance, the government’s announcement of 30 billion Syrian pounds (SYP) of investment in the Tartous and Lattakia provinces contrasted with a meagre 500 million for the city of Aleppo, despite the latter being much more affected by the war and in greater need of support.[2] Similarly, in April 2016, on Independence Day, SYP4 billion-worth of projects was promised to the Damascus countryside province, while SYP37 billion was promised to the two coastal provinces.[3]
Private investment, attracted by the relative security of the coastal region, has followed the same trend, though overall investment is only a fraction of what it was prior to the uprising. Data from the Syrian Investment Agency shows, for instance, that 32 percent of the private investments it licensed in 2015 were on the coast, while slightly less – 27 percent – were in the traditional economic powerhouses of Damascus and Aleppo. By contrast, in 2010, Damascus and Aleppo attracted 40 percent of the projects, while a meagre 4.5 percent went to Lattakia and Tartous.[4]
State employment is also a means of buying allegiance, and the share of public sector jobs going to Alawites – already disproportionately large relative to their share of the population before 2011 – has grown. In December 2014, for instance, the government announced that 50 percent of new jobs in the public sector would go to families of “martyrs”, soldiers and members of regime-affiliated militias who die while fighting opposition forces, who are predominately Alawite.
Despite the appearance of normality in regime-held regions, the last five years have seen a significant loss of resources and legitimacy on the part of the government. Reduced funds – the International Monetary Fund estimates that government revenue fell from $12 billion in 2010 to less than $900 million in 2015 – mean, for instance, that the government has not been able to buy large volumes of wheat from farmers in 2015 or 2016.[5] Rather, it has relied on humanitarian aid and imports funded through Iranian credit lines or Russian aid – as well as that provided by international humanitarian agencies. This highlights that the government has lost its capacity to cater to the agricultural constituency, its traditional main base of support, and that its dependency on foreign allies is growing, contributing to the regime’s loss of legitimacy.
In June 2016, the government’s announcement of a subsidy cut on oil products created such anger that a pay rise for civil servants was hastily announced a few days later, erasing all the savings the government had hoped to make.
As the government has responded to the challenge of depleted financial resources and manpower, it has increasingly relied on local leaders and groups to maintain order, gather resources, and project its influence. These include leaders of the government-backed National Defence Forces (NDF) militia, which fund themselves through “taxing” and extorting locals, kidnapping, and looting. While these militias are often loathed because of their criminal practices, they have also gained significant power and influence. The supply of humanitarian aid to besieged areas is a particularly important source of revenue for these militias and their business cronies, who use their presence on the ground to oversee or block the distribution of goods.[6]
In Homs, Saqr Rustom, the head of the local branch of the NDF, the largest regime-affiliated militia, is believed to have more influence than almost any government official.[7] In Aleppo, Hussam Qaterji, a trader who was little known before the war, acts as a middleman for the trade of oil and cereals between the regime and Kurdish areas. He was recently rewarded by the regime through his “election” as a member of parliament for Aleppo.[8]
The presence of these militias, some of which are closely affiliated to Iran and Hezbollah, and which often compete with each other for influence and control of resources, is an increasing source of instability in regime areas. This illustrates that the state does not have full control of all aspects of life in areas under its power. By subcontracting out local governance, particularly in terms of law and order, to these allied local militias, the government has weakened its own position.
On some occasions this has resulted in intra-regime tensions and clashes. In March, for instance, in the Christian town of Sqalbieh, in the countryside of Hama, Philip Suleiman, the head of Quwat al-Ghadab, or the Rage Groups, a militia affiliated to the Republican Guards, was briefly arrested and beaten over accusations of smuggling diesel and petrol. The detention sparked widespread protests, eventually leading to his release.[9] In July, in Mhardeh, the other large Christian town in the Hama province, Fahd al-Wakil, the son of the head of the local branch of the NDF, posted photos of his bruised face after a beating from members of the Air Force Intelligence Directorate, a security agency.[10]
Click on the image to expand
Kurdish areas
Kurdish party the PYD has established an autonomous region in the northeast of the country, around the city of Qamishli and in a pocket northwest of Aleppo, which it calls Rojava, or “western Kurdistan”. This Democratic Autonomous Administration (DAA) is divided into three districts, or cantons (Jazireh, Kobani, and Afrin), each of which has its own unelected legislative council and executive arm. While in theory the control of some of this area is shared with the regime, in practice it is the PYD that sets the rules of the game – with the exception of Qamishli Airport, which is still under government control. By the end of August 2016, the PYD had also taken full control of the city of Hassakeh.
Since early 2014, the DAA has approved dozens of laws, including a quasi-constitution called “Rojava’s social contract”. New bodies have been established to license business investments, schools, and media outlets, among others, while a communal system for sharing economic resources within the community is being tested.[11] In October 2015, the region’s first university was established in the Afrin district, west of Aleppo, with 180 students.[12] And, in March 2016, the PYD announced a plan to establish a central bank that would be independent of the Syrian Central Bank, although it is still unclear how it would function or whether it plans to issue its own currency.[13]
An entirely Kurdish school curriculum for the first three years of schooling was introduced in September 2015. Children are not taught Arabic at all, raising a barrier between them and all other Syrians, and making it more difficult in the long term for Kurds to gain employment with Syrian state institutions or to relocate to other parts of the country.
Rojava has seen the establishment of various institutions with numerous stakeholders, as well as the emergence of new political leaders who have gained power and visibility, and a broad network of non-governmental associations and military leaders – although most of the leaders of the PYD’s armed wing, the YPG, are believed to be Turkish nationals. The PYD has also established offices in various capitals abroad, including Moscow, Berlin, Stockholm, and Paris, helping to create direct links between PYD leaders and foreign officials.
The reasons for the PYD’s success include its de-facto agreement to avoid confrontation with the regime, its independent sources of revenues from oil extraction – output is estimated at around 40,000 barrels per day, which are used both for local consumption and exported through Iraq’s Kurdistan – and its disciplined and well-structured organisation. The PYD also derives legitimacy from its role as standard bearer of the autonomy for which Kurds have been fighting for decades. Besides oil, Rojava’s economy mostly relies on agricultural production and on international aid, which has been increasing of late; private investment and employment remain limited.
Despite growing autonomy, however, the Syrian state continues to play an important role in Rojava, granting all civil record documents (such as birth, marriage, and death certificates) and paying salaries to civil servants. The fact that the government continues to provide services suits both the regime, as the management of state institutions and the provision of services are an important source of legitimacy, and the PYD, as establishing an alternative administration would have been burdensome. The regime also maintains control of Qamishli Airport, the most significant infrastructure in the area and the only permanent passage in and out; borders with neighbouring states and entities are permanently or often closed, including with the Kurdish Regional Government (KRG) in Iraq. The Syrian regime, and by extension the central government, therefore, still has a number of important means to exercise leverage in its relation to the PYD. Tensions also exist in Rojava between the YPG and regime forces, between Kurds and other ethnic groups, and between different Kurdish groups: the PYD on the one hand, and the Kurdish National Council (KNC), which groups several Kurdish parties close to the National Coalition, on the other.
In September 2015, the Jazireh legislative council passed the Law for the Management and Protection of the Assets of the Refugees and the Absentees, which, in effect, authorises the confiscation of all assets of people who have left the region. Representatives of Christian Assyrians in the Council refused to vote on the text, and the community as a whole felt targeted by the measure. While the law does not explicitly single out any ethnic group, the number of Christians who fled the region is much higher than other groups and they are believed to be better off, so would be more affected by asset seizures than other communities. In a bid to appease the Christian community, but also probably to avoid a backlash with foreign backers – who are very sensitive to the plight of Christians – the PYD eventually backtracked and agreed to hand over any assets seized from Christians to the Church.
Competition with Iraq’s Kurdish Regional Government led by Massoud Barzani, who supports the KNC, has also resulted in tensions, including the regular closure of the Simalka border crossing into the KRG, the only land gateway outside Rojava, leading to regular bouts of shortages and price inflation of goods.[14]
ISIS areas
Often viewed only through the prism of its ideology or terror acts, ISIS has also proved to be a relatively capable administrator of the regions under its control. The militant group, which oversees a population that is uniform from a sectarian and ethnic point of view, has established a system of governance that has helped it raise enough revenue to finance its military operations, maintain a form of law and order, and ensure the supply of a minimal set of services to the population.
Its administration, which encompasses regions across the Syrian-Iraqi border, relies to an important degree on the exploitation of oil and gas resources around the region of Deir ez-Zor. This is possible in part thanks to a de-facto agreement with the regime to run gas-treatment plants and distribute their output to the national grid. It has also developed other sources of income, including taxes on goods and transit, and other forms of extortion.
In Raqqa, the de-facto capital of the “Caliphate” that ISIS has established in parts of Syria and Iraq, the group has established rules to regulate trading activity, including setting out what items can be sold and where, banning the sale of oil products and gas canisters in the street, and obliging shop owners to keep the roads clean.
The relatively large revenues generated from oil and other sources have also encouraged investment spending, including on repair and maintenance of the electric network.[15] ISIS has also established a financial administration, called the Zakat Office, which levies taxes and issues an annual budget, as well as a police force tasked with ensuring the “morality” of the population.
Estimates of the Caliphate’s annual budget, which also includes spending in Iraq, range between $1.5 and 2.5 billion,[16] although it is estimated to have fallen in recent months, as parts of the oil infrastructure have been destroyed in airstrikes by the US-led coalition. In July 2016, ISIS had also reportedly begun to mint and circulate its own currency.
The durability of the ISIS project has been put in doubt by the all-out war fought against it by almost every state in the region, as well as international powers. While there is little clarity on what is happening today in the societies under ISIS control, it would be wrong to believe that destroying the group will simply restore the status quo ante. Indeed, there is little doubting the level of grievances in these areas – dating to well before the beginning of the uprising. Because the oil wealth of Syria’s east contrasted strikingly with its underdevelopment, it is likely that the population will attempt to block a return to central state control of its resources.
Opposition areas
Several features differentiate the regions under the control of the opposition from those controlled by the PYD and by ISIS. One is their fragmentation and extreme localisation. The zones under the control of the opposition are largely located along the main Damascus–Aleppo axis, either in the large rural areas or in the suburbs of the main cities, including Damascus. In the case of Aleppo, they include around half of the city itself.
This fragmentation has led to the emergence of a wide range of authorities, both military and civilian, with no single chain of command. The administration of these areas also suffers from extreme localisation of decision-making; collective efforts and projects between towns in the same region are an uphill struggle.
The project to establish an effective and unified opposition administration has failed. Political and military fragmentation was a main factor in this failure, but so was the regime’s policy of countering, through systematic bombing, anything it feared could be a viable alternative to its own rule. By contrast, Kurdish and ISIS areas have been largely spared. The destruction of Aleppo’s eastern, opposition-controlled half at the end of 2013 and early 2014 is believed to be mainly a consequence of the regime’s fear that the nascent administration developing in this part of the city could emerge as an alternative.
Another feature of administration in opposition areas is that it has to a large extent been driven by donors. This is indeed the area where most non-UN international aid has gone, and also where money from the Gulf has poured into armed groups – though Gulf money has also contributed significantly to humanitarian aid.
Turkey has emerged as the key gateway for much of the economic activity through opposition areas. Because production capacity has been largely destroyed, these areas now largely depend on humanitarian aid, remittances, and imports, all of which come either through Turkey, in the north, or Jordan, in the south. In 2014, Turkish exports to Syria, mostly to opposition areas, were back to their record 2010 level, at $1.8 billion, although they fell slightly in 2015 to $1.5 billion.
Opposition areas are, however, where Syria’s nascent civil society has emerged, where for the first time in more than five decades Syrians have been able to participate in the election of their leaders, even though this is only at the local level and in very imperfect conditions. A variety of new institutions operating in the field of justice, human rights, or economic development have been created, including the Free Syrian Lawyers Association and the Violations Documentation Center (VDC), founded by human rights activist Razan Zaitouneh. In March 2016, an estimated 395 local councils were active across the country. Eventually, these local structures are likely to form the nucleus of future local administrations in a decentralised Syria.
The Syrian state is not entirely absent from these areas, though with time it is growing increasingly thin. For a long time, civil servants still received their salaries provided that they were not affiliated with the opposition, and continued to provide some services. This was a means by which the government sought to continue to project its influence and legitimacy into opposition areas. But with growing strains on the government’s resources these payments have largely stopped, though they continue in some areas, such as Kurdish zones, where Damascus has most interest in preserving a relationship with the controlling authorities.
In addition, opposition areas, unlike Kurdish and regime-held areas, are largely uniform from an ethnic and sectarian point of view – by and large comprised of Arab Sunnis. While there is no formal discrimination against minorities and targeting of them has been limited, the gradual increase in power of Islamist groups has made opposition areas very uncomfortable for religious and ethnic minorities, and some have been attacked or forced out.
COMPETING AMBITIONS
What still unites Syrians
In spite of this daunting picture of division and dispersion, Syrians continue to display a remarkable attachment to their nation. Despite five years of conflict and deep divisions, the only national framework that Syrians from all communities, regions and social classes overwhelmingly continue to recognise is the central state. The one notable exception is the Kurdish area in the northeast (Rojava), where there is a strong demand for autonomy. However, this is not the case for all Kurds, in particular the large numbers that live across the rest of the country. The hundreds of thousands of Kurds living in Damascus, Hama, and Aleppo – Aleppo, not Qamishli, is the Syrian city with the largest Kurdish community – educate their children in state schools, run businesses, are private sector employees, or work as engineers, doctors, and lawyers.
One reason for this strong attachment to the country on the part of most Syrians is that, in spite of the new internal borders, many Syrians continue to travel, exchange, and trade with each other. In pre-uprising Syria, economic inter-dependency between the different parts of Syria was strong. The more developed western part, now under regime control, was dependent for its supplies of oil, wheat and other key commodities (such as gas, phosphate, and cotton), on the less developed eastern part, now divided between the control of ISIS and the PYD. This dependency remains, even if at a lower level than before. Oil and cereals are shipped from the east to densely populated western parts of the country, while electricity produced in opposition areas is distributed to regime areas. Financial transfers are conducted across borders and various goods are traded between the different regions. Manufactured goods, mostly produced in regime areas, continue to be distributed across the rest of the country. Examples of barter deals between regime and opposition areas also abound.
This mutual dependence has played out in surprising ways. In early 2015, for instance, ISIS took control of a gas plant that was under construction by the Russian company Stroytransgaz. Works continued under ISIS control, and the plant now delivers gas to the Syrian grid, which supplies both government and opposition areas. George Haswani, a Christian businessman and owner of a local engineering subcontractor of Stroytransgaz, is believed to have acted as a middleman between ISIS and the government, which led the US government to sanction him.
Several other examples exist of similar deals between parts of the country controlled by the PYD and ISIS, which have the bulk of the resources, and opposition- and regime-controlled areas, where resources are lacking.
As such, while the war has reduced the levels of exchange between Syria’s different parts, it hasn’t erased them. When the war ends, this interdependence will remain.
A further reason for Syrians’ ongoing sense of commitment to the nation is the historically important role of the Syrian state. The state employs hundreds of thousands of people, and provides schooling and health services to millions more. Over the course of the war, it has proved remarkably resilient and efficient, and, amid the destruction and chaos engulfing the rest of the country – of course, largely a consequence of the regime’s actions – the state has proved its value.
The contrast between some still existing state functions in regime-controlled areas and the failure of many attempts at opposition administration has reinforced this sentiment, highlighting the value of a more centralised administration, albeit one free from Assad’s control. Indeed, while local administrative units have sprung up across the country, they haven’t replaced all the functions of the state. The Kurds, for instance, still rely on the Damascus government for the registration of civil records. This is particularly significant given Kurds’ fraught history with Syrian central governments – tens of thousands saw their names erased from the civil records in the early 1960s.
Meanwhile, the internal displacement of Syrians will also encourage a continued sense of nationhood. In the coastal region, for instance, the better-off among those displaced from areas such as Aleppo and Idlib are now buying properties and opening businesses. In the province of Tartous, for instance, the number of new individual companies doubled last year from 867 in 2014 to 1,752. Increasingly, this population sees its future on the coast, and is contributing to gradual demographic change, with a growing Sunni population. These people maintain family, social, and business ties with their regions of origin, contributing to the strong bonds between the various parts of Syria. Likewise, communities of poorer displaced people who have moved to urban centres, often under government control, to escape the violence of outlying areas, maintain strong links to their home regions, which are often opposition ruled.
In the end, the Syrian state is a result of 50 years of nation building by the Ba’ath Party. Decades of a centrally planned economy, the development of national institutions, a single school curriculum, and pervasive regime propaganda have left their mark on Syrian society. The wars against Israel, and the years of economic and political isolation and sanctions, have also contributed to national unity. Syrians remain proud of their history, of their country’s central role in the Arab world, and of its role as a standard bearer of Arabism. This must also be set against the fear of the unknown. Even after all of the destruction of the last five years, the example of the violent disintegration of Iraq frightens everyone.
Where do the parties to the conflict stand?
Many Syrians, across both the opposition and the regime, share the perception that any move towards decentralisation would mean the eventual partition of the country. This being said, the reality of five years of conflict has made clear, at least to some on the opposition side, that major reform of the system of governance is unavoidable.
The National Coalition (NC), which includes most non-armed opposition groups, is proposing administrative decentralisation, i.e. a delegation of central powers to the regions. Some groups in the coalition have suggested that this process could go further, including by granting special political rights to the Kurds, though this would fall short of the Kurdish demand for a federal Syrian state.[17]
At a July 2012 conference in Cairo that brought together all segments of the Syrian opposition, the final statement, which is considered a reference document for most opposition movements, recognised “the existence of a Kurdish nationality among its citizens, with their legitimate national identity and rights according to international conventions and protocols, within the framework of the unity of the Syrian nation”. It committed to ending all forms of discrimination against the Kurds, though it did not enter into the specifics of the future political map of Syria.[18]
However, the NC views decentralisation exclusively through the prism of the Arab/Kurdish divide, and lacks any clear position on a decentralisation process for the rest of Syria. It is also limited by its dependency on Ankara, which strongly opposes any move that would encourage Kurdish separatism within Turkey. In addition, the PYD has close ties with the PKK militant group, which is locked in a conflict with the Turkish state.
On the part of the regime, there is complete opposition to the idea of decentralisation and no willingness to compromise on the issue. The regime is dominated by the minority Alawite community, and as a result its nationalist credentials are a key source of legitimacy, giving it even less room for manoeuvre on this issue than the opposition. It also fears that once power officially begins to drain away from Damascus, the wider dam will break, leading to the regime’s demise. This is connected to the economic interests of the capital’s economic and business elites, who are close to the regime, and fear losing the power, wealth, and influence that gave them a pre-eminent role in modern Syria. The Syrian state offers the Alawite community in particular the best protection for its interests, both economic and political. It is no surprise, then, that in a recent survey of Syrians’ views of decentralisation conducted by The Day After, an Istanbul-based Syrian NGO, the Alawite community was the group most opposed to decentralisation.[19]
In May 2016, Russia prepared a draft text for a constitution that acknowledged the need for decentralisation. According to extracts published by Al-Akhbar, a pro-regime Lebanese daily, the text called for removing the word “Arab” from the official name of the country, allowing the use of Kurdish language in Kurdish areas, and establishing a regional council with legislative powers that would represent the interests of the local administrations. Much broader powers would be granted to the regions. In addition, the Syrian prime minister would have several deputies representing the various religious and ethnic minorities.[20] Within days, according to Al-Akhbar, the regime rejected almost all the Russian suggestions.
A broad agreement in favour of the most radical form of decentralisation, federalism, exists among all Kurdish groups, including the KNC and the PYD. Though they are political rivals, both groups concur in their demand for greatly extended powers that would allow them to run most of their day-to-day affairs. No Kurdish political group calls for any form of partition, however, and all claim that they want to remain within the Syrian state framework. This is to some extent a reflection of the regional context; any move towards independence would be rejected by almost all countries in the region that have large Kurdish communities, including Iran and Turkey.
DECENTRALISATION: THE ISSUES AT STAKE
The last five years of war in Syria have sent its regions off in different directions, with their own forms of governance, laws, and even languages, suggesting that decentralisation may represent one of the few realistic means to chart a way forward, despite strong opposition from the government. Decentralisation would take as its starting point the facts that have been established on the ground |
racial and ethnic group in the U.S.; far fewer whites (53%), Asians (27%) and Latinos (23%) belong to Protestant denominations.
But Protestantism in the U.S. – and in the black community – is not homogeneous. Rather, it is divided into three distinct traditions – evangelical Protestant churches, mainline Protestant churches and historically black Protestant churches. More than three-in-four African-American Protestants (and 59% of African-Americans overall) belong to historically black Protestant denominations, such as the National Baptist Convention or the African Methodist Episcopal Church. In fact, 40% of all African-Americans identify with Baptist denominations within the historically black tradition. By several measures, including importance of religion in life, attendance at religious services and frequency of prayer, the historically black Protestant group is among the most religiously observant traditions. In fact, on these and other measures of religious practices and beliefs, members of historically black Protestant churches tend to resemble members of evangelical Protestant churches, another highly religious group.
Outside of the historically black tradition, an additional 15% of African-Americans are members of evangelical denominations, such as the Southern Baptist Convention or Assemblies of God, and 4% are members of mainline denominations, such as the Disciples of Christ. Overall, the membership of historically black Protestant denominations is 92% black, while African-Americans make up relatively small portions of the membership of evangelical (6%) and mainline (2%) churches.
Slightly more than one-in-ten African-Americans (12%) report being unaffiliated with any particular religion. Although the unaffiliated make up a smaller proportion of the African-American community (12%) than of the adult population overall (16%), the unaffiliated still constitute the third largest “religious” tradition within the black community. However, very few African-Americans (1%) describe themselves as atheist or agnostic. Instead, most unaffiliated African-Americans (11% of African-Americans overall) simply describe their religion as “nothing in particular.” Indeed, among the African-American unaffiliated population, a significant majority (72%) says religion is at least somewhat important in their lives.
Gender
As in the population overall, African-American men are significantly more likely than women to be unaffiliated with any religion (16% vs. 9%). African-American women are somewhat more likely than African-American men to describe themselves as Protestant (82% of women vs. 72% of men). Among African-American women, 62% are members of historically black Protestant churches, 16% are affiliated with evangelical churches and 4% are mainline Protestant; among men, 55% are members of historically black churches, 14% are evangelical and 4% are mainline Protestant.
African-American women also stand out for their high level of religious commitment. More than eight-in-ten black women (84%) say religion is very important to them, and roughly six-in-ten (59%) say they attend religious services at least once a week. No group of men or women from any other racial or ethnic background exhibits comparably high levels of religious observance.
Age
African-Americans are more likely to be affiliated with a faith compared with the public overall, but as with the general population, younger African-Americans are more likely than their older counterparts to report being unaffiliated with a religion. For example, nearly one-in-five African-Americans under age 30 (19%) are unaffiliated, compared with just 7% of African-Americans who are age 65 and older.
Education
Among African-Americans with less than a high school education, nearly two-thirds (63%) are members of historically black churches, as are about the same number (60%) of African-Americans who are high school graduates. Among African-Americans who have completed college, however, fewer (53%) are members of historically black Protestant churches. Additionally, black college graduates are somewhat more likely to be part of mainline Protestant and Catholic churches as compared with those from other educational backgrounds.
Geography
While at least half of African-Americans in all regions of the country are members of historically black churches, a disproportionately large percentage of Southern blacks say they belong to historically black churches; nearly two-thirds of African-Americans who live in the South (64%) are members of this tradition. The West is the only region of the country where upwards of one-in-ten African-Americans (11%) describe themselves as Catholic. In the Midwest and the Northeast, the number of African-Americans who are unaffiliated with any particular religion is similar to the share of the general population in these regions that is religiously unaffiliated. By contrast, in the South and the West, African-Americans are less likely to be unaffiliated compared with the overall population.
Fully 60% of all members of historically black churches reside in the South, with 19% residing in the Midwest, 13% living in the Northeast and 8% located in the West. This closely resembles the geographic distribution of the black community overall; 56% of African-Americans live in the South, 21% reside in the Midwest, 15% are located in the Northeast and 9% live in the Western United States.
Section II: Religious Beliefs and Practices
In many ways, African-Americans are significantly more religious than the general population, with the vast majority considering religion very important in their lives. African-Americans also are more religiously observant on a variety of other measures, from frequency of prayer and worship service attendance to belief in God.
Importance of Religion
Nearly eight-in-ten African-Americans (79%) say religion is very important in their lives, compared with 56% among the U.S. adult population overall. Consistent with this, members of historically black churches are among the most likely of any religious group to say religion is very important in their lives. Among African-American members of historically black churches, 85% say religion is very important to them.
Across a wide variety of religious groups, black members are more likely than members of their faiths overall to say religion is very important to them. African-Americans who are members of evangelical Protestant churches, for instance, are 10 percentage points more likely than evangelicals overall to see religion as very important in their lives (89% vs. 79%). The difference is even greater among members of mainline Protestant churches. More than three-in-four African-American members of mainline churches say religion is very important in their lives (76%), compared with about half (52%) of all mainline Protestants.
Religion also is important in the lives of many African-Americans who are not affiliated with any particular religion. Fully 45% of unaffiliated African-Americans report that religion is very important in their lives and an additional 26% describe religion as somewhat important, meaning that, overall, more than seven-in-ten African-Americans who are unaffiliated with a religion say religion is at least somewhat important in their lives. This compares with only about four-in-ten (41%) among the unaffiliated population overall.
Religious Practices
African-Americans attend religious services and pray more frequently than the general population. While 39% of all Americans report attending religious services at least once a week, a majority of African-Americans (53%) report the same. Similarly, while 58% of all Americans report praying at least once a day, a significantly higher number of African-Americans (76%) report praying daily.
This pattern is seen across most major religious traditions. Perhaps most interestingly, unaffiliated African-Americans attend religious services and pray in much higher numbers than the unaffiliated population overall. For example, 15% of African-Americans who are unaffiliated report attending religious services at least once a week, compared with only 5% of the unaffiliated population as a whole. And fully 28% of unaffiliated African-Americans attend religious services at least once a month, compared with only 10% of the unaffiliated population overall.
Similarly, nearly half of unaffiliated African-Americans say they pray daily (48%), more than twice the level seen among the unaffiliated population overall (22%). On this question, unaffiliated African-Americans more closely resemble the overall population of mainline Protestants (53% pray daily) and Catholics (58%) than they do the overall unaffiliated population.
Religious Beliefs
African-Americans also express higher levels of religious belief than do Americans overall. Compared with the population overall, for instance, African-Americans are more likely to believe in God with absolute certainty (88% vs. 71% among the total adult population), interpret Scripture as the literal word of God (55% vs. 33%) and express a belief in angels and demons (83% vs. 68%). They also are more likely to say they are absolutely convinced about the existence of life after death (58% vs. 50%) and to believe in miracles (84% vs. 79%).
These views are held by the overwhelming majority of members of historically black churches. But even African-Americans who are unaffiliated with any religion consistently express higher levels of religious beliefs compared with the unaffiliated public overall. Unaffiliated African-Americans, for instance, express certain belief in God (70%) at levels similar to those seen among the general population of mainline Protestants (73%) and Catholics (72%) and are about twice as likely as the overall unaffiliated population (36%) to express this belief. Furthermore, unaffiliated African-Americans are somewhat more likely than mainline Protestants or Catholics overall to hold a literal view of the Bible (33% among unaffiliated African-Americans vs. 22% among all mainline Protestants and 23% among all Catholics) and are three times as likely to hold this view compared with the overall unaffiliated population (11%).
Section III: Social and Political Views
Among African-Americans, as with the public generally, views on political ideology and social issues, such as abortion and homosexuality, are linked with both religious affiliation and religious observance (as measured by worship service attendance and importance of religion in one’s life). For instance, black members of evangelical Protestant churches and the more religiously observant express more conservative views than those who are unaffiliated with any particular religion or are less religiously observant. But these religiously based differences tend to be smaller in the African-American community than in the population as a whole. And on some political issues, there are few religious divides to speak of within the black community. Perhaps the most striking of these is partisanship, with the vast majority of African-Americans of all religious backgrounds expressing support for the Democratic Party.
Ideology
Like the overall population, African-Americans are more likely to describe their political ideology as conservative (32%) or moderate (36%) than as liberal (23%). Members of evangelical churches and the most religiously committed members of all religious groups are most likely to describe themselves as conservative, while those who are unaffiliated and less religiously committed are among the least likely to describe themselves as such. While this is true among both African-Americans and the general population, these differences are much smaller among African-Americans. For example, among African-Americans, members of evangelical churches and those who are most religiously observant are just as likely to describe their ideology as moderate as to say they are conservative; by contrast, among the general population, the same groups are much more likely to say they are conservative than moderate or liberal.
Social Issues
Similar links exist among African-Americans as among the general population when it comes to religion and views on social issues such as abortion and homosexuality. But once again, the religiously based differences on these issues are less pronounced among African-Americans than in the overall population.
Abortion
Overall, 49% of African-Americans favor keeping abortion legal in most or all cases, while 44% want abortion to be illegal in most or all cases. These figures are similar to those seen among the public as a whole (51% vs. 42%). Among African-Americans, members of evangelical churches are most likely to say that abortion should be illegal (53%), while those who are unaffiliated with any religion are least likely to say that abortion should be illegal (34%), a difference of 19 percentage points. Among the population overall, the difference in opinion between members of evangelical churches (61% opposed to abortion) and the unaffiliated (24% opposed) is nearly twice as large, at 37 percentage points.
Among both African-Americans and the general population, those who are most religiously observant are more likely to think that abortion should be illegal. For example, more than half (51%) of African-Americans who attend religious services at least once a week think that abortion should be illegal, compared with only 35% of those who attend worship services less often, a difference of 16 percentage points. Here again, these religiously based differences are smaller than among the general population; overall, fully 61% of weekly worship service attenders say they oppose abortion, compared with only 31% among those who attend services less often, a difference of 30 percentage points.
Homosexuality
Overall, about four-in-ten African-Americans (41%) think that homosexuality should be accepted by society, while 46% say that homosexuality should be discouraged. By contrast, among the public overall, those who say that homosexuality should be accepted outnumber those who say it should be discouraged (50% to 40%). Among African-Americans, members of evangelical churches express the most conservative views on this issue (58% say homosexuality should be discouraged), while unaffiliated African-Americans are among the least conservative (only 32% say it should be discouraged), a difference of 26 percentage points. Again, however, religiously based differences are smaller among African-Americans; among the population overall, 64% of evangelicals say homosexuality should be discouraged by society, compared with 20% of the religiously unaffiliated, a difference of 44 percentage points.
The same is true when it comes to religious observance, with the most religiously observant African-Americans most likely to say that homosexuality should be discouraged, a similar pattern as seen among the overall population. But, once again, the differences between the most and least religiously observant are more pronounced in the population overall than among African-Americans.
According to Pew Research Center surveys conducted in the summer of 2008, nearly two-thirds of African-Americans (64%) say they oppose allowing gays and lesbians to marry legally, a significantly higher level of opposition than among whites (51%). Among both African-Americans and whites, however, evangelical Protestants are much more opposed to gay marriage than are mainline Protestants.
Religion and Politics
On a variety of measures, African-Americans express comfort with religion’s role in politics. According to a summer 2008 Pew Research Center survey, six-in-ten African-Americans (61%) say houses of worship should express their views on social and political matters, while only 36% say churches should avoid these topics. On this question, African-Americans closely resemble white evangelical Protestants, among whom 59% say churches should express their views and 38% say churches should keep out of social and political matters. By contrast, among the overall population, the balance of opinion leans in the opposite direction; 52% say that churches should keep out of politics, while only 45% say churches should express their views on social and political issues.
Half of African-Americans feel there have been too few expressions of faith by political leaders, and an additional 24% say there has been the right amount of religious expression by political leaders; only 23% say there has been too much religious talk from politicians. On balance, the public overall is less concerned with a lack of religious speech from politicians; only 36% say there has been too little of such expressions, while 30% say there has been the right amount and 29% say there has been too much.
Even though African-Americans generally are comfortable with the notion that politics should be influenced and informed by religion, they also support certain limitations on the mingling of politics and religious institutions. For instance, nearly six-in-ten (58%) say churches and other houses of worship should not come out in favor of political candidates. Among the population overall, two-thirds take this point of view.
Partisanship
Regardless of their religious background, African-Americans overwhelmingly support the Democratic Party. The 2007 Landscape Survey finds that more than three-quarters of all African-Americans (76%) describe themselves as Democrats or say they lean toward the Democratic Party, while just 10% favor the Republicans. Across all religious groups, at least two-thirds of African-Americans express support for the Democratic Party. Among the total population, by comparison, less than half (47%) describe themselves as Democrats or lean toward the Democratic Party, while 35% support the GOP. This unity of partisanship among African-Americans carries over into the voting booth, where they have voted overwhelmingly for Democratic presidential candidates in recent elections (95% for Barack Obama in 2008 and 88% for John Kerry in 2004).
African-Americans also support the Democrats by wide margins regardless of their overall level of religious commitment; in the general population, by contrast, religious commitment is linked with differences in party affiliation. For example, in the general population, four-in-ten of those who attend worship services at least once a week favor the Democratic Party, but among those who attend less frequently, more than half (51%) favor the Democrats. No such gaps are seen within the African-American community, where huge majorities favor the Democratic Party regardless of their level of religious commitment.
Role of Government
Most African-Americans across all major religious traditions, including those who are unaffiliated, prefer a bigger government that provides more services to a smaller government providing fewer services. Significantly more African-Americans (70%) report that they prefer bigger government compared with the total population (46%), who are much more divided on the issue (43% prefer smaller government). And nearly eight-in-ten (79%) African-Americans say the government should do more to help the needy, even if it means going deeper into debt, while only 15% say the government cannot afford to do much more to help the needy.
This analysis was written by Neha Sahgal, Research Associate, and Greg Smith, Research Fellow, Pew Research Center’s Forum on Religion & Public Life.
Detailed tables for the data displayed in graphical format are available in the appendix (PDF).
Photo credit: APMaria Pappas, the treasurer of Cook County, Illinois, got tired of being asked why local taxes kept rising. Betting that the answer involved the debt that state and local governments were accumulating, she began a quest to figure out how much county residents owed. It wasn’t easy. In some jurisdictions, officials said that they didn’t know; in others, they stonewalled. Pappas’s first report, issued in 2010, estimated the total state and local debt at $56 billion for the county’s 5.6 million residents. Two years later, after further investigation, the figure had risen to a frightening $140 billion, shocking residents and officials alike. “Nobody knew the numbers because local governments don’t like to show how badly they are doing,” Pappas observed.
Since Pappas began her project to tally Cook County’s hidden debt, she has found lots of company. Across America, elected officials, taxpayer groups, and other researchers have launched a forensic accounting of state and municipal debt, and their fact-finding mission is rewriting the country’s balance sheet. Just a few years ago, most experts estimated that state and local governments owed about $2.5 trillion, mostly in the form of municipal bonds and other debt securities. But late last year, the States Project, a joint venture of Harvard’s Institute of Politics and the University of Pennsylvania’s Fels Institute of Government, projected that if you also count promises made to retired government workers and money borrowed without taxpayer approval, the figure might be higher than $7 trillion.
Most states have restrictions on debt and prohibitions against running deficits. But these rules have been no match for state and local governments, which have exploited loopholes and employed deceptive accounting standards in order to keep running up debt. The jaw-dropping costs of these evasions have already started to weigh on budgets; as the burden grows heavier, taxpayers may decide that it’s time for a new fiscal revolt.
Illustrations by Sean Delonas
Most state constitutions and many local-government charters regulate public debt precisely because of past abuses. In the early nineteenth century, after New York built the Erie Canal with borrowed funds, other states rushed to make similar debt-financed investments in toll roads, bridges, and canals—projects designed to take advantage of an expanding economy. But when the nation’s economy fell into a deep recession in 1837, many of the projects failed, and tax revenues cratered as well, prompting eight states and territories to default on their debt. Stung by losses, European markets stopped lending even to solvent American states. The debacle inspired a sharp reevaluation of the role of state governments, with voters looking “more skeptically” on legislative borrowing, wrote political scientist Alasdair Roberts in 2010 in the academic journal Intereconomics. A member of New York’s 1846 constitutional convention even warned that “unless some check was placed upon this dangerous power to contract debt, representative government could not long endure.” Over a 15-year period, 19 states wrote debt limitations into their constitutions.
Since then, the history of state and local debt has been a tug-of-war between those struggling to keep governments from overextending themselves and elected officials seeking legal loopholes for further debt spending. In the second half of the nineteenth century, for instance, some states, now restricted from doing it themselves, used local governments to float debt, producing tens of millions of dollars in new obligations—and calls for limits on local borrowing. The go-go 1920s, a period of unprecedented construction and transformation throughout America, saw states and localities once again borrowing massively, this time to build roads and electrical infrastructure. State and local debt had hit $15 billion ($260 billion in today’s dollars) by the Great Depression’s onset. Arkansas was one of the heaviest borrowers, with obligations reaching $160 million ($2.8 billion today). It defaulted in 1933—one of more than 4,700 Depression-era defaults by state and local government entities, including nearly 900 by school districts.
The wave of bad borrowing led some states to tighten restrictions even more. Even as reformers made progress, however, courts began to sign off on government evasions of debt limits. As a consequence, such limits “have had only a modest effect on aggregate state and local debt,” writes Columbia Law School’s Richard Briffault. Judges, he notes, “appear to share with state governors and legislators a belief in the legitimacy of the modern activist state.” In the words of the New York State Court of Appeals, judges have often proved open to any “modern ingenuity, even gimmickry” that legislators can cook up to get around debt restrictions.
Today, states and localities engineer most of their borrowing through what Briffault calls “non-debt debt,” a term for bonds designed to avoid legal restrictions on borrowing. For example, courts in some states have decided that when a state’s independent authorities issue bonds, that borrowing isn’t restricted by constitutional debt limits—even if taxpayers are ultimately on the hook for it. If a legislature takes on debt itself, that also doesn’t count against constitutional restrictions on borrowing, according to the judiciaries in some states. Briffault estimates that such evasions are responsible for three-quarters of state debt and two-thirds of municipal obligations incurred through bond offerings. The growth of this kind of borrowing helps explain why state and local debt outstanding from municipal securities has blasted from $2 trillion (in today’s dollars) in 2000 to nearly $3 trillion today—real growth of 50 percent in little over a decade.
New York State has turned to court-sanctioned gimmickry again and again. Though New York’s constitution requires that voters approve any new government debt, only 5 percent of the state’s $63 billion in outstanding borrowing has received voter authorization, down from 10 percent a decade ago. Meantime, the cost of servicing that debt has risen by an average of 9.4 percent annually. Partly because of such unsanctioned borrowing, New Yorkers bear the nation’s second-highest per-capita load of state debt, says New York’s comptroller. The state is still paying off what it owes from the infamous 1991 Attica prison deal, in which New York, trying to close a budget deficit, “sold” the facility to one of its independent authorities, which borrowed the money to pay for it. New York also still counts on its books debt from the 1970s bailout of New York City, which, thanks to refinancing, it won’t pay off until 2033.
Other New York deals engineered without voter say-so include a $2.7 billion bond offering in 2003, backed by 25 years’ worth of revenues from the state’s gigantic settlement with tobacco companies. To circumvent borrowing limits, the state created an independent corporation to issue the bonds and then used the money from the bond sale to close a budget deficit—instantly consuming most of the tobacco settlement, which now had to be used to pay off the debt. Legislators engineer such borrowing because they aren’t confident that voters would agree to new debt: of the seven bond offerings that Empire State voters have considered over the past 25 years, four went down to defeat.
Thanks to its low state debt, Texas enjoys a reputation for budgetary restraint. Yet as Texas comptroller Susan Combs found to her dismay, the state’s towns, cities, counties, and school districts have racked up the second-highest per-capita local debt in the nation, behind only New York’s spendthrift municipalities. The total, nearly $8,000 per resident, is more than seven times higher than Texas’s per-capita state debt. Over the last decade, local debt in the Lone Star State has more than doubled, growing at twice the rate of inflation plus population growth. At the moment, Texas localities owe $63 billion for education funding—155 percent more than they did a decade ago, though student enrollment and inflation during that period grew less than one-third as quickly. The borrowing has also paid for a host of expensive new athletic facilities, such as a $60 million high school football stadium, complete with video scoreboard, in the Dallas suburb of Allen.
As in Cook County, so many different levels of government in Texas can issue debt that taxpayers, bewildered by the complexity of it all, let overlapping districts keep on borrowing. As an example, Combs describes how the residents of a single Houston block must repay debt incurred by the county, the city, the city’s school district, and Houston Community College, among other entities. “I went to dozens of town hall meetings around the state, and when I asked, not a single member of the public knew just how much people in their towns were on the hook for,” she says.
Texas, like New York, amassed all this debt by pushing the limits of the law. Though taxpayers must approve most government borrowing, Texas provides an exception for localities that need to issue debt quickly: a “certificate of obligation,” borrowing that doesn’t require approval unless 5 percent or more of local voters petition to have a say on it (a rare occurrence, since most don’t even know that they have that power). Since 2005, Texas localities have issued nearly $13 billion worth of these certificates, often for dubious ends. In 2010, for instance, Fort Worth borrowed nearly $35 million through certificates of obligation to build a facility for horse shows.
Texas school districts have made use of another controversial financing technique: capital appreciation bonds. Used to finance construction, these bonds defer interest payments, often for decades. The extension saves the borrower from spending on repayment right now, but it burdens a future generation with significantly higher costs. Some capital appreciation bonds wind up costing a municipality ten times what it originally borrowed. From 2007 through 2011 alone, research by the Texas legislature shows, the state’s municipalities and school districts issued 700 of these bonds, raising $2.3 billion—but with a price tag of $23 billion in future interest payments. To build new schools, one fast-growing school district, Leander, has accumulated $773 million in outstanding debt through capital appreciation bonds.
Capital appreciation bonds have also ignited controversy in California, where school districts facing stagnant tax revenues and higher costs have used them to borrow money without any immediate budget impact. One school district in San Diego County, Poway Unified, won voter approval to borrow $100 million by promising that the move wouldn’t raise local taxes. To live up to that promise, Poway used bonds that postponed interest payments for 20 years. But future Poway residents will be paying off the debt—nearly $1 billion, all told—until 2051. After revelations that a handful of other districts were also using capital appreciation bonds, the California legislature outlawed them earlier this year. Other states, including Texas, are considering similar bans.
Judges have proved especially eager to approve evasions of debt limits when they’re the ones demanding that states or localities spend money. Back in 2001, New Jersey’s activist supreme court mandated that the legislature embark on a project of building and refurbishing schools (see “The Court That Broke Jersey,” Winter 2012). To comply, Trenton lawmakers announced a plan to borrow $8.6 billion through a bond offering—a shockingly high sum. Taxpayer groups reacted with such outrage that officials knew that voters would never endorse the move. So the legislature decided to channel the borrowing through an independent authority. The taxpayer groups sued, but the state supreme court brushed their objections aside, arguing that a clear precedent existed for such borrowing. The state quickly burned through half of the borrowed money on patronage and inefficient construction practices, so it borrowed another $3.9 billion, again through the authority. Taxpayers, needless to say, will foot the bill.
If you define municipal debt simply as what states and localities have borrowed, the total nationwide comes to about $3 trillion. Nevertheless, these governments actually owe more than twice that much, according to estimates from groups like the States Project. The reason for the discrepancy is that states and localities carry another kind of debt—promises of retirement benefits to public-sector workers—and they have radically underfunded the systems that must pay for it. As Boston University Law School professor Jack Michael Beermann wrote recently in the Washington and Lee Law Review, the situation is a “double whammy” for future taxpayers, who not only will have to pay for “the consumption of prior generations” but also will receive “reduced government services” as increased spending on retirement debt crowds out other programs.
Some states have laws stating that annual funding of future pension or health-care payments must be considered part of current budgets, but as Beermann points out, many states don’t. Those states can therefore run deficits—even if they have balanced-budget requirements, as most do—by shortchanging retirement accounts. A report by the Pew Center on the States showed 29 states failing to make the necessary payments into their pension systems in 2010, the latest year for which data are available. Over the last decade, Kansas, a prime offender, has contributed less than 80 percent of the necessary dollars to fund employee pensions, according to a recent report by the Kansas Policy Institute. Even in an economically robust year like 2006, the state government managed to set aside just 64 percent of the necessary funds, one reason that Kansas’s state pension system is less than 50 percent funded.
State and local governments have likewise made ambitious promises to finance the health care of their employees when they retire, yet they have set aside almost no money to do it. Instead, they’re purchasing the health care on a pay-as-you-go basis as workers retire. With workers quitting earlier and living longer, governments suddenly find themselves with little room in current budgets and zero reserve funds. State governments owed nearly $700 billion in health-care promises to retirees, the Pew study estimated, but they had set aside only about 5 percent of that amount. The study found that only one state, Alaska, had paid in advance for more than 50 percent of its obligations. Even states with low levels of other debt had done little to finance retirees’ health-care benefits; Texas, for instance, had set aside just 1 percent of the funds. Similarly, a Pew study of 61 big American cities determined that they owed $126 billion in health-care promises and had paid for only 6 percent.
Consider Michigan, where crushing government retirement costs helped push Detroit into insolvency, leading to a state takeover of the city’s fiscal management. With Detroit’s debt crisis in view, Governor Rick Snyder commissioned a study of the level of health benefits promised retirees throughout Michigan. The study, the first of its kind, concluded that the state’s municipalities had put aside, on average, just 6 percent of what was necessary to finance their retirees’ health care; the remainder, some $12.7 billion, hadn’t been funded. The city of Lansing, for example, already devoted $20 million of its $150 million annual budget to retirees’ health care, the study observed; yet its unfunded liabilities were so great that to fund the debt properly each year, it would have to double property-tax rates. Many municipalities, the study added, had done little to control debt. More than half required no annual contribution from government workers to help fund their future health-care costs.
Earlier this year, a commission created by Chicago mayor Rahm Emanuel reported that that city’s health-care costs for retirees would rise from $109 million in the 2013 budget to $541 million in a decade. Chicago has since decided to drop its current health-insurance program and shift all retirees onto the health-insurance exchange being set up in Illinois under President Obama’s Affordable Care Act. That insurance will be cheaper because the federal government will subsidize the rates of the exchanges, basically getting taxpayers nationwide to pick up some of the cost for Chicago workers.
In some places, elected officials have promised benefits to workers without even a cursory effort to calculate what they might add up to. Before the California city of Stockton filed for bankruptcy last year, auditors listed “uncontrolled pension, health, and other benefit cost increases” as a big part of the city’s woes, including a whopping $400 million unfunded liability for retirees’ health care. “No one gave a thought to how it was going to eventually be paid for,” said a financial manager brought in to address the fiscal difficulties.
Stockton may be an extreme example, but after its bankruptcy, officials in other California municipalities began asking what their cities owed. Earlier this year, to take one example, Sacramento officials commissioned a study to measure their city’s debt. In what the Sacramento Bee reported as a “sobering” city council session, the city manager explained that Sacramento had racked up some $2 billion in obligations—a “big and scary” number, the manager said, for a city of 477,000 residents with an annual general-fund budget of just $366 million. Nearly half of that debt was retirement-related, including $440 million for retirees’ health care. To pay down the debt, the city estimated, it would have to put aside $43 million annually, or 12 percent of the general fund. City officials added that it wouldn’t be easy to solve the problem by firing workers, since Sacramento had already cut some 1,200 employees, or 20 percent of its workforce, in the last several years.
Estimates of state and municipal debt have been growing for another reason: more and more independent experts are exposing local governments’ faulty accounting standards. The Chicago-based Institute for Truth in Accounting observes that governments are balancing their budgets using “antiquated budgeting rules and accounting standards,” adding that “hundreds of billions of dollars of unfunded retirement systems’ liabilities are not reported on the face of states’ balance sheets.”
One problem, the group says, is that half of all states don’t bother to file their required annual financial reports on time. Local governments are guilty, too. Though the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) requires any government that issues municipal bonds to file a Comprehensive Annual Financial Report, a 2011 study by the California Debt and Investment Advisory Commission estimated that one in four Golden State local governments in that position failed to file the report on time—and one in ten never filed it at all, even though the SEC gives states and cities three times as long to file as it gives private companies. In May, the SEC cited Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, for failing to file reports for two years, even as the city collapsed into insolvency.
Another source of dispute involves the way states and cities calculate pension debt. For starters, they often use a nineteenth-century form of balance-sheet math known as cash-basis budgeting, in which you don’t report expenses until they’re paid. This approach lets local governments ignore costs, such as retirement obligations, that are building up today but aren’t payable for years to come.
Also, the loose accounting standards that states and cities use, recommended by the Governmental Accounting Standards Board, allows them to calculate pension debt using their own projected annual rate of return on the investments that they make, rather than a rate set by an independent body or by some preestablished formula. The higher the projected returns, the lower the pension debt appears to be; unsurprisingly, the projections tend to run high. The rules governing private pensions in the United States, as well as both private and government pension systems in Europe and Canada, are much more restrictive. Economists Aleksandar Andonov, Rob Bauer, and Martijn Cremers noted in a recent paper that corporate pensions in the United States, as well as private and government pension systems in Canada and Western Europe, had significantly lowered their investment projections as interest rates declined, reasoning correctly that lower rates made it harder to hit lofty investment goals. By contrast, government pension funds in the United States responded to lower interest rates by increasing risky investments and maintaining high projections of market returns (see “The Pension Fund That Ate California,” Winter 2013). In the United States, government funds projected gains of 8 percent, on average, the study found; government funds in Canada and in Europe projected returns of 6.7 percent and 3.6 percent, respectively, considering those targets more realistic.
Different projected returns can result in significantly different debt calculations. In 2011, the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office pointed out that, according to states’ own accounting methods, their pension systems had $700 billion in unfunded debt. But if you used a lower, more plausible, rate of return, the CBO added, total unfunded pension debt was somewhere between $2 trillion and $3 trillion—and the amount has kept growing since then.
Some states have intentionally used the complexity of pension accounting to mislead taxpayers and investors. Over the last three years, the SEC has accused two states, New Jersey and Illinois, of making deceptive and fraudulent statements to potential investors about the health of their employee-pension funds. The SEC said that Illinois failed to tell investors both that its plan to bail out its troubled pension system wouldn’t actually achieve that goal and that the system was “structurally underfunded,” meaning that without further reform, it would fall still deeper into debt. Illinois also failed to report that it used a form of pension accounting that funds a larger percentage of an employee’s retirement costs near the end of his career, increasing the system’s risk of running out of money. In New Jersey’s case, the SEC disclosed that the state had neglected to tell investors that it wasn |
"State of the Union." But, he added, "if we are to detect terrorists, who have again proven innovative and creative in their design and implementation of bombs that are going to blow up airplanes and kill people, then we have to do something that prevents that." Rep. John Mica, R-Fla., who is set to become Transportation Committee chairman when Republicans take over the House in January, differed with the approach. "I don't think the rollout was good and the application is even worse. This does need to be refined. But he's saying it's the only tool and I believe that's wrong," Mica, a longtime critic of the TSA, said on CNN. With the peak traveling season nearing, air travelers are protesting new requirements at some U.S. airports that they must pass through full-body scanners that produce a virtually naked image. The screener, who sits in a different location, does not see the face of the person being screened and does not know the traveler's identity. Those who refuse to go through the scanners are subject to thorough pat-downs that include agency officials touching the clothed genital areas of passengers. House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer, D-Md., appearing on CBS, said Congress would hold hearings on the "very controversial" issue of how to strike the right balance. Asked how he would feel about submitting to a pat-down, Hoyer said, "I don't think any of us feel that the discomfort and the delay is something that we like, but most people understand that we've got to keep airplanes safe." Pistole was interviewed Monday morning on ABC's "Good Morning America," CBS's "The Early Show," NBC's "Today" show and MSNBC. Copyright 2010 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed. Guidelines: You share in the USA TODAY community, so please keep your comments smart and civil. Don't attack other readers personally, and keep your language decent. Use the "Report Abuse" button to make a difference. You share in the USA TODAY community, so please keep your comments smart and civil. Don't attack other readers personally, and keep your language decent. Use the "Report Abuse" button to make a difference. Read moreThe Price of Knowledge, Part 3
"Man"
Clean. That was what he remembered. The house had always been clean. White walls, clear glass and the smell of bleach. Peter Ironwood's home had always been immaculate. Which, compared to his career record, was a stark contrast.
After only ten years, the details were already starting to fade. What color was the door? Or the futon in the living room? A garden… his mother had liked to keep a garden. Where she grew… vegetables? No, orchids. Definitely orchids. The small things eluded him, lost in a haze of smoke and heat. But the cleanliness stood out. Polished tile floors and fresh bedsheets brought in every day by a man with a dog's ears.
Sometimes, when all he had to focus on were his own thoughts, he could still hear the parting words, spoken in silence mere hours before the roar of the blaze.
"No matter where you go, what you do or how you do it, make sure the world remembers you as a good man. A… better man than me."
And it was in heat and smoke and terror that those words had taken root.
James Ironwood woke with a start, a hand gently rocking his shoulder. A pair of eyes like the damnable firelight gazed down from Lyon's concerned face and he cocked an eyebrow. James shook his head and stood, stretching.
In the dormitory of team OIGL, as they had been christened, weak sunlight filtered through the open curtains, an overcast sky disguising the time of day. The clock read 7:43 though, and James noticed that Ozpin and Glynda's beds were already emptied and made. Nothing out of the ordinary there; Glynda liked to run in the mornings and Ozpin always spent the early hours in the cafeteria, sipping his coffee and reading some dusty old library checkout or another.
Showering and dressing in his usual straightforward, productive manner, Ironwood and Lyon made their way down to breakfast together, the latter stretching and enjoying the watery sunshine. The ground was still wet from the previous night's rain, which had done nothing to combat the flames that plagued James' dreams. Lyon was talking, and only after a long moment did James realize that he hadn't been listening.
"I was listening to the news last night; you hear that there was another protest outside the capitol building in Vacuo? Apparently one of the statesmen decided that it would be a good idea to publicly shame a Faunus who worked on his property after the worker accidentally dropped a tree limb on top of the politician's car. Instead of just firing him or docking his pay, the statesman had him push the car all the way to a repair shop." He made a disgusted noise and James nodded inattentively.
Lyon continued, "It just goes to show that people don't care about Faunus as much as they care about humans, not other humans at least. I mean, you and I are proof that not all humans hate the Faunus, but still; nobody would even think of doing something that cruel or demeaning to one of us."
As the pair stepped into the spacious cafeteria, Lyon's disgust at the state of the world was cut short by the clamor of forks and spoons clattering on bowls and plates, alongside the idle din of sleep-addled chatter. Lyon and James grabbed their food from the serving table and found their seats next to Ozpin and Glynda. Across the table, Qrow was eating in silence while Summer snored into the hardwood.
"Taiyang and Raven not up yet?" Lyon asked far-too-cheerfully. Qrow chewed and swallowed.
"They're up; had to go in early to make up a class after they skipped Verner's lecture yesterday." Lyon chuckled and Ozpin flipped the page of whatever he was reading while Glynda and Ironwood ate their food quietly. It wasn't a matter of not wanting to have a conversation; they simply found themselves unable. The first two weeks of schooling at Beacon had been brutal; lectures from sun-up to sun-down. Whenever the students were sleeping or studying, they were waiting in line to have a crack at the practice floor, which - by the Valean Council's policy - was not to be used during class time.
So, Raven and Taiyang had snuck out of Professor Verner's lecture and gone into Vale to practice at a local gym that hosted an open ring on weeknights. They hadn't been caught, but clearly Verner knew they hadn't been in class and had assigned them penance in the form of a zero-period.
James and Glynda had been derisive when they heard this; why bother enrolling and being elected (among hundreds of applicants) to the greatest battle school in Remnant only to spend your days galavanting off in the city? It was a waste. Ozpin and Lyon were more understanding. One of the main reasons people attended a battle school was to learn how to be Huntresses and Huntsmen - to learn how to fight. That didn't make it right, but it was understandable that people would grow tired of lectures and lessons and would be looking to learn something hands-on.
Slowly taking up spoonfuls of hot cereal and chewing slowly, James watched the table in front of him intently. The conversation continued to go on around him, Ozpin and Glynda chiming in between Lyon and Qrow occasionally, but James' eyes were fixed on the flames that burned even after so many years. He started when he felt a hand on his shoulder and saw the rest of the table looking at him with a mixture of curiosity and concern. He gave his best smile and tried to assure them that he was fine. Glynda scoffed.
"Right. So naturally - because you're totally fine - you just stare off into space like you can see something we don't." Lyon chuckled but Glynda and Ozpin remained serious, the latter speaking now.
"James, if you've got a problem tell us. We're a team. We can't help if we don't know the problem." James felt his hands curl into fists around his spoon and his brow darkened.
"What makes you think I need help?" he asked more forcefully than he meant to. "I'm fine. Leave me be." Taking his unfinished breakfast, he turned and walked to the door, dropping his tray off along the way. His team was left watching his retreating form, but what they could not see circling around him were the phantom embers and billows of smoke.
Classes that day came and went normally. Verner talked at them about different species of Grimm - Beowolves and Ursa, King Taijitu and Deathstalkers, Nevermores great and small, and all manner of other creatures that had not been seen within the borders of the kingdoms in decades. Other teachers debated philosophy, history and the geography of the kingdoms. Glynda - as was her penchant - hung on every word. Ozpin paid close attention but by looking at him one would be unable to tell. Lyon sketched pictures in his notebooks and Ironwood brooded in silence.
After several hours of tedium, their chance finally came. All of team OIGL had a free period in the late afternoon, just before dinner. It was a perfect opportunity, and one they refused to let down. Regardless of what had been said earlier in the day, all four made their way to the training floor in high spirits. The building was older than much of the rest of the campus, the recent renovations of many of the aging structures having skipped over arguably the most important building. Still, it was impressive. High walls and a vaulted ceiling surrounded a wide open ring with seating for an audience. As the team entered, another match was already in progress. A pair of second-year students squared off, circling slowly and occasionally darting forward to exchange a few quick blows before retreating and returning to their pacing.
By providence, the floor was mostly empty this period and team OIGL found open spots in the next three bouts. Offering the first spot to James, the four settled to wait until the current bout ended. They did not have to wait long, as one of the two combatants performed a sufficiently flashy move and soon found themselves hurling downward through the air, opponent firmly gripped in a full-Nelson, before slamming them bodily into the ground and rolling backward, ready for another exchange that never came. The professor in charge of the floor nodded appreciatively as the brawlers returned to the locker rooms.
"Excellent match, Mr. Port. Fine form. I look forward to seeing you fight again soon." The burley student who had come out on top nodded his thanks and headed off, head held high. The professor scratched a few things on a note before checking the roster. "Next match... James Ironwood and Seneca Byre. Please prepare yourselves and meet on the floor in exactly five minutes."
James stood and left the booth, his team shooting concerned glances at his figure as he disappeared into the locker room. "Do you think he's alright?" Lyon asked as he exhaled. Ozpin considered for a long moment before responding.
"I think that if there's anywhere he needs to be right now, it's on the floor." Glynda cocked an eyebrow.
"How do you figure?" she asked
Ozpin shrugged. "James is a fighter. Whatever is bothering him, it's something that he'll need to beat down in order to triumph in this match. And James is too proud to let himself be beaten by anything - no matter how much it may seem to weigh him down. He'll cope and he'll overcome, and then he'll win." He sounded so sure of himself, but Lyon wondered who he was trying to convince. Though they'd been a team hardly a fortnight, Ozpin had proved to new perhaps the most interesting person Lyon had met in his life. He was calm and collected, but vicious in battle. He was worldwise beyond his years, and he was so nonchalant about everything that Lyon wondered if he couldn't see the future.
His hazel eyes were always fixated forward, when others were locked on the past. He was calm and level-headed when any other person would have long ago detonated. The other day Lyon had watched him in the ring. He fought like a man so sure of his own victory that he didn't need to try, yet he never exuded any airs of overconfidence or arrogance. He wasn't sure that he was the best; he just accepted the fact that he was going to win, and he did.
But now it was James' turn. Lyon had watched him, too. He fought like a madman; aggressive and relentless, but never reckless. He kept his distance until the enemy closed to a range where his rifle would no longer afford him any use and then switched to the secondary form of the weapon. His decision to carry two weapons rather than a single one was an uncommon strategy, but a useful one as it afford him capability at any range. Still, space on the training floor was limited, and all those who had seen him fight knew that James Ironwood fought better at range than in close. It was a minor flaw - a Huntsman should be multifaceted - and James was. But his preference was one that was all too easy to exploit.
He emerged from the locker room like a pit fighter, body relaxed and holding up the weight of his armor easily. Simple plate covered his arms and legs, with a lighter layer of ablative material covering his torso and vital areas. Cai hung loosely from one hand, already in axe form. Laos was in its holster, and seemed to hum with a nervous energy on the eve of battle.
Both the opponents squared up and began circling eachother warily, daring the other to make the first move. In the end, Seneca did. Lashing forward and swinging his heavy blade overhand, he crashed the weapon into the floor, kicking up sparks as James rolled out. Of the way. Righting himself, James went on the offensive. Cai whirred through the air and hummed vibrantly as Senseca avoided every attack. The shorter student pivoted on his axis and swung his blade wide at James' exposed obliques. Bringing Cai around to block the blow, James was nonetheless thrown off balance by the heavy strike.
On the defensive now, James parried and avoided every stroke that came his way. Sparks flew alongside the screeching chorus of metal on metal every time their weapons met, and the two soon found themselves locked close together, pushing in on their weapons, neither daring to back off and surrender their "advantage."
Seneca's eyes burned as he gazed back at James. Torchlight reflected and adrenaline roared as the flames flashed before his eyes again. The training room disappeared, replaced by high walls, tiled floors and the filthy perfection of it all. Then the smoke rose; clogging the air, filling the lungs. His eyes and nose burned, his ears filled with the roaring of the blaze and the pounding of his own heart, and his mind was thrust back into the inferno.
"Make sure the world remembers you as a good man..."
A man who didn't run.
"Remembers you as a good man..."
A man who beat back the flames.
"A good man..."
He shoved himself backward from Seneca, the training floor rushing back to him all at once. In the heat of the moment, Cai flew from his grip and clattered on the floor. A groan rose from those watching who wished to see James triumph. Seizing what he thought was an opportunity, Seneca pressed the attack. The blow flew straight at him, cutting the air before stopping dead. All eyes widened, especially Seneca's, at the sight of James Ironwood holding back the blow with the flat of his open hand.
Without bothering to pick up his weapon, James took his free hand and smashed it across Seneca's face. The other student recoiled and let go of his weapon, staggering back and taking a defensive stance - to no avail. James tossed away the broadsword and dashed forward, unarmed, and delivered blow after blow to his opponent. Punches, kicks, knees and elbows sounded like gunshots as they made contact before Ironwood ducked under Seneca's last desperate attack and fired off a single, brutal punch, sending the other student flying. Seneca hit the wall hard and crumpled to the floor, aura flickering and dying - depleted by a single blow. The wall itself cracked outward like a spiderweb, the force of the impact shattering the concrete.
James' own aura whispered as it circled him, radiant and impermeable, before fading. The fire died and he crumpled to the floor, a wave of fatigue overtaking him.
In the stands, Lyon's jaw scraped the floor. Glynda's lime green eyes were wide as saucers and surprise was plain even on Ozpin's face. Seneca was stirring as the professor rushed out onto the floor, checking Seneca as another teacher headed toward Ironwood. Circles of scorched concrete radiated outward from James' prone figure like rings in a tree trunk, and luminescent auric flames licked the floor.
"Guess we know what James' semblance is," Glynda muttered, in awe.
James was checked and told that, while he had expended a massive amount of his auric reserves in a single burst of power, he was going to be fine. Seneca would be sore but was not seriously injured, and had apparently asked the nurse to tell James that they would need to have a rematch sometime.
James himself was quiet, seated on the edge of his bed and looking down at his hands. He flexed his fingers several times, calloused skin pulling over muscle and bone. He couldn't see the fire, but he could still feel it's lingering heat. He looked up as the door opened and his team stepped in, Lyon leading.
"Ok, you have some stuff to explain," he said and Ozpin laid a hand on his shoulder.
"Lyon, you could have at least asked him if he was alright first." Lyon shrugged.
"Hey James, you OK?" Ironwood managed a weak shrug and a nod. Lyon returned the gesture. "Right. He's fine. So, tell us, what was that? I mean, I've seen some crazy semblances but that was totally insane. What, you just hit stuff and every time you hit you hit a little harder?" He would have continued had he not needed to pause for breath and James took the opportunity.
"Really, Lyon, I'm fine. I... I don't know how to explain what happened. I mean, I was lost in my own thoughts - I wasn't focused and I was losing ground because of it. And then I just... Snapped. Started hitting back with everything I had and before I knew it my aura was in the black and Seneca was learning to fly." Lyon chuckled and even Glynda cracked a smile but Ozpin still looked more curious than anything.
"Was that the first time you had used your semblance?" James nodded. "I thought so. It was powerful; impressive to watch, really. Where did the fire come from, though?"
James' brow darkened like a thundercloud at the mention of fire and his team saw the same look he had carried with him before the practice bout. Ozpin held up his hands. "Forget I asked."
James sighed. "No... No, I need to tell you. Strange as it may seem we're a team now - I can't keep anything from you. Not if I expect you all to have my back when I need it." He took a deep breath and closed his eyes for a moment before continuing. "My... My home was destroyed by a fire. Back in Atlas. The police suspected foul play but could never prove it. My father... Didn't make it out of the house." The room was vacuum-silent, Lyon dropping his gaze even as Glynda stepped closer, laying a hand on her teammate's shoulder. For once, James didn't shy away from the touch.
"I never got along with my father from the time I was old enough to realize what kind of man he was. He was an officer in the military, responsible for all sorts of atrocities, especially against the Faunus." He saw Lyon's brow furrow but continued. "I hated him for it, even if I didn't fully understand the gravitas of the situation until years later. The police suspected that the fire was set by our housekeeper."
Ozpin cocked an eyebrow, though he suspected he already knew the answer. "Why would they suspect that?"
"Our housekeeper was a Faunus. My father... Never treated him well. He disappeared after the fire." Again, the uncomfortable silence settled over the room. The new development cast a shroud of doubt over the already silent coming-to-terms. "Before the fire... He told me that I had to grow up to be better than him, but what have I done towards that goal? I'm no better than him." Surprisingly, it was Lyon who spoke next.
"You're not your father," he said quietly. It took the team a moment to realize what he was said, and James looked at him, cocking an eyebrow and silently asking Lyon what he meant. "You're not your father," he repeated. "Your father wouldn't tell us all this; he wouldn't confide in his team the way you have. He made mistakes - everyone does. You said you hated him for it. Maybe you still do. But you're wrong when you say you're no better than him. You're here, at Beacon, with us! And you've got your whole life to keep improving yourself and proving him right. He must have believed that you would be capable of proving yourself and making a better name for your family - otherwise he wouldn't have given you the task."
The silence that settled over the room wasn't awkward this time, but expectant. Lyon's eyes glowed and James' own were fixated on the floor. Ozpin cleared his throat, rubbing his chin and sipping from his seemingly ever-present coffee mug. "Well, this has certainly been an eventful day." True to word, the light was rapidly fading from the campus outside. A thousand lights flicked on in the distance - the city of Vale coming to life as night fell.
"I think it's time we all got some rest," Ozpin continued. "Exams tomorrow in Verner and Lazuli; we'll all need some sleep." Ironwood stood.
"I think I'll go for a walk first." He looked around at his team and nodded awkwardly. "Thanks, all of you." The door closed softly behind him and Glynda flopped down onto her bed, sighing mightily. Ozpin finished his coffee and sat at the foot of his own bed, shrugging out of his jacket. Lyon ruffled his unruly straw-shade hair and scratched his bristly sideburns.
"He's a good guy," the last of these muttered as he stripped off his shirt. His teammates nodded and muttered their assent. Meanwhile, James Ironwood walked. The stars above burned with the same sacred, mysterious light as they had for a hundred years before. But the fire that burned amidst the inky darkness above was not terrifying or tainted with screams and the sound of a collapsing home. They were pure, reassuring and bright.
The fire did not haunt James' dreams, that night.
AN - And so we have chapter 3! Hope you guys enjoy; it's not easy writing from Ironwood's perspective, but I've taken some (real: a lot) of creative liberties with his backstory which will all probably be steamrolled when the show continues. Still, you got some action and a good deal of character development for Ironwood and Lyon; hope it didn't seem too forced.
I hope you all enjoyed; next week - Lyon POV! Make sure to drop by the reviews section and leave me some feedback; I can't improve unless you all tell me what you'd like to see changed, added or (within reason) removed. Thanks for reading!SANDY, Utah — US men's national team coach Jurgen Klinsmann has a job to do, and he doesn't want anything to get in the way of making sure his team is as well-prepared as possible for the 2014 World Cup.
On hand at Rio Tinto Stadium for the US Open Cup final between Real Salt Lake and D.C. United, Klinsmann took the opportunity to address the media regarding his plans for the USMNT's final two World Cup qualifiers – Oct. 11 vs. Jamaica in Kansas City and Oct. 15 at Panama.
Though the US have already qualified, rendering the last two games moot as far as getting to Brazil is concerned, Klinsmann's interest remains solely on his US side despite knowing that the MLS regular season is winding down and many of his players are helping their teams fight for the Supporters' Shield and making a push for the playoffs.
"It is absolutely no issue for us," said Klinsmann. "We see the busy schedule MLS is going through, but it makes no difference. This is World Cup qualifying. We want to end it on a very high note. We are going to call in the guys we believe in."
For MLS teams with players that may get called in to camp beginning on Sunday, that may not be what the clubs want to hear. The Seattle Sounders could be hit the hardest, with potentially up to three players being called away in Brad Evans, Eddie Johnson and Clint Dempsey – the latter of whom Klinsmann says he expects in camp despite recent injury troubles – and the Sounders scheduled to play their rivals from Portland on Sunday, Oct. 13.
The LA Galaxy could also be hurt with a game on Wednesday, Oct. 16, and Landon Donovan and Omar Gonzalez likely to be traveling back from the US game in Panama one night prior.
Klinsmann did hint, however, that there could be a few changes made even between the two games depending on what happens in Kansas City against Jamaica.
"There are a lot of question marks, because I think like eight or nine guys on yellows still, and injuries happen," he said, "so it might force you into some changes after the first game against Jamaica. If that is going to be the case, we make those changes, but we are not looking at the MLS schedule. We have to get our own job done."An NDP government would launch a national public inquiry into missing and murdered aboriginal women within 100 days of taking office, says Opposition Leader Tom Mulcair.
Mulcair's comments come ahead of a meeting of premiers and aboriginal leaders in Charlottetown on Wednesday.
"I'm here to announce that on our first day in office, an NDP government would begin consulting with First Nations, women's groups and other stakeholders on the terms of office for a national inquiry.
"Within 100 days in office, an NDP government will establish a full public inquiry," Mulcair told reporters during a news conference in Ottawa Wednesday morning.
Mulcair criticized Prime Minister Stephen Harper for slamming the door shut on a national public inquiry following the recent killing of 15-year-old Tina Fontaine in Winnipeg.
Harper said the issue of 1,200 missing and murdered aboriginal women is not a "sociological phenomenon."
"We should view it as crime," Harper said.
Mulcair said Harper's comments were "cold" and "heartless."
"Mr. Harper callously claimed that these brutal acts should not be viewed as a'sociological phenomenon.'
"This offensive comment ignores the disproportionate levels of violence that aboriginal women do indeed face in our country. And it ignores the fact that this violence is indeed systemic," Mulcair said.
Mulcair accuses PM of incompetence
Saskatchewan Premier Brad Wall said although there is a criminal element to the many cases of missing and murdered aboriginal women, "there is a societal part to it."
While Wall is supportive of a national public inquiry, he said it's clear the federal government isn't interested in calling one.
Speaking to CBC's Evan Solomon in Charlottetown today, Wall said that's why the premiers and aboriginal leaders need to take action of their own. Opposition Leader Thomas Mulcair says an NDP government would meet with aboriginal and women's groups on "day 1" to set the parameters for a national inquiry on missing and murdered aboriginal women. (Sean Kilpatrick/Canadian Press) But Mulcair would not let the federal government off the hook so easily saying taking action without Ottawa would lead to a "patchwork" of solutions.
"Any inquiry that is not called by Ottawa, although well-intentioned, would only answer a part of the problem."
Mulcair attacked Harper for his handling of a wide range of issues, from the F-35 to Canada Post, describing him as "a serial incompetent."
"Stephen Harper can't order a jet fighter, he can't deliver the grain to market, he can't even deliver the mail. He's an incompetent. He's a serial incompetent," Mulcair said.
Liberal MP Stéphane Dion called on Harper to work in consultation with the premiers. They called for a national public inquiry during last year's summer meeting.
"The prime minister should work with the provinces and territories, municipalities and of course aboriginal communities in order to have a public inquiry to have the additional information we need."
A spokesperson for Justice Minister Peter MacKay said another study will not lead to catching Fontaine's killer.
"We don't need yet another study on top of the some 40 studies that have already been done.
"We need police to catch her killer and ensure the perpetrator or perpetrators are punished and face the full force of the law," MacKay's press secretary, Clarissa Lamb said in a statement sent to CBC News.Please enable Javascript to watch this video
GREENSBORO, N.C. -- A Greensboro mom is turning to the public to help bring her son home from Kuwait. He’s not serving overseas. She says he is serving life in prison for a crime he did not commit.
Jermaine Rogers, a disabled veteran, father of five and graduate of Cummings High School in Burlington, is facing drug charges.
We reached out to the U.S. Department of State who told us via email, "The Criminal Court had sentenced him to death on September 26, 2016 on charges of smuggling cocaine into Kuwait for the purpose of trafficking."
Rogers' sentence was later reduced to life in prison.
Carol Ingram, Roger's mother, says he was working as a contractor in Kuwait when he was arrested in 2015. He had been working there for 11 years.
"It put me in a total depression," Ingram said. "I didn't want to do anything. I didn't even want to go to church. I didn't even want to wake up. I didn't want to do nothing.”
Ingram has been working to prove her son's innocence. She and other family members believe officials in Kuwait illegally searched Rogers' apartment and then someone later planted the drugs in the evidence.
"Sometimes I don't sleep for two or three days," Ingram said. "I worry... did he get enough rice and chicken today? Did the guards abuse my son today? Did he have enough blankets to keep warm last night?”
Ingram says she writes her son letters weekly and reaches out to lawmakers on his behalf.
"It is just devastating," Ingram said. "It is the hardest thing I've ever been through in my life.”
Rogers' fiancee Karina Mateo has also been putting pressure on lawmakers from her home in Texas. She met Rogers four years ago in Kuwait.
"This has been the most terrible experience, especially with my daughter, not telling her when her father is going to be able to come home," Mateo said.
Together the two have reached out to the embassies, congressmen, senators, and the Obama and Trump administrations for help.
In statement sent to FOX8, the U.S. Department of State said, “If arrested abroad, a U.S. citizen must go through the foreign legal process for being charged or indicted, prosecuted, possibly convicted and sentenced, and for any appeals process.”
People from the U.S. embassy have visited Rogers and the state department says they can help with things like monitoring conditions.
His family says he deserves to be home.
"My heart won't stop breaking until I see my son," Ingram said.
The family has a change.org petition and so far it has more than 8,000 signatures. We reached out to General Dynamics, the company Mateo says Rogers was working for at the time, they have yet to answer our questions.The Chinese government has closed 111 golf courses and has told 88 million Communist Party members to stay away from the links, according to the Associated Press, in its latest attempt to crack down on golf.
When Mao Zedong came to power in China in 1949, he effectively banned golf, the so-called “sport of millionaires,” and most existing courses were closed or repurposed. But in the ‘80s and ‘90s, the sport’s popularity crept back following the opening of the first modern course, partially owned by Arnold Palmer, in 1984.
Golf was still seen as shady, the sole provenance of the bourgeoisie—most people couldn’t afford greens fees—and a political career-killer. In 2004, citing a need to protect “the collective land of the peasants,” all new golf course development was banned. It didn’t really work.
In the years since, the number of courses has more than tripled from the 176 courses in existence across the country in 2004, to over 600 today. It’s the result of booming golf course construction done surreptitiously, but with the support of local government. In 2014, the Telegraph described the less-than-legal but largely standardized procedure:
To get around the restrictions, savvy developers label their projects as “resorts”, “sports parks” or “ecological restoration projects”. One developer I spoke to likened golf in China to prostitution. “That’s illegal, too,” he said. “But there are still prostitutes everywhere in this country.” Most successful developers have at least one person, if not three or four, whose only job is to maintain solid relationships with – if not blatantly pay off – the local officials who sign off on various aspects of development projects. These staffers call themselves CEOs, “chief entertainment officers”, because they’re constantly picking up the tab for meals, drinks and trips to the local karaoke joint.
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While new development boomed, the Chinese Communist Party banned golf club membership completely, walked back that ban provided politicians paid out of pocket for the opportunity to play, and shuttered 66 courses and stalled 46 in development as part of a crackdown on corruption.
Now, in what appears to be a sign of lessening ambivalence, 111 of the existing 683 courses were just closed and a further 65 more received restrictions. Forty-seven courses still in development were ordered to halt construction. The closures cite improper groundwater, arable land, or nature reserve usage. But the news also comes with a renewed reminder to members of the ruling Communist Party that they should avoid golf altogether—which, even in the face of a flourishing quasi-underground sport, doesn’t bode well for the future of golf in China.
[AP]Silver Mining CEO: Triple-Digit Silver Prices Coming in the Near Future
by SchiffGold 0
The head of a major silver mining company says he thinks we will see triple-digit silver prices in the near future.
Keith Neumeyer serves as CEO of First Majestic Silver Corp. The company ranks as the second largest silver producer in Mexico – the world’s leading country in silver production. Neumeyer told Bloomberg a major Japanese electronics maker approached the company last month seeking to lock in future silver stock. This is a sign that supply concerns could significantly boost the price of the white metal – perhaps as much as nine-fold:
For an electronics manufacturer to come directly to us — that tells me something is changing in the market I think we’ll see three-digit silver.”
Neumeyer said he believes the price of silver could surge to $140 per ounce as early as 2019.
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Increasing demand and rapidly shrinking supply led to a third straight annual silver deficit last year. Demand set a record in 2015, while mine production growth slowed to 2%. Scrap sales were also weak. As a result, the gap between silver supply and demand was 60% larger than in 2014.
Silver has actually outperformed gold so far in 2016. As of publication of this article, the white metal was up nearly 18% from Jan. 1.
According to Bloomberg, industrial demand for silver will grow significantly over the next few years:
Industrial demand is set to increase, driven by rising incomes and growing penetration of technology in populous, developing nations, as well as thanks to new uses being found for silver’s anti-bacterial and reflective properties in everything from hospital paints to Band-Aids to windows.”
The boom in electronics is helping drive demand for silver. Analysts predict that by 2020, there will be a billion more smart phones and tablets in China and India alone. Neumeyer says the demand will continue to outstrip supply, putting upward pressure on the price.
Over the next 10 or 20 years, more and more people are going to be using these devices, and silver is a very limited commodity. There’s just not a lot of it around.”
Investor demand for silver is also robust. The US Mint has been selling American Silver Eagles at a torrid pace. The mint sold over 4 million of the silver bullion coins in April. That compares with 2.8 million American Eagles sold during the same month of 2015.
Neumeyer said the silver rally over the last few months is just the start.
What we’ve seen in the last two months is just the beginning of the next bull market.”
Get Peter Schiff’s latest gold market analysis – click here for a free subscription to his exclusive monthly Gold Videocast.
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EmailASP.Net Core & Angular OpenID Connect using Keycloak How to setup user’s authentication for an ASP.Net Core web API and an Angular front end using Keycloak server for user federation and OpenID Connect. Xavier Hahn Blocked Unblock Follow Following Sep 26, 2017 Keycloak Keycloak is an open source identity provider owned by Red Hat. It allows to easily add authentication to any application and offers very interesting features such as user federation, identity brokering and social login. In the.Net ecosystem, one of its “competitor” would be Identity Server or OpenIddict with Asp.Net Identity. The main difference between Keycloak and the two other mentioned solution is that it’s a standalone product and not a library. This means that it can run “on |
software that runs on a distributed network of servers that could perhaps eventually become part of the federated social Web.. (A Diaspora feature, aspects, sounds awfully similar to Google+ circles: "personal lists that let you group people according to the roles they play in your life [and] a simple, straightforward, lightweight way to make it really clear who is receiving your posts and who you are receiving posts from.") Diaspora is in alpha testing now, with the first invitations sent last November.
Such initiatives, though, have shown no signs of denting Facebook's dominance.
Google is another matter. It's already got millions of Gmail users and several other online services people sign up for--Google Docs, YouTube, Picasa Web Albums, for example. It's got a strong brand name and lots of spare money to fund its ambitions. It's got a mature advertising technology to make money from it. And it's got plenty of experienced programmers and a massive global network of data centers to operate at large scale.
What Google doesn't have is people using its services the way they use Facebook--a digital version of the minutae of life's interactions woven into hundreds of millions of people's daily lives. The hassle of rebuilding a person's social connections at Google+ is a major barrier to Google achieving that success.
No wonder Facebook is leery of letting this data out of its hands.STALLINGS, N.C. -- At least four North Carolina communities have put the 'In God We Trust' decal on their patrol cars. It's a trend some groups don't agree with. Either way, the move has gotten plenty attention on social media.
"You're standing up for what you believe in," said Minor Plyler, Stallings police chief. "You're standing up for what's needed, what's necessary, and when you take a stand, there will always be those that have the other opinion."
Police put their lives on the line every day.
"I can't imagine doing anything else," said Plyler.
However, after recent attacks targeting cops, the chief of Stallings Police Department says they can use the extra back-up.
"How much of a difference are those four words going to make for your guys risking their lives every day?" asked NBC Charlotte's Xavier Walton.
"It means that they know besides their fellow officers in the community somebody else has their back," said Plyler.
Soon enough, these four words, "In God We Trust," will be on the back of the cruisers.
A picture of the newly outfitted patrol car was posted on Facebook. It received more than a thousand likes and hundreds of comments. Some comments were not in favor of the department's decision.
North Carolina's ACLU responded saying in part:
"Government employees should welcome and serve all members of the community equally, regardless of their religious views. These displays are often divisive and send a message that the government favors people of certain beliefs over others."
Stallings isn't the only department sporting the new look. China Grove police and fire, Beaufort and Alamance County also have the decals.
Copyright 2016 WCNCLiving on a campus where the student body is always brimming with ludicrous outrage, a second-year student should be resigned to the fact of life that a protest is never far away. In recent weeks, the American University (AU) populace has focused its white-hot spotlight of rage onto Young Americans for Liberty (YAL) and its upcoming spring speaker, Milo Yiannopoulos.
For the purposes of full disclosure, it’s important for my reader to note that I serve as Treasurer for the YAL chapter here at AU, and I was a part of the decision-making process that led to Yiannopoulos’s speaking arrangement. I’m writing of my own accord and my views do not necessarily reflect those of any other members of the executive board, or YAL as a whole.
Much of the controversy surrounding Yiannopoulos revolves around his various statements concerning the transgender community. He recently penned an article entitled, “I Am So Done With The Trans Outrage Brigade: Why I’m Supporting ‘Drop The T’” and included some admittedly inflammatory statements such as, “If you ask me, when a guy says he needs to cut part of himself off for the world to make sense, we should start with his head.”
Understandably, this has generated a lot of anger from the trans community at AU. They have used this sentence to justify banning Yiannopoulos from appearing on campus, in that he is an advocate for violence against trans people. However, not more than a couple sentences later, Yiannopoulos explains, “I say all this in language designed to provoke the self-appointed arbiters of speech.” The politically correct student base obliged and played right into his hands.
Yiannopoulos does not advocate for violence any more than any person who has hyperbolically said, “I’m gonna kill you” in an argument. The Left’s focus on the extreme nature of his language represents a clear attempt to dismiss him without having to address some of the real arguments he makes. This is a disturbingly popular trend within the community at AU, and is most common when transgenderism is injected into an argument.
One of the most common arguments I have heard when trans people are discussed is that any skepticism directed towards trans people is transphobic and that, as a cisgender person, I cannot possibly understand anything about the decisions trans people make and the issues they face. Any intermediate school debater will notice that this is not, in fact, an argument, but a line of attack.
Even to the most well read Women, Gender, and Sexuality Studies (WGSS) major, is it really so incredible to believe that some people might be confused about these theories? They are proposing that sex and gender are completely different and that people can be biologically male, but identify as a female. They also propose that gender is not a question of male or female, but a nebulous cloud, or spectrum, of various options. However, trans advocates will meet skepticism with epithets despite the obvious outlandish nature of the claims.
If I were to ask a trans rights advocate what it meant to “identify” as a woman, and I have numerous times before, I would be met with the claim that I should not deny the experiences of trans people, just because I do not understand them. They will ignore the obvious irony that my question was, in fact, to try and better understand the experience. This is a fairly basic question at the heart of all this, and I have not once received a direct, specific answer.
Another question that should be fairly basic for trans advocates is that if gender is not a binary construct, then what are the other options, and what does it mean to identify as a non-binary option? Again, I will be told that I am narrow-minded for thinking in binaries, without, of course, any concrete argument as to why binaries are inherently wrong. Even if I wanted to think outside of the binary, I have not been given any semblance of a justification for doing otherwise. Claiming that binaries are bad does not answer a single question about why that is so, and conveniently cloaks a fundamental lack of logic.
The trans advocates on this campus have risen to the epitome of arrogance with their tactics. Their refusal to directly address the claims of their political opponents echoes the warning that English philosopher John Stuart Mill issued in his book, On Liberty, where he proclaims that refusing to hear out a “devil’s advocate” is to mistake one’s personal certainty for absolute certainty. This is arrogance in its purest form.
However, the social tyranny stretches beyond mere dismissal. Not only is not believing what trans advocates believe incorrect and bigoted, it is also, in their minds, akin to promoting violence. They say that standing idly by to allow people like Yiannopoulos to express his opinion is to condone the murder of trans individuals. Opponents of trans rights advocates cannot merely be wrong. They have to be accomplices to murder. Otherwise, trans advocates would have to address the arguments point by point, and they know they simply cannot do it.
Let’s say, however, for the sake of argument (because America is built on dialogue and argument) that there may be some merit to this argument that trans skeptics condone murder. After all, there were a record number of trans people murdered in 2015. How many, you might ask? Twenty-one. For perspective, more people were killed by being bitten by ants, and over twenty times as many people dies from rolling out of bed. There is simply no epidemic of trans murders, and the assertion is both ridiculous and lazy.
The assertion, unfortunately, was furthered by the presence of a group called Dark Matter on campus a few short weeks ago. They are a South Asian transgender duo of poets, and they made much the same claim in their performance. They also ridiculed the white, cisgender community for “stealing the gay movement from non conforming Black and Brown people.” They also asked that people interested in being allies to their cause “get the hell out of their way.”
The arrogance to think you solely own a movement, unrelated to race, because of your race rivals that of claiming dissidence is complicity in murder. However, no one publicly took issue with their arrival out of fear of being labeled any number of bigoted terms by the leftist thought police that set up the event. Their sentiment also echoes some of Yiannopoulos’s claims that the transgender community is attempting to phase out members it does not deem fit from their movement, (as Yiannopoulos is a gay man) and is why he advocated “dropping the T” from the LGBT acronym. Dark Matter continued their arrogant tirade by asking, “What the hell are you going to do to fight to make sure that trans people are no longer murdered?” While, the truth is, there is not much anyone can do, because they’re not actually being murdered very much at all. These claims that that they fear constantly for their safety are utterly ridiculous and meant to intimidate others from voicing opposition.
An aside, once again, for full disclosure: I am currently romantically involved with the author of the article I hyperlinked concerning Dark Matter’s performance at AU.
The suggestion that trans people may suffer from some sort of mental illness is met with the same vitriolic attitudes. The argument I have heard most commonly is that transgenderism is real, because these people kill themselves because they aren’t accepted for who they truly are and it is not because of a mental illness, but because of a deeply held identity. To be frank, regardless of whether or not the suggestion of mental illness has any merit, to offer mass suicide as proof that mental illness is not in play would be laughed out of almost any other discussion on mental illness.
The Leftists who like to claim they are the side of science rebuff renowned psychiatrists like Dr. Paul R. McHugh, the former psychiatrist-in-chief at Johns Hopkins Hospital, and Dr. Joseph Berger, a life fellow of the American Psychiatric Association, who both suggest that trans people suffer from a form of mental illness and are removed, in part, from reality. I suppose, though, that they too must be transphobic, and must not know anything about psychiatry. Again, regardless of the merits of the claim, there is a substantive discussion to be had, that trans rights advocates don’t want to have.
Trans advocates turn their hatred not only to the cisgender community, but to members of their own movement as well. I have heard various assertions that Caitlyn Jenner (formerly Bruce Jenner) has internalized transphobia for her endorsement of Senator Ted Cruz (R-TX) in the presidential race. The same claims have been made about Yiannopoulos, that he must be internally homophobic to believe what he does as a gay man.
I am hard pressed to think of anything more conceited than believing that anyone who disagrees with your perspective must hate themselves inside. Of course, if you confront the Left and challenge their claim on principle, and ask them about members of the Jewish community who support Boycott, Divestment, and Sanction measures against Israel, the Left will rail against you. They will put down your experience and hastily, lazily, and incorrectly redefine Zionism to fit their narrative, even though it conflicts with the principle of their previous arguments.
The argument over Israel and Palestine is one better left for another time, but it illustrates a key point that has been demonstrated throughout this article. Trans advocates have no principles. Their attacks drip with arrogance and are caked with vitriol. When they do try to make an argument, they often lack substance and will quickly and undoubtedly resort to personal attacks to divert from the real point.
As absolutely miserable as it has been trying to deal with all this butchering of civilized debate and free speech, I am oddly okay with this. As Mill warns in On Liberty, a point must be held up for debate or “it will be held as a dead dogma, not a living truth.” The repeated attempts to dodge discussion on this issue will render the Left’s position worthless, if it has not already, and I very much look forward to that day, so I can focus on more important issues like the future of our economy or the prospect of a nuclear Iran.
However, in the interest of civility and dialogue, I invite each and every reader who has hated everything I have had to say to this point to come to hear Yiannopoulos speak on April 21st when he comes to campus. Don’t try to drown him out with screams or fake blood. Listen, and come prepared with substantive, challenging questions to preserve the continued discussion of this issue you apparently hold so dearly. Only then, will you have proven me wrong.
The author can be contacted by email at ds1383a@student.american.edu and for comments related directly to this article, please title the subject line, “Milo Article”.If Donald Trump’s coalition carries him to the GOP nomination, it could produce a crazy-quilt general election that scrambles the conventional wisdom about the battleground state map.
The Electoral College landscape has been fairly stable over the past four presidential elections: 40 states have voted for the same party in every race since 2000. But Trump’s candidacy — and a unique base of support that’s carried him to victory in places as varied as Alabama and Massachusetts — is raising the prospect of a scrambled November landscape that features longtime Democratic strongholds in play and states that have been firmly Republican for a half-century in jeopardy.
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Working-class white voters have been trending more Republican over the past few presidential elections — Mitt Romney won more than 60 percent of white voters without a college degree in 2012, the most recent evolution after decades of Democratic dominance among these voters.
But at the same time, there are fewer of these voters overall. Whites without a college degree made up just 36 percent of the electorate in 2012, according to exit polls. And a projection from the Cook Political Report shows that number could fall to under one-third in 2016.
Democrats — and some Republicans — say that Trump’s alienation of growing segments of the electorate, like Hispanics, far outweighs any gains he is making among working-class whites. In their view, Democrats could pick off increasingly diverse states that have been reliably Republican at the presidential level, like Arizona and Georgia, if Trump wins the nomination. And those new blue states would help Democrats overcome any whiter states Democrats could cede, like Wisconsin or Iowa.
But consider the record turnout in GOP primaries and caucuses across the country this year — and the fact Trump has done best among working-class white voters. In the 13 states where Edison Research has conducted entrance or exit polls — all but solidly Democratic Vermont shattered set new high-water marks for turnout — Trump has performed better among white voters without a college degree in all 13, relative to his overall share of the vote.
There are a number of mostly white states in the Northeast and Midwest to which Democrats are clinging, even as white voters have turned increasingly against them over the past few election cycles.
Polls show working-class whites could be a boon to Trump in some key states — assuming a two-way race between Trump and Hillary Clinton, the likely Democratic nominee. If a credible third-party candidate emerged — whether a moderate or a conservative — that would scramble the math considerably.
In a two-candidate race, which battleground states could trend toward Trump? Overwhelmingly white states like Iowa (93 percent of 2012 voters there in 2012 were white, according to exit polls), New Hampshire (93 percent), Ohio (79 percent), Pennsylvania (78 percent) and Wisconsin (86 percent) top the list. Some, like Ohio, are traditional battlegrounds. Others, like Pennsylvania and Wisconsin, have voted Democratic for decades at the presidential level.
A University of New Hampshire poll out this week shows Clinton with an 8-point lead over Trump in a hypothetical matchup — but there are some warning signs for Clinton. She trails Trump by about 15 points among non-college voters, a group Barack Obama won by 2 points four years ago.
Republicans haven’t won New Hampshire since George W. Bush carried it narrowly in 2000. But UNH pollster Andy Smith said Trump, despite his wealth, is perhaps better positioned to capture the working-class vote than Romney was in 2012, even though Romney was from neighboring Massachusetts and had a vacation home in New Hampshire.
“In New Hampshire, and also in other New England states, the Republican Party is much more of the blue-collar party,” Smith said. “Romney never really resonated with those Republicans.”
Wisconsin has been part of a Democratic blue wall for decades; the last Republican to carry the state was Ronald Reagan in 1984. And while a Marquette Law School poll released last week showed Clinton poised to carry the state over Trump, the race was neck-and-neck among less-educated voters.
“Education, at this point, is the primary driver among white voters in this state,” said Marquette pollster Charles Franklin.
Franklin added that, in Wisconsin, Trump’s coalition consists of disaffected voters who, even with Trump as a candidate, describe themselves as uncertain to vote in the general election. And a Trump-Clinton race would feed into a decade of intense partisanship in Wisconsin — with stark cultural differences between Democratic and Republican voters.
“Can he succeed in mobilizing new voters in November? When we look at our data, Trump’s supporters say they are less likely to vote than others’,” Franklin said. “I had a great illustration of that. Some anonymous caller left a voice message yesterday that complained that our poll must have only included people in Milwaukee because 80 percent of his friends in Appleton are voting for Trump.”
Trump’s appeal to working-class whites is only half the story: Democrats have been rapidly shedding these voters over the past decade or so, and Clinton has especially struggled among them in the Democratic primaries and caucuses thus far. Most of the contests Bernie Sanders has won thus far have been in whiter states.
That stands in contrast to 2008, when Clinton feasted on whiter states, like the critical battleground state of Ohio.
Clinton “drew quite well from white, working-class Democrats” in the 2008 primary, said Ohio State University professor Paul Beck. “That was more her constituency than it was Obama’s at that point in time.”
But that’s flipped in this primary. Sanders basically tied Clinton in the Iowa caucuses and won the New Hampshire primary and caucuses in Colorado, Kansas, Maine and Nebraska.
Beck said he wouldn't expect a Clinton-Trump race to scuttle Ohio’s bellwether status, but he said Trump could crack traditionally Democratic, though culturally conservative, areas of the state. A number of counties in eastern and southern Ohio voted twice for Bill Clinton — but flipped for George W. Bush and have continued trending more Republican, even as Obama carried the statewide vote in both 2008 and 2012.
“I think Ohio still would be a battleground just based on the division of partisans in the state,” said Beck. “It will be interesting to see how Trump plays in that battleground. I expect him to do better [in southern Ohio], but traditional Democrats aren’t doing well in the south anyway.”GLADSTONE PARK — A quick-service restaurant, hair salon and cell phone store want to open at a plaza now under renovation at one of the busiest intersections on the Far Northwest Side, officials said.
Ald. John Arena (45th) will host a meeting at 7 p.m. Tuesday at Hitch Elementary School, 5625 N. McVicker Ave., to discuss the plans for Gladstone Plaza at Northwest Highway and Foster Avenue.
Blank signs at Gladstone Plaza await new tenants for the strip mall. (DNAinfo/Heather Cherone}
The site, which had been vacant for nearly a decade, is being renovated, and Immediate MD plans to open a 4,000-square-foot facility at the plaza, said Scott Goldman, a managing principal of Revision Real Estate Investment Group.
A cell phone store, hair salon and a quick-service restaurant have signed letters of intent to open at the plaza, a step short of signing a lease, Goldman said. However, those uses require a change in the property's zoning from manufacturing to retail, he said.
"We've had a great deal of interest from national chains," Goldman said, declining to name any of the businesses interested in the plaza at 5226-28 N. Northwest Hwy.
Work is on schedule to renovate the plaza, and new facade for the immediate care clinic is complete, Goldman said. A former Popeye's Chicken and Biscuits restaurant will be renovated once it is leased to accommodate the needs of the tenant, Goldman said.
Initially, Goldman said the new stores would be leased to shops, not restaurants, because the triangular parcel can be difficult to get into and out of when traffic entering or exiting the Kennedy Expressway backs up.
The site will be designed to ensure the smooth flow of traffic, Goldman said.
Arena faces a runoff on April 7 against Chicago Police Lt. John Garrido to keep his seat on the Chicago City Council.
A quick-service restaurant, hair salon and cell phone store want to open at a plaza now under renovation at one of the busiest intersections on the Far Northwest Side, officials said. (DNAinfo/Heather Cherone)
For more neighborhood news, listen to DNAinfo Radio here:Well this one we didn’t see coming: The Oscars opened with the Best Actor and Actress nominees smilingly arrayed on the stage — a glittering tableau broken by the showstopping opening number, starring…Neil Patrick Harris? NPH hosted the Emmys, back in September; this awards show is being hosted by Steve Martin and Alec Baldwin. Well, whatever — obviously Oscar high commandant Adam Shankman wanted a sassy, spectacular opening number, so NPH it was. And, it was — a big, showstopping be-sequined number, complete with feathery showgirls, and cute lyrics about the state of Hollywood (though not nearly as zingy as they might have been, alas). It was short and sweet, and a way to introduce “the biggest pair since Dolly Parton” — Baldwin and Martin, descending from the ceiling into a jokey comedy routine that, alas, lacked the energy of the preceding act. Was it a good move? Yes to open with NPH; no to not push Martin and Baldwin to be part of it. Ceding this huge moment was them playing it safe — and if there’s one place to play it safe, fine, it’s the Oscars, but still. Wish we could have seen their descent from the sky as a lead-in to something larger. NPH is a crowd pleaser galore, but what would have pleased the crowd more: An opening number by the actual hosts. Anyhow — here’s NPH with the oddly-titled, “No-one Wants To Do It Alone.”
Have a tip we should know? tips@mediaite.comQuote# 101933The second assumption stems from the feminist view that Nationalism and feminism are mutually exclusive; which translates into women’s interests being separate from nation unless feminists are allowed to reconstruct culture on their own terms. The third point listed above, and the most obvious, is the tired old cliche that the traditional female role of protecting and nurturing culture (as opposed to subverting it) is inherently oppressive. It’s impossible to love a nation when you despise half of its population.As I’ve written previously, traditional cultures produce women that willingly protect and fight for the values of their cultures. Despite their valiant struggles, feminists condemn such women as being brainwashed by patriarchy; which brings to surface certain contradictions in feminist thought. On one hand, feminism aims to restore women’s autonomy by seizing it from the jaws of patriarchy, yet that agency must be exercised solely at the feminist’s discretion. Very few feminists (to my knowledge)stood in support of France’s Muslim women who were barred from wearing the headscarf by law; so much for a woman’s body being her own. When their lesser sisters fail to act in accordance with their dogma, feminists infantalize their motives and actions with a paternalism that they are quick to criticize in men. Some have rightly referred to feminism as ‘paternalism in lipstick.’The second contradiction lies in their rather peculiar definition of “independence.” When North American men think of independence we generally picture a society free from government intrusion that protects our lives, liberty, and property; as articulated by John Locke. We picture an existence where a man is free to pursue any vocation as he feels inclined. The spirit of freedom that underlies the protestant work ethic forms the very basis of our definition of independence. Free and independent men do not desire charity and observers during the great depression noted extreme shame in the eyes of the men who stood in bread lines. Women on the other hand (feminists especially) are more than content to live on charity; they simply refer to it with euphemisms like “Child support” and “Alimony.” This naturally calls for a more expansive and intrusive state whose function is to legislate this highway robbery and ensure the redistribution of wealth from men to women. It’s unsurprising why astute critics have called feminism a front for communism. Yet this contradiction is made evident when contrasted with the reality that women are still dependant, not on families and men, but on the state. Women aren’t independent, their dependence has merely been shifted onto the nanny state. Independent men want a smaller state whereas independent women desire a large nanny state to hold their hand (Family laws, affirmative action, ect).Dota, Occident Invicta 13 Comments [7/7/2014 3:31:06 AM]Fundie Index: 7Story highlights Trump has taken to aggressively attacking members of his own party who don't support his plan
Back in March, Trump called out House members when the chamber was debating the issue
(CNN) President Donald Trump criticized Sen. Lisa Murkowski on Twitter Wednesday after she voted against GOP-led efforts to dismantle Obamacare, making her the latest Republican to be publicly rebuked by Trump on the issue.
"Senator @lisamurkowski of the Great State of Alaska really let the Republicans, and our country, down yesterday. Too bad," he tweeted.
Senator @lisamurkowski of the Great State of Alaska really let the Republicans, and our country, down yesterday. Too bad! — Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) July 26, 2017
Murkowski and Sen. Susan Collins of Maine were the only two GOP senators to vote against a procedural vote backed by Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell Tuesday afternoon. They were also among the nine Republicans who voted Tuesday night against the Better Care Reconciliation Act, a version of the health care overhaul bill.
Murkowski responded to Trump Wednesday afternoon.
"My vote yesterday was from my heart for the people that I represent," Murkowski told CNN's Elizabeth Landers. "I'm going to continue working hard for Alaskans and focus on that."
Read MoreListen to this episode below:
What does it take to become a pilot? Join us as Karen gives us insight into her inspiring pilot journey.
Karen Kahn piloted her first flight at the age of 19 and then 9 years later, in 1977, was one of the first woman hired by a major airline. Karen now retired from a thirty six-plus year airline pilot career with Continental now United Airlines. A speaker and author of the self-help book “Flight Guide for Success: Tips and Tactics for the Aspiring Airline Pilot”, Karen is committed to excellence. She is a Master CFI, FAA aviation safety counselor, director of the California Pilot’s Association and a current four-term Airport commissioner in her hometown of Santa Barbara, California in the United States.
Starting Out
Karen has been fascinated by airplanes since childhood.
When she was 19, a friend suggested that she should take introductory lessons if she wanted to learn how to fly. Interestingly enough, the rate that time was only 5 US dollars.
She was very eager when it comes to flying, it was only what she wanted to do, and made it her goal to gain more knowledge about aviation and be able to do it while getting paid.
Initial Training Challenges
Karen’s parents were totally against her flying, even stating “She might as well have committed suicide.” Although Karen lacked the encouragement and support from her parents, she stuck with it because aviation was her real passion. Her parents were the proudest when she got accepted at Continental airlines.
The Aircraft Types (GA only)
Best Flying Advice
“Keep good records because someday, you’ll be needing to remember those things so that you can tell the stories that will help someone else.”
The Journey
Karen worked in her local airport in 1969, acquired her PPL after 8 months and worked for the FBO to acquire enough time to get her CPL.
She applied to work as a Cessna 182 pilot for an aerial photography job with a local newscaster.
Decided that she needed more training to get her multi-engine and CFI so she did, as well as spent some time flying gliders which she highly recommends to get that “sense of feel” when flying air crafts in general.
Worked as a CFI in Oklahoma for a weekend ground school teaching pilots how to pass written exams. Unfortunately, the company filed for bankruptcy two months after she was hired.
Karen and a friend put up a similar business so she could own and fly a plane that will practically pay for itself. She bought a Beechcraft 1961 V35 “N” Bonanza.
After getting her ATPL in 1977, she applied for a job at Continental and received a call two days later for an interview. Karen was the 4th woman to be hired as a pilot where she worked as a flight engineer for the Boeing 727 and went up the ranks becoming a 2nd Officer and then 1st Officer.
There were a series of setbacks (furloughs and strikes within the company) for Karen but she eventually became Captain in 1988 of the MD-80 for 15 years and the Boeing 757 and 767 until she retired in 2014.
Current Flying
Post retirement, Karen is currently flying a Beechcraft 55 Baron.
Proudest Flying Moment
Helping people get to where they wanted to go.
Future Plans & Aspirations
Karen enjoys sharing her love of aviation to other people through her book, aviation career counseling services, and speaking engagements. She also wanted to continue flying for 20+ years!
Flying Internet Resource
FltPlan.com: A website for flight planning that provides a lot of information all for free!
Best Aviation Books
Weather Flying by Robert Buck
Weather Flying is regarded in the industry as the bible of weather flying. Robert Buck, a general aviation and commercial pilot with tens of thousands of hours of flight time, explains weather in a nontechnical way, giving pilots useful understanding of weather and practical knowledge of how to judge it and fly it. Covers weather flying psychology, en route weather changes, radar and how to use it, taking off in bad weather, and much more. Winner of the Flight Safety Foundation’s Publication Award; recommended by the FAA.
North Star Over My Shoulder by Robert Buck
In North Star over My Shoulder, Robert Buck tells of a life spent up and over the clouds, and of the wonderful places and marvelous people who have been a part of that life. He captures the feel, taste, and smell of flying’s great early era — how the people lived, what they did and felt, and what it was really like to be a part of the world as it grew smaller and smaller. A terrific storyteller and a fascinating man, Bob Buck has turned his well-lived life into a delightful memoir for anyone who remembers when there really was something special in the air.
Instrument Flying by Richard Taylor
The fourth edition of the perennial best-seller. Fully updated, with everything the private pilot needs to know about flying IFR, such as handling emergencies, filing flight plans, understanding IFR communications, navigating, and flying more efficiently. Polish and improve your instrument-flight skills with the proficiency exercises. Glossary of aviation terms included.
Favourite Cockpit Gadget
HUGlight: The HUGlight is a flexible foam rubber flashlight-type apparatus that can be worn around your neck. It can also be bent and positioned to illuminate hard-to-reach areas, making it more useful than just a simple wearable flashlight.
Interview Links
Karen’s Website: CaptainKarenKahn.com
Karen’s Blog: CaptainKarenKahn.blogspot.com
Check out Karen’s book “Flight Guide for Success: Tips and Tactics for the Aspiring Airline Pilot” on AmazonSometimes small claims court delivers a big eye-opener.
Did you know, for instance, that “brand new” car you’re buying might have sustained minor damage, been repaired and put back on the showroom floor?
Diane Lefrançois sure didn’t.
It’s an older case, but it took forever to wind its way through the court, arrive on my desk, get lost on my desk, then pop up again last week. But the buyer-beware caution has not lost its currency.
In December 2011, Lefrançois spotted a Chrysler convertible at Ottawa Chrysler Dodge in the east end. “It was love at first sight,” court was later told. A week later, she was putting down $41,627 for the vehicle, including $3,435 for an extended warranty.
She was told the car was new, though it was near the end of the model season. The odometer read 242 km. It did not have a single blemish and the evidence was that she intended to keep it that way.
About nine months later, she met her partner at a Tim Hortons, where a strange thing happened. She accidentally bumped into his vehicle, leaving “knife-like” scratches on the bumper. She tried but failed to repair the scratches herself, then took the car to a body shop.
When the technician removed the bumper, he found “Bondo,” a well-known body filler. He called Lefrançois and asked what she knew about an earlier accident and a “superficial” repair job. She knew nothing: wasn’t the car brand new?
Eventually, in preparation for a compensation claim, an auto body expert was hired to do an assessment. He found structural damage, too, indicated by a cracked shock absorber hidden by the bumper. The estimate for a proper repair was $3,469. Lefrançois, to say the least, was not happy.
Turning to a paralegal, she eventually took the case to court, claiming breach of contract and seeking $25,000 in damages. She told the court, if she’d known, she never would have bought a previously damaged vehicle.
The dealership, meanwhile, admitted the car had sustained minor damage and was sent for cosmetic repairs that cost $751. (The judge was not satisfied the repair was done properly.) It also claimed it was legally entitled under the Motor Vehicle Dealers Act to sell as “new” any car that suffers minor damage prior to the sale.
How much damage? Anything below $2,000, the dealer testified.
Deputy Judge Ivan Whitehall elaborated. The act actually puts the figure at $3,000 but says there is a duty of disclosure to the buyer, with a statement detailing the damage and the repair costs. She received neither, nor was it her responsibility to ask.
“Silence and half-truths can amount to fraudulent misrepresentation,” the judge wrote.
“Mrs. Lefrançois was misled by the defendants’ failure to divulge the previous accident. The duty may be breached not only by positive misstatements but also by omissions, for they may be just as misleading.”
Lefrançois made a further claim. She said she tried to cancel the extended warranty during the prescribed 60-day cooling-off period after the sale, but was dissuaded and eventually refused. She also sought compensation for “mental distress.”
Well, score one for the little guy.
The judge awarded her close to $9,000 in damages: $3,496 to properly repair the car, the $3,435 cost of the extended warranty, another $1,300 in costs, plus disbursements and almost four years worth of interest.
**********
A few days ago, we brought you the story of Paul Pelletier, 51, a diabetic recovering from a leg amputation.
The limb was healing nicely thanks to a so-called VAC unit, which uses negative pressure to seal and drain large wounds and prevent infections. The vacuum unit was prescribed by his surgeon and supplied by the Community Care Access Centre, which also provided nursing visits every two days.
At the 10-week mark, however, the CCAC said it needed the unit back, against the wishes of the physician. Pelletier, a truck mechanic, began to panic a little because the wound wasn’t completely healed and a setback could result in further amputation.
He was told he could rent the device for $90 a day, money he didn’t have. Well, help arrived at the 11th hour.
Not only did three Citizen readers offer to pay the rental fee of $2,700 a month, but the surgeon was able to work out a deal with the unit manufacturer, who agreed to provide him with a device free of charge.
Pelletier is both thankful and relieved.
To contact Kelly Egan, please call 613-726-5896 or email kegan@postmedia.com
Twitter.com/kellyegancolumn#SaveKPK: Indonesians decry arrest of anti-corruption chief
Twitter users accuse police of trying to undermine corruption investigation.
Storified by The Stream· Fri, Jan 23 2015 19:52:40
#KPKDanRakyat #SaveKPK “@SunandarPS: KPK YOU ARE NOT ALONE cc @KPK_RI http://t.co/RMvTKxkfnD ”Ulin Yusron
Thank you Indonesian POLICE for starting this silly drama. Thanks for showing us that you are the protector for corruptor #saveKPK #SaveKPKRizki
Only the corrupt try to chain those who fight corruption. #SaveKPKTrish ConradGrierson
We stand together #SaveKPK http://t.co/NE64E2lEnbYogi Frananda
It's more important to save the fight against corruption efforts. KPK is a product of the reform era. We can't turn back! #saveKPKPrimastuti Handayani
we want justice, |
technology and 13 MP AR1331CP CMOS image sensor which includes it. Clarity+ is Aptina's new 2x2 RC,CB CFA which includes two clear pixels where the traditional Bayer array places green pixels. Others have tried (and failed) with clear pixel filter arrays in the past, Aptina believes it has the clear pixels in the right place with their new filter and the right opportunity with industry state and availability of powerful ISPs. Aptina claims it can realize a 3-4 dB improvement in SNR with Clarity+ over Bayer, while keeping the same sharpness, avoiding color artifacts that plagued other clear pixel filters, and taking only a 0.2 dB hit in the 38 or so dB of dynamic range for a smartphone sensor.
If you've been reading along with our smartphone coverage for some period of time, you'll know one of the big challenges facing mobile device and image sensor makers has to do with size – pixel size to be exact. The prevailing industry trend has been a steady march towards smaller pixels for a number of related reasons – with smaller pitch you can include more pixels in the same area, or keep the same number of pixels in a smaller area, thus allowing the handset maker to reduce the z-height of their image module thanks to a smaller area it has to form an image onto. The tradeoff of course is less area over which each pixel can integrate light during an exposure, something which up until this last 1.1µm step has largely been able to be mitigated by pixel design. The step from 1.4µm to 1.1µm however does come with a tradeoff in sensitivity, and as a result you see industry moves to mitigate this with OIS, multiple exposures, or avoiding it altogether.
Pixels in a digital camera only count photons, not the wavelength (color) of those incident photons. To resolve more than an image of luminance, you need a color filter array, and interpolate (demosaic) the color of each pixel based on its neighbors. The dominant color filter array for the last twenty or so years of digital imaging has been Bayer, a 2x2 pixel array consisting of RGB pixels, arranged RG,GB, with twice the number of green pixels to mimic human eye response which peaks in sensitivity in the green. This has been dominant in part thanks to how simple it is and how well it works – for most practical imaging applications, Bayer is great. Of course, adding a color filter means rejecting some light, in this case only photons inside the spectral response of the filter get passed, and in the smartphone space where pixels are getting smaller and smaller, every photon matters. For that reason, there's been much attention on using clear pixels somewhere in the array to increase sensitivity. There have been a number of different arrays tried, RG,CB, and 4x4 RG,BC arrays, all with some tradeoff.
An immediate question is how Aptina avoids losing dynamic range in a CMOS sensor with clear pixels (the claim is 0.2 dB loss from the ~38 dB of dynamic range). The answer is that the clear pixel structure has been accordingly modified so it doesn't saturate before the blue and red pixels.
Aptina's Clarity+ system is a subtractive system with clear pixels in the place of Bayer's green, blue and red in the same place, and still 2x2. The result is equivalent sharpness and lack of color artifacts, assuming good recovery of the green channel from clear without introducing more noise. Apina does this by using the luminance image from the clear pixels early on in the imaging pipeline to suppress any chroma noise, and resolves chroma from the RB and recovered G channels.
The next question is then – how does Aptina's image processing pipeline fit into a world built around Bayer? The near term solution is for handset makers to use Aptina's own ISP which includes Clarity+ onboard, something it tells us to expect the first round of devices to ship with. Another alternative is an Aptina stage in the image processing pipeline that converts the RC,CB image data into Bayer-domain RG,GB data for use in current image processing pipelines. Long term, however, Aptina has already ported various stages of its image pipeline to current SoCs with good results, and is talking with the big SoC vendors about inclusion in the next round of tapeouts. The nice thing is that RC,CB still looks a lot like Bayer after the green channel is recovered, from an image processing perspective, as opposed to some of the other alternative filters. Aptina will continue to ship its CMOS sensors in Bayer as well as Clarity+ variants, with the CP suffix obviously connoting inclusion of the new color filter array.
(left) AR1331CP with Clarity+, (right) AR1230 with Bayer
How does this all work in practice? Aptina showed us a demonstration of its new AR1331CP 13 MP 1.1µm image sensor versus its AR1230 12MP 1.1µm sensor of its image sensor. At higher lux levels, there wasn't any visible reduction in image sharpness, and at low lux (10-8) the gain in SNR with the same integration time is dramatic.
Moving beyond Bayer is something the smartphone industry has tried and failed to do before, with Clarity+ it looks like Aptina might have a much better chance at doing so without any of the loss of resolution, introduction of color artifacts, or other tradeoffs that other proposed clear pixel filters have introduced. There's still the issue of ISP and getting third party silicon vendors to adopt the platform, but handset vendors are enthusiastic enough about improving sensitivity in low light scenarios that there's sufficient pressure to do so.
Source: Aptina (whitepaper - PDF)Low wage growth is what the Coalition wanted. Within weeks of being sworn in as employment minister in 2013, Eric Abetz warned "weak-kneed employers" against caving in to unreasonable union demands.
He set the pace himself, axing Commonwealth guidelines for cleaners employed on government contracts, giving them what amounted to pay cuts of around 20 per cent when their contracts expired.
He offered defence force staff just 1.5 per cent, less than inflation and the lowest increase in living memory. His prime minister, Tony Abbott, decreed that no public servant would get more. Abetz offered staff in his own department just 0.5 per cent along with cuts to conditions. Later, under the Turnbull government, the purse strings were loosened as it became apparent that the "wages explosion" Abetz feared had turned into a different sort of problem.
In the December budget update, the Treasury wrote down the tax receipts expected in the budget by $3.7 billion, and by $30.7 billion over the four years, despite higher commodity prices, largely because of what had happened to wages. Instead of growing by the forecast 2.5 per cent, they were growing by 1.9 per cent. It cut its forecast to 2.25 per cent and may have to cut it again.New Delhi: Despite a revival in the farm economy following a normal monsoon last year and significantly higher sowing of winter crops, rural wages are growing at a sluggish pace, shows data from the labour ministry.
In December 2016, during the peak of the winter sowing season, nominal wages for ploughing grew 4.3% year-on-year to Rs292 per day, shows the data released earlier this month. While this is higher than the 3.9% growth seen in December 2015 when a widespread drought crippled the farm sector, it is lower than the 6.6% growth in December 2014, and markedly below the high growth seen in 2013 (26%) and 2012 (18%), when the monsoon was normal.
The data shows that despite an uptick in farm activity and an estimated record production in 2016-17 of key crops like rice, wheat and pulses, nominal wages—an indicator of rural demand and incomes—are yet to pick up, most likely due to the cash crunch following demonetisation of high-value banknotes in November.
Based on higher than normal (five-year average) sowing of rabi crops and a record kharif production, the agriculture ministry has estimated foodgrain production at a record 272 million tonnes in 2016-17, over 8% higher than the year before. In January, the government estimated that the agriculture growth rate would bounce back to 4.1% (in 2016-17) after a dismal 1.2% the year before and a 0.2% contraction in 2014-15.
However, nominal wages continue to be sticky, implying only a marginal rise in real wages, despite a record Rs53,000 crore spent on the rural employment guarantee scheme during 2016-17.
Even for non-agricultural occupations like masonry, daily nominal wages grew 6% in December 2016 (year-on-year). This is similar to the growth seen in December 2015, a drought year, but significantly lower than the 21% and 17% growth in nominal wages in December 2013 and 2012, respectively.
“The rebound in agriculture-related works and a good monsoon should have led to higher demand for labour and pushed wages up, but this did not happen due to the acute cash crunch during November and December," said Himanshu, associate professor at Jawaharlal Nehru University, Delhi, and a columnist with Mint.
“However, as the economy is re-monetized (cash supplies reach normal levels) we may see a revival in rural wages and consumption. But often, impacts of shocks like demonetisation are sharp, while a recovery may take longer. The slowdown in construction and non-agriculture activities in rural India may linger despite higher budgetary allocations for rural programmes," he said.Just outside the Mile High City is Denver International Airport, the largest airport in the United States and one of the most unique in structure. Built to resemble the snow-capped peaks of the Rocky Mountains, the roof’s design is just one of many artistic features that can be found throughout the airport. An automated transit system is available to quickly transport passengers between concourses, and most hotels nearby offer a shuttle for guests. Whether your hotel stay is quick or lengthy, visiting Denver is a memorable experience!a thriving arts scene, ski resorts, cyclist trails, the Rocky Mountains, annual festivals, and Colorado’s professional sports teams!
Where To Stay Book Now Staybridge Suites 2.3 miles from Denver International Airport (DEN) The Staybridge Suites Denver International airport is conveniently located only 2 miles away from the airport. This hotel offers it guests free transportation to and from the airport, as well as a complimentary breakfast buffet and evening sundowner reception. Each room is a fully equipped non-smoking suite. Reserve this or any of the other Denver Airport hotels online.
Book Now Holiday Inn Express 7 miles from Denver International Airport (DEN) The Holiday Inn Express Denver Airport provides its guests with free daily shuttle service to and from the Denver Airport. For the working traveler the hotel provides a twenty-four hour business center with all the technical amenities one could hope for. Don't forget to take advantage of your free continental breakfast.
View all hotels near Denver International Airport Best-rated hotels near Denver International Airport Airport hotel reservations by phone: 1-866-966-3042
About Denver International Airport Located about 18 miles from the downtown area, Denver International Airport is the main hub for the capital city of Colorado. It's the largest airport in the country by size, spanning more than 50 square miles, as well as one of the busiest with 52 million people passing through each year. It provides service from a wide variety of carriers, including United and Southwest airlines, Air Canada and British Airways, welcoming guests from all over the globe. Many visitors stay in exquisite hotels near Denver International Airport, such as Staybridge Suites and Crowne Plaza. While many people pass right through airports without giving them a second thought, this hub is worth taking some time to explore. It has a unique architectural design - the roof of the terminal was constructed to look like the snow-covered peaks of the Rocky Mountains. Additionally, the hub is known for its intriguing displays of public art - USA Today named it the Best U.S. Airport for Art in 2013. Explore the site to find about 30 different murals, sculptures and other installations in addition to temporary exhibits headed by local museums and organizations.
Welcome to Denver Whether you know it as the Queen City of the West or the Mile-High City, Denver is a delightful place to visit for business or pleasure. As the capital and biggest metropolis in the Rocky Mountains region, it's a mecca for industry and culture, serving as home to a thriving arts scene, an array of exciting annual festivals and a variety of diverse neighborhoods surrounding the vibrant downtown area. Keep in mind that getting around generally requires a car, since the public transit system can be spotty and unreliable. Denver's breathtaking vistas are one aspect that attracts visitors. The landscapes are filled with majestic mountains only 12 miles away and lush greenery laid out alongside tranquil rivers and lakes. Despite the heavy snowfall during winter, the city has a dry and temperate climate year-round, and it's a particularly sunny locale - there are on average 300 days of sunshine annually. These conditions make for a variety of delightful outdoor adventures, from hiking the peaks to skiing the slopes.
Things to Do in Denver After making their way through the hub and checking in at Denver International Airport hotels, visitors can head out to explore the attractions of this vibrant city. Residents and tourists alike tend to sway toward the mountains for exhilarating experiences, but the city also has an expansive system of trails intended for cyclists that are used for sightseeing as well as transportation purposes. Travelers should also take some time to explore Confluence Park, a pleasant gathering place where you can enjoy a picnic, take a dip in the creek or just watch the people as they go about their daily business. There are also plenty of indoor activities to engage in during your visit. Take a trip to the Denver Art Museum, which houses one of biggest collections of Native American art in the country in addition to Western American art exhibits. Guests can also take a tour of the United States Mint, which produces some 7.5 billion coins every year. Other hot spots include the Denver performing Arts Complex, Cherry Creek Shopping Center and Wax Trax! Records. When you're feeling hungry, stop by one of the many downtown eating places, such as Biker Jim's Dogs, Barolo Grill, Root Down or Rioja.Alarmed by Donald Trump’s frank apology included in his speech from Charlotte, North Carolina Thursday, the Clinton campaign scrambled to cast doubt on its authenticity.
“Sometimes, in the heat of debate and speaking on a multitude of issues, you don’t choose the right words or you say the wrong thing. I have done that, and I regret it, particularly where it may have caused personal pain,” Trump said. “Too much is at stake for us to be consumed with these issues. But one thing I can promise you is this: I will always tell you the truth.”
But the Clinton campaign ridiculed his statement as something cooked up by his new campaign advisors and placed on his teleprompter.
“Donald Trump literally started his campaign by insulting people,” said Deputy Communications Director Christina Reynolds, reminding reporters that he had spent 428 days offending people “without shame or regret.”
Trump’s speech amazed members of the media, who have turned their full fury against him for his controversial statements and personal vendettas.
But the Clinton campaign demanded more specifics from Trump — and more proof that he had changed.
“We learned tonight that his speechwriter and teleprompter knows he has much for which he should apologize,” Reynolds wrote. “But that apology tonight is simply a well-written phrase until he tells us which of his many offensive, bullying and divisive comments he regrets — and changes his tune altogether.”Charges: Army officer claimed he hired hit man to kill wife, boss
Pierce County prosecutors have charged an Army officer accused of hiring a hit man to kill his estranged wife and his boss.
Lt. Col. Robert E. Underwood, 46, has been charged with three counts of felony harassment for allegedly targeting his boss, his wife and his girlfriend.
According to the statement of probable cause, Underwood, who is in the middle of bitter divorce proceedings, told one of his daughters "going to do something crazy and it would be on the news, the world would know about it and he was going to resign his commission."
The allegations first surfaced when Underwood's girlfriend contacted his wife earlier this month and told her Underwood was "on edge" and threatening to kill his wife and his boss. He claimed to have paid a man $150,000 to kill the pair, and added he had used foreign accounts to hold the funds so as not to leave a trail, the woman said.
Underwood's girlfriend also said she had seen on his laptop a photo of his teen daughter, naked and sleeping. The man had also searched the Internet for information on "how to to get teens drunk and have sex with them," the statement said.
The woman said when she confronted Underwood about what she had found, he told her "her head was on the chopping block." The woman felt Underwood's words were a credible threat.
Underwood's estranged wife told investigators the man has "nothing to lose" and has "an arsenal of weapons" as well as the "ability to save the $150,000 and hide it."
Investigators contacted Underwood's employer, who had him undergo an involuntary mental evaluation. Underwood had been deployed multiple times, but military officials determined he does not suffer from post-traumatic stress disorder.
However, investigators did add that Underwood, as a young child, "witnessed his mother kill his two siblings," and was himself shot multiple times by his mother, who left him for dead, the statement said.
Underwood was arrested on Monday night, and remains in custody.2 killed in San Francisco’s Bayview neighborhood
Police investigate a shooting near Bayshore Boulevard and Oakdale Avenue on Tuesday in San Francisco. Bullet holes can be seen in the front window. Police investigate a shooting near Bayshore Boulevard and Oakdale Avenue on Tuesday in San Francisco. Bullet holes can be seen in the front window. Photo: Santiago Mejia / The Chronicle Photo: Santiago Mejia / The Chronicle Image 1 of / 5 Caption Close 2 killed in San Francisco’s Bayview neighborhood 1 / 5 Back to Gallery
Two people were killed and one person injured in separate shootings in San Francisco’s Bayview neighborhood Tuesday, police said.
Around 4:15 p.m., officers responding to a ShotSpotter activation and reports of gunshots found a woman suffering from multiple bullet wounds in the street on the 1300 block of Revere Avenue.
She was taken to San Francisco General Hospital, where she died from her injuries.
About 10 minutes later police responded to reports of a man and a woman shot on the 200 block of Bayshore Boulevard, said Officer Grace Gatpandan, a police spokeswoman.
The woman went into the nearby Old Clam House restaurant, where workers called 911, Gatpandan said. The victims were transported to San Francisco General Hospital, where the man died and the woman was recovering Tuesday night from injuries that were not life-threatening, Gatpandan said.
The names of the victims were not released. Gatpandan said the male victim killed on Bayshore was 38 years old, and the female victim killed on Revere was in her 30s.
Police said the incidents were being investigated separately, but have not ruled out the possiblity that they are related, Gatpandan said.
A neighbor, who asked not to be identified out of fear for her safety, said she heard about 10 shots just after 4 p.m. and saw paramedics working to save the woman on Revere. She said this sort of violence is unusual for the residential street.
“This is a working-class neighborhood full of elderly folk and working families,” she said. “This is just sad.”
Erika Navarrete, 38, a Clam House employee, said she didn’t hear gunshots before the blood-covered female Bayshore victim entered the mostly empty restaurant and asked for help about 4:30 p.m.
Navarrete said she told the woman, who could barely speak, to take a seat and try to calm down while a manager called for an ambulance.
“'There’s a dead body outside,’” Navarrete said the woman told her. Navarrete looked outside and saw a body in the passenger seat of a black Acura SUV with at least a half dozen bullet holes in the driver’s side door and windshield.
“At first, I was just concerned for her and wanted to help,” Navarrete said. “I got scared when I saw the body, but I think I was in shock. The police and ambulance showed up within minutes.”
It is unknown if the two shootings are connected, but police are investigating them as separate attacks, Gatpandan said.
No arrests had been made Tuesday night. Gatpandan said investigators were at the scene gathering information, and asked that any witnesses come forward with details.
The shootings follow a particularly violent stretch in the city that includes a rash of fatal shootings in the southeast region and a quadruple homicide at the edge of Hayes Valley.
Just before 9 p.m. Jan. 20, Da Cong Wu, a 33-year-old father of two, was shot and killed near the corner of Sunnydale Avenue and Sawyer Street. Family members told KPIX that Wu was protecting his mother, who had just been accosted by armed robbers, and was shot as he attempted to flee in a car. He died at the scene, police said.
Tuesday’s killings marked the eighth and ninth homicides in San Francisco since the start of the year.
“It doesn’t make any sense, especially after those four boys got shot (near Hayes Valley),” said the neighbor who heard the shots on Revere. “It just makes me think, 'What’s going on?’”
Kale Williams is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. E-mail: kwilliams@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @SFKaleWho Are You When You’re Not At Work, Around Work Colleagues or Talking About Work? Why It’s Important to Know
Who are you reading? Of course you can always check my “About” page, Google me or evaluate my credentials, but what’s beneath that professional persona? What’s beneath yours? When caught up in the drive to work and to achieve, we can find our selves on empty.
Ironically, by obsessing over approval, over the obsessions to impress, to perfect, to keep others pleased with our performance, we lose sight of our special sparks. We may forget that it’s because of our unique traits that we have been offered the opportunities we have.
What makes you different than other ambitious people around you? Think about it…
What separates you from others is you. So, by taking the time to check in with the parts of your identity that exist independently of your professional self, you are cultivating your potential to innovate, create, to basically run more smoothly and glimmer differently under the same light as the rest. Not to mention, it’s a great feeling knowing that you are so much more than your position at work. You’re a dynamo person. In a sense, by prioritizing your other-than-work obsessions or sanctuaries, you are leading by example. You are disassociating from stress. You are reinforcing your own self-worth and power, inevitably building confidence and ease within yourself and in the workplace.
When I observe myself without work, I see a really beautiful Costa Rican dirt road. Why a dirt road? Because that’s who I am without work, natural, exciting, tropical, perhaps even at a few turns dangerous (remember this is not my work self!). I see myself as a dirt road in paradise because I feel that I constantly hunt for my own paradise; I grew up in a paradise; I travel to paradises (when I have time off and any bit of extra money); I paint, write and lecture about paradise. I’m paradise obsessed as much as I am imperfect, trying to stay true to myself in the midst of all the developing roads and tourists seeking comfort.
Yesterday, when hosting a class discussion on the various philosophies/perceptions of paradise, it occurred to me that the person I’m marrying is also deeply embedded in the grounds of paradise. He’s a landscape architect that grew up near mountains, moved down here to the paradise of our continent and started designing mini versions of paradise through landscape.
When we met, he lived on the beach, on a street near a large park. His studio apartment was decorated with plants, guitars, mini Buddhas and a large poster of his own design, potential plans for an alluding-to-Alice-in-Wonderland garden/landscape. These cool bits about him were wonderful swag on his layers of kindness, loyalty, patience, work-ethic and (not just because I love him!) his incredible charm. My surfing obsession rubbed right off on him, along with my dog. It seems I fit just right in his bungalow.
I was coming off a year dedicated to painting, writing, my dog and not dating. It’s no coincidence that I met him during a time that I was single and fully dedicated to staying single in order to spend some time self-exploring, self-cultivating. Once I paid attention to my authentic self, I met another who was also authentic and befitting.
When I take the time to respect and check in on who I am, aside from work and professional aims, it’s like I’m checking my fluids. Sure, I get to work on time and efficiently, but is my engine in need of anything?
If we don’t take a minute to look under the hood, we might just find our selves struggling to get to where we want to go, or worse, overheated, broke down, done for. Turn off the engine, let it cool, and don’t be afraid to look around, what’s running low? What needs to be replaced? It’s all suddenly coming together, the pieces of my self.
10 Things You Don’t Know About Me
1. I learned to horse back ride when I was five in the Dominican Republic, where my family and I took long expeditions. We stopped at water falls, galloped through pastures and trotted through creeks.
2. I got my first smart phone last year.
3. Spanish was the first language I learned, though born in the states. My parents knew what they were doing because now I’m fluently bilingual.
4. I won a geography bee in second grade; I beat all the grades above me and below. I knew more than the eighth graders about the earth.
5. I used to think I wasn’t good enough. It was like Eeyore’s cloud over my head.
6. I won The Miami-Dade County Youth Fair Haiku contest in fifth grade.
7. I won The Miami Herald Haiku contest in grad school.
8. My imagination has gotten me into lots of trouble (I’ll leave it at that).
9. When I was little I got one ear pierced, and I thought it hurt so much that I decided not to pierce the other one for a few years, so I told my friends I was a pirate.
10. People call me a dog whisperer.
What’s ten things your colleagues might not know about you?
[jetpack_subscription_form]Debbie Grabowski spent more than 20 years in the Air Force and Reserves before retiring and coming out as transgender. (Published Thursday, June 30, 2016)
Debbie Grabowski spent more than 20 years in the Air Force and Reserves before retiring and coming out as transgender.
"I got tired of living a double life," Grabowski said about coming out in 2006, an event she planned after her retirement. "Oh gosh, they would have drummed me out in a heartbeat!"
Grabowski is a Dallas police officer and volunteer firefighter with the city of Argyle. She says had the policy been different when she was in the military, she would not have retired.
"You lose good people," Grabowski said about the military's old transgender ban. "And to lose them just for that purpose, to me makes no sense whatsoever."
Developing Judge Issues Arrest Warrant for Dallas City Councilman
Thursday she applauded the Pentagon's announcement to allow transgender people to serve. "Great! I mean, seriously, a great deal of elation," she said. "We're not mentally ill. We can function in society and now we can be in the military. If they had had this policy back in 2006, I would have stayed in."
Grabowski said she knew when Don't Ask Don't Tell was repealed, it was only a matter of time. "It's amazing it's come so fast," Grabowski remarked. She also knows there will be push back from some. "But once people come to know what transgender is all about, I think things will settle down," she said. "It's like anything; people are afraid of change."Video: Hear the sound of the little bang Video: Hear the sound of the little bang
The hottest material ever created in the laboratory makes an eerie drone. A similar sound may have pervaded the universe just after the big bang, when space was a seething cauldron of matter.
The lab-made material was created at the Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider in Upton, New York. The particle smasher slams gold ions together, breaking the atoms and their constituent protons and neutrons into even smaller bits called quarks and gluons.
The resulting fireball – called a quark-gluon plasma – is trillions of degrees and mimics conditions when the universe was a millionth of a second old. As the fireball created in this “little bang” cools, the individual quarks and gluons combine into a zoo of larger particles.
Physicist Ágnes Mócsy of the Pratt Institute in Brooklyn, New York, and colleagues have calculated what this fireball of quarks and gluons would sound like to an observer embedded within it.
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Expanding fireball
By analysing measurements made using roughly 3 million collisions, the team determined the general lumpiness of the fireballs – how closely spaced their particles were.
Fluctuations in density correspond to sound waves. So the researchers studied how the distribution of particles evolved in time to see how the sound changed. They then had to multiply the wavelengths of the sound by roughly 10 billion billion to be audible to the human ear.
In the resulting soundtrack, lower tones become more and more prominent as the fireball expands and the speed of sound changes due to the resulting drop in the fireball’s density.
About halfway through, a wiggle in the tone signals the point at which quarks and gluons recombine to form particles from protons to pions. Watch a longer video narrated by the researchers here.This article contains plot details for both seasons of Grace and Frankie.
***
Netflix show Grace and Frankie does a lot of things well: It centers on two older women, played by Jane Fonda and Lily Tomlin, whose characters are frank and complex. But the show bothers me for one big reason: It completely ignores bisexuality.
In Grace and Frankie’s pilot episode, the show’s namesakes discover that their husbands have been cheating on them for years—with each other. While this is a fresh approach to the straying-spouse storyline, no one ever asks, “Hey, Robert and Sol, are you into women and men?” Instead, everyone jumps from straight to gay. When the two men admit that they’re in love, Frankie counters with, “You mean you’re gay? And this is who you’re gay with?” Robert responds, “This is who I’m in love with.” The possibility of the men feeling romantic love for each other and for their wives is never brought up.
Marta Kauffman and Howard J. Morris, the show’s creators, completely ignore that Robert and Sol could be sexually interested in both men and women. It's like Grace and Frankie is playing a giant game of Password, and “bisexual” is the word that cannot be spoken. Throughout two seasons and 26 episodes, bisexuality is not referred to once. Even when (spoiler) Sol and Frankie sleep together again in an emotional moment, it’s assumed that Sol only did so because he felt bittersweet about his family coming apart, not because he felt a deep attraction to Frankie.
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This erasure doesn’t just happen in Grace and Frankie, it happens all the time in our pop culture. Bisexual characters are rarely portrayed in TV and movies and this underrepresentation contributes to the bias against bisexual people. “They are less likely than their gay and lesbian peers to be out to the people they love, because their identity is constantly misconstrued as either a form of confusion, a lie, or a contrived and hypersexualized means to an end,” says Alexandra Bolles, a media strategist at GLAAD and bisexual advocate. “Perpetuating these tropes undermines the truth that bisexuality is real and that bi people deserve to be treated equally and fairly.”
Bisexuality gets such a bad rap that, according to a 2013 report by the PEW Research Center, 72 percent of people who identify as bisexual are not open about it to the most important people in their lives. According to GLAAD’s 2015 Where We Are On TV report, there are 59 regular and recurring LGBT characters on shows created and owned by Amazon, Netflix, and Hulu. Of this group, nine are bisexual women and only three are bisexual men. The same trend maps onto cable shows: Out of the 271 regular and recurring LGBT characters on scripted broadcast, cable, and streaming programming, 53 women and 23 men identify as bisexual.
Grace and Frankie could be forward-thinking even if the characters just discussed the possibility that Sol and Robert could be bisexual. Currently, it’s more socially acceptable for women to be sexually fluid than men—at least in a sexual context. As Shiri Eisner writes in Bi: Notes for a Bisexual Revolution, “Rather than accepted, female bisexuality is ‘encouraged’ on the sole grounds that it be palatable to straight men. Bisexual women are presented in hypersexualized contexts…while also reassuring us that these women are not really bisexual, but are simply behaving so far for the satisfaction of the presumed male spectator.” Yet male-identifying bisexual folks are rarely seen, even in a sexualized manner. As a result, out of the hundreds—if not thousands—of characters on TV and online, only 26 are bisexual men.
It could be argued that bisexuality isn’t addressed on Grace and Frankie because it’s hard for writers to grasp. After all, in a 2013 PEW Research Survey, about half of gay men and lesbians said that sexual orientation is extremely or very important to their overall identity; only two in 10 bisexual men and women said the same. As culture writer Holly Eagleson argues, since bisexual characters lives aren’t often as strongly defined by their sexualities, it’s harder for audiences to understand them. Consequently, shows need to spend more time exploring the characters, which could be risky financially.
“Media, like so many other aspects of society, clings to simplistic and inaccurate binaries,” says sex educator and author Al Vernacchio. “The defining element of bisexuality isn't something visible or easily shown. How do you portray a person or a couple as bisexual without leaping to silly or offensive portrayals? TV and film are visual media. What does bisexuality look like?”
Yet even when bi men are portrayed on screen, the characters are often stereotypes. Bisexual characters are represented frequently as untrustworthy people who are prone to infidelity, who can’t form genuine relationships, and who engage in self-destructive behavior. GLAAD’s report cites Cyrus Henstridge on E!’s The Royals, who seduces a member of Parliament and then blackmails him. Tyrell from USA’s Mr. Robot sleeps with a male office assistant so he can install spyware on the man’s phone. Finally, Chamberlain Milus Corbett from FX’s The Bastard Executioner uses sex as a tool to get what he wants.
In less dramatic shows, bi characters are still portrayed in a negative light, or their sexuality is ignored. When Larry's parents discover that Piper used to date a woman in Orange Is The New Black, the word “bisexual” is never used. Instead, Piper says, “I used to be a lesbian. Now I’m not.” On Grey's Anatomy, Callie was only deemed bisexual in the last few seasons. Before that point, she was labeled as gay or confused.
“The way gay and lesbian people navigated greater societal acceptance was by coming out,” Vernacchio says. “The problem with bisexual people isn't that they can't or don't come out, it's that too many straight and gay/lesbian people refuse to acknowledge the reality of their existence, even when it's made abundantly clear by bisexual people themselves.” This problem is worsened by the fact that bisexual characters are rarely portrayed on TV, and when they are, they are shown in a negative light. In the future, let’s hope that Netflix, a company that has the freedom to be as progressive as it wants, will be inclusive of different sexual orientations—especially bisexuality.
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Read This Next: As a Biracial Woman, It's Powerful to See “The Mindy Project” Explore IdentityThere hasn't been a franchise quarterback for the New York Jets since Joe Namath left the team in 1976. Namath is hoping that will change this year. Now 39 years after Broadway Joe left the team, he thinks it is about time for the team to finally draft that franchise-changing QB. And with the No. 6 overall pick in this year’s NFL Draft, Namath thinks the Jets could and should draft that big-time quarterback if one is still available. Florida State quarterback Jameis Winston will likely be off the board at that point and could well go No. 1 overall. But Marcus Mariota, the Heisman and Maxwell Award winner after a record-setting year at Oregon in 2014, could fall to the Jets. He's a popular selection for most mock drafts at No. 6, for what that's worth. Recommended Slideshows 4 Pictures PHOTOS: Singapore's treasures star in NY Botanical Garden's 2019 Orchid Show 4 Pictures 36 Pictures Oscars 2019: Red carpet looks and full list of winners 36 Pictures 36 Pictures All of these celebrities have had their nudes leaked 36 Pictures More picture galleries 16 Pictures These photos of Trump and Ivanka will make you deeply uncomfortable 16 Pictures 4 Pictures Inside Brooklyn's Teknopolis is tech that makes us more human 4 Pictures 4 Pictures Inside The Strand's Fight Against Being Named |
change your speed multiplier). For beginners or other players unfamiliar with how the bpm (beats per minute) is visualized in the notes scrolling down the screen, it may be discouraging to see too many notes coming at you or the notes zooming too fast when you set up your scrolling speed incorrectly.
Sound Voltex, like all music games, does not teach the player how to calibrate the reading speed, but it has many tools for getting to that point that I have not seen in other games. First of all, the options menu for setting up your speed is on its own menu screen that does not have a timer. I cannot even begin to tell those unfamiliar with the stress of rhythm game menus how relieving it is to not have the game rush you while trying to deal with settings (though since it is a screen where you match up with other players, I cannot guarantee that precious time for selecting your speed would not be cut short if someone does actually play the same song as you do). In other scenarios, I have often failed a song due to setting the notes too fast because I forgot to change the settings through hard-to-access menu screens or run out of time because the menu shares the song selection timers.
Accessing the menu itself reveals speed controls that I wish made their way to all rhythm games eventually: locking the speed mod and bpm tuning. Voltex allows for the player to fine-tune the bpm that players want instead of using the standard speed multiplier system. After that is done, players can also lock that speed for the rest of the play session or for the rest of their Sound Voltex career if they have a player card. Therefore, those that are more familiar with tempo or just want to avoid calculating how much they should adjust each track can just set it and forget it, taking away the stress of being rushed every time and allowing new players to slowly ease into the most comfortable reading speed.
Part 3 – Closing Sentiments:
I realize that I might have just been rambling about my newfound love for the game and trying to put that into words for the audience, but if that is the case, then the game has achieved its goal of retaining a player base. The fact that my initial reservations for trying something new have been thwarted by innovative controls that actually try to work with my hands as I train to be a master of the “wub wubs” and an interface that encourages me to improve at my pace speaks to a desire to appeal to a wider audience.
Like all arcade rhythm games, getting good at Sound Voltex requires quite a bit of time, as well as monetary funds. However, with my positive outlook on gaming, I find that all games have their charms as long as you give them a chance. Seeing the crowd of people already giving up on a game like Voltex that actually tries harder to give back to beginners saddens me. There is a lot more depth to this game than I can fit in this crash course to the genre. I invite the reader to start their own adventure into the rhythm game genre with Sound Voltex and discover a newfound love for wub wub knobs and spacebars just like I have.
Note:
I do realize that this game might be hard to come by since it is a Japanese export, so I encourage giving whatever rhythm games are available a chance as well if Sound Voltex is not available. You might have a similar experience with that game. After all, Sound Voltex is not my favorite rhythm game of all time, but it is my newest obsession >o<!!!A Race, a Crash and the Nascar Approach to YouTube Video Takedowns
To say events at the Drive4COPD 300 race in Daytona Beach on Saturday were a nightmare would be an understatement. Nearly 30 fans sustained injuries after parts of driver Kyle Larson’s car tore through the stands in the wake of a final-lap crash involving multiple cars.
A video of the wreck, shot by a fan and uploaded almost immediately to YouTube, detailed some of the carnage that swept across the stands and the race-goers that filled them. In a particularly intense moment, one person appeared to be pinned down by an errant wheel that flew off one of the wrecked cars.
But just as quickly as it was uploaded, the video was taken down from YouTube at Nascar’s request, citing copyright concerns.
Odd, that, considering a quick YouTube search for Daytona Crash 2013 returns a host of videos from the event, yet to be pulled.
So what gives? Is Nascar lagging on taking down all the copyrighted content showing up, or is Nascar selectively censoring the more gruesome footage showing up on YouTube?
It seems the latter is the case, though Nascar positions it in a more noble light.
“The fan video of the wreck on the final lap of today’s Nascar Nationwide Series race was blocked on YouTube out of respect for those injured in today’s accident,” said Steve Phelps, Nascar SVP and Chief Marketing Officer, in a statement issued to AllThingsD. “Information on the status of those fans was unclear and the decision was made to err on the side of caution with this very serious incident.”
Nascar wouldn’t respond to my further questions of whether the organization would pull other fan videos, referring me to the company’s original statement.
So it looks as if we can view this in a couple ways: Either Nascar is indeed concerned with the well-being of the injured, or Nascar is trying to avoid a major PR headache by stifling the viral video of the brutal injuries its fans suffered. Call me a cynic, but I’m leaning toward the latter case.
But whatever side you want to take, there’s another problem here: Nascar may not have the standing to request takedowns of these videos in the first place.
“Nascar is likely arguing that the ticket restricts recording of any event the ticket-holder attends,” Chip Stewart, associate professor at TCU’s Schieffer School of Journalism, told AllThingsD. “The thing is, I don’t see how that gives Nascar automatic copyright to anything a fan records; the copyright belongs to the person creating the content — in this case, recording the video.”
When YouTube receives takedown requests from outside organizations citing copyright, Google’s video arm almost always complies, Stewart said, in order to avoid liability concerns. But as Stewart asks, “How can one in good faith ask to take down a video when one doesn’t have a copyright in it in the first place?”
Good question! We’ll see if that changes in the coming days, and if Nascar decides to change its tune. In the meantime, YouTube has not responded to a request for comment.
Update 7:45 pm PT: Well would you look at that. Not more than a few hours later, the video in question has been unblocked, and is now viewable on YouTube user Tyler4DX’s page.
Nascar hasn’t responded to my request as to why the video is now back up for viewing, but a YouTube spokesperson sent me the following statement:
Our partners and users do not have the right to take down videos from YouTube unless they contain content which is copyright infringing, which is why we have reinstated the videos.
Looks like Professor Stewart was right, and YouTube deemed that Nascar’s copyright argument lacked sufficient standing. Still waiting to hear what Nascar has to say about that.Melissa Melton
Infowars.com
December 19, 2012
In a shocking article that seems to completely toss the Constitution out the window, Reuters announced President Obama’s official dictatorship in a story it published yesterday, “Even Without Congress, Obama Could Act to Restrict Guns.”
The subheading begins, “Unburdened by re-election worries and empowered by law to act without Congress, U.S. President Barack Obama could take action…” Because he has won a second term, the story points out that, “Obama does not need to fear alienating voters who favor gun rights” and that he can, “press ahead without lawmakers” to pass executive orders restricting our 2nd Amendment rights.
According to this story, it’s official: America is under an admitted dictatorship.
This country’s government is supposed to have a system of checks and balances, with three branches of government to keep the balance of power in check—executive, legislative and judicial. America is not limited to an executive branch that controls everything.
The Reuters story continues, “His administration has the power to issue executive orders or new rules, options that Obama is likely to consider in combination with possible new laws.”
So, let’s get this straight: Obama’s administration—a body that is administrative in nature only—now has the “power” to issue not only executive orders which completely circumvent Congress, but “new rules” as well. Where in the Constitution are “rules” mentioned?
Reuters also discusses the fact that Obama U.S. Justice Department appointees have been busy “studying ideas” for gun control since Representative Gabrielle Giffords was shot at a public meeting she held last year.
This mainstream media outlet isn’t the only one calling for executive orders in the wake of the Connecticut school massacre that left 20 children dead last week. New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg is openly demanding that Obama take “executive action” now against our 2nd Amendment rights.
Connecticut Senator Joe Lieberman reportedly told CNN that, “If the president can do something now by executive order, God bless him.” Current TV Host Jennifer Graham mentioned that she used to “love stuff” she could do without having to go to the state legislature as someone who previously worked in the executive branch, to which former Secretary of Labor Robert Reich answered that some things could be done by executive order, and if Obama signs such an order, “Congress can’t stop him.”
The Reuters article even mentions that the Connecticut school shooter took his mother’s guns to commit his crime, so all these new gun laws and background checks would have been completely useless at Sandy Hook School last Friday.
Executive orders began with George Washington asking officers to apprise him of the state of affairs in America. Fast forward to today, when Obama is signing executive orders because it “isn’t clear” if Congress will pass the laws the administration wants it to.
Why would the people elect a president that will outright infringe on their basic rights and an impotent, ceremonial Congress?
The 2nd Amendment is crystal clear on this point: “A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.” The whole point of the 2nd Amendment is to guard against tyrannical government—against the very tyrannical government taking over America right now!
As radio show host Alex Jones has been saying for years now, “The fix is in—they’re coming for our guns”:
“The accumulation of all power, legislative, executive, and judiciary in the same hands…may justly be pronounced the very definition of tyranny.” — James MadisonRUSH: Folks, here’s the thing that surprises me about this, and I know you know what I’m talking about. Hillary Clinton, I don’t care what video you look at, collapsed and they had to practically toss her in that van. That was a neurological episode. That’s whatever. Pneumonia. That’s… whatever. She collapsed. It looks serious. And I asked a question about this last week. Do you realize that nobody — you’ve seen any of the videos about that incident yesterday, the 9/11 [memorial] when she had to leave it early — that’s another thing.By the way, greetings. Rush Limbaugh here, 800-282-2882.
She had to leave. Do you realize how many protocols are violated? She had to leave wherever she was at the 9/11 ceremony early. They never, they never take a subject away until the transportation is lined up and ready because the worst thing — trust me on this — the worst thing the Secret Service wants is for the subject to have to stop and stand around, i.e., as a sitting duck, until the transportation shows up.
But whatever happened yesterday, they had to broom that. They had to get her out of there before the ground transportation, the van, before the van even showed up, and she was waiting for a few minutes. Maybe it was one minute or a little less. But that’s a huge violation of protocol. And that is the only sign that anybody with her thought something was up. The thing about this — and there are so many things that amaze.
Here you have a woman who we know the latest allegations and the speculation and now the admissions about her illness, and the one thing that’s been curious about this is the people with her, her support staff, whenever something like this happens, don’t seem to think it’s anything unusual. Like yesterday, they didn’t take her to the hospital. They took her to Chelsea’s place. And that’s a major event that happened yesterday.
So they must be used to seeing it. It must not be that abnormal or extraordinary, which is not a good sign for people dealing with this behind closed doors that we’re not privy to. It means that this has been going on a much longer period of time than just the diagnosis of pneumonia on Friday. But I want to go back to this program — grab audio sound bite number four — last Tuesday, almost a week ago, I said the following.
RUSH ARCHIVE: Something’s not right here. There’s something that’s potentially really, really wrong. In fact, I’m gonna tell you something. After I watched the videotape of Clinton in Cleveland, I actually started asking myself, “Who on her staff allowed that to continue? Who put her out there?” … I can’t believe that Tim Kaine let this go on and didn’t take the mic from her, didn’t try to take over. I can’t believe they sent her out in this condition.
Something is clearly not right. I’m not a doctor; I’m not gonna pretend to be one here. All I know is, I’ve had hacking coughs and I’ve had them diagnosed, and there’s always been reasons for them that are related to respiratory. Hers supposedly aren’t. Supposedly, there’s nothing wrong with her respiratory system. … I’m telling you, there’s something that sounds really, really drastically wrong, and I do wonder about the people who are close to her and who know and are still subjecting her to this.
RUSH: Let’s admit something. She’s the candidate. She can tell everybody what to do, when to do it, when to shut up and so forth and so on. That’s in response to that four minute coughing fit in Cleveland last week, that at some point everybody watching it said, “Why isn’t somebody assisting here? Why isn’t somebody on her staff coming out and helping get her? Why didn’t Tim Kaine get up and at least take the microphone a couple of times while she composed herself?” They just left her out there to dry. It was the strangest thing to me.
So I start asking myself why. And the only thing I can conclude, folks, is that none of this, to the people closest to her, medical staff, campaign staff, none of this must be abnormal, or none of it must be extraordinary. Maybe another way of saying it is this: Maybe it happened so frequently that they’ve just become accustomed to it and it isn’t the big deal to them that it is to us, seeing it for the first, second, or third times.
But if that is the case, how long has this been going on? We know that Mrs. Clinton, because of Jimmy Kimmel, Jimmy Kimmel did a great national service, he showed that Mrs. Clinton is capable of opening a pickle jar. Remember that? But that apparently is not the question now. Can she open prescription pill bottles? That would seem to me to be something of great concern, too. Maybe Jimmy Fallon could have her on to demonstrate that. I mean, pickle jars, for crying out loud.
I don’t know. This is the first conspiracy I have ever known to fell somebody like it has her. Everybody’s saying all this is a conspiracy theory and now all these conspiracy theories are borne out to be true. The media has a history of hiding medical problems of ranking Democrats, Woodrow Wilson, FDR, JFK, any number of prominent Democrats the media’s gone out of its way to hide and they’re doing it here with Mrs. Clinton as well.
Now, folks, the video. The first I saw of this is probably what you’ve seen. This one was on the cable news networks throughout the day yesterday. Hillary Clinton is standing next to a barricade and a light pole with her back to the camera and waiting for something. The van arrives from the left of the screen. As you’re watching, the van arrives from the left, and the door opens to the van, and that’s when everything happens.
She stumbles forward and eventually looks like it’s just a total collapse. There are people holding her by both arms. She collapses, and it appears they just shove her in that van. In the process, she lost a shoe. They got her in the van, they shut the door, and if you look carefully, if you play it back in a number of different speeds, and if you can focus on her, she’s wearing all black, it’s all dark. You can see that she’s bobbing up and down. She looked like she has lost neurological control and then collapses.
Now, the first thing they said, “Well, you know, she lost her shoe.” That doesn’t explain this and it didn’t explain it. Now, there’s another video that purports to show a different angle. But it doesn’t. This second video has me really confused. In this video, the van approaches from the right. The purpose of the video is to show you a different angle, an angle that shows Mrs. Clinton more clearly. And in this video, the camera is much closer to the van, the van approaches as you’re watching from the right. In the first video, the van approaches from the left. So what they want you to believe is that they’ve simply flipped this to show you a new angle. But you can’t flip the video. I mean, you can play a video backwards, forwards, but it doesn’t change the angle you’re looking at. The footage is identical.
The second video purports to show a new angle. And this new angle shows Hillary in even greater distress, or I should say gives you a better view of the distress, than the first video. But what is intriguing to me is that nobody seems to have noticed that it can’t be the same video. How can, in one video, the van approach from the left and the door on the right side of the van open and Mrs. Clinton gets in. In the next video, same setting, but the van approaches from the right with the street being on the left of it. And then the door opens in the van, which would be the left side of the van and then Mrs. Clinton gets in.
And all of the people in the video appear to be properly placed, and they appear to be reversed, lapel pins are on the opposite lapel in the second video. It’s a really great trick, but the second video can’t be — one of the two can’t be real. One of the two has to be — unless somebody can explain this to me.
Now, I have not explained any of this to Koko. You know, I should have explained this to Koko and had him put both videos up so we could do a side-by-side. But Koko, they’re both on YouTube. Find the video that Fox News played yesterday afternoon and then go to a video you see on Drudge today, do a side-by-side comparison of ’em, and you will see on one video the van approaches from the left and doesn’t get close to her, the shot is a fixed-distance shot.
The other video, the van comes from the right side, the camera’s closer, people look identical, Hillary looks identical, going into the van looks identical, but it’s exactly in reverse, purporting to show a new angle. But if all you do is reverse it, you wouldn’t see new footage, you wouldn’t see a new angle, you would just see everything from the opposite direction.
I’m surprised the Clinton campaign hasn’t objected to it, to one of the two, one of the two videos is not right. Now, this is not to say that what is depicted in one of these videos is not true. It obviously is. Mrs. Clinton is obviously very ill. She has not been well for a long time, and many people in the Democrat Party are well aware of it.
And they have decided to roll the dice that they can — the doctors or whoever can — exert enough control over the presentation of the symptoms of this disease that they can manage it. Imagine something like this happens in a debate. Imagine! They can’t… Obviously, they cannot predict when these episodes of hers are going to occur. That has to be the scary thing. They canceled her fundraising trip to California today after claiming that it was pneumonia diagnosed on Friday.
And now the appropriate news agencies are out with stories, “Oh, yeah! You know what? Everybody in the campaign’s come down with it. It’s a horrible thing. Robby Mook’s got it.” That’s the way they’re trying to cover it. Pneumonia, folks, can be fatal. Pneumonia is — and there’s walking pneumonia; there’s pneumonia non-walking variety. It’s really, really, really dangerous. Elderly people die from pneumonia. It’s something that has to be… You know, it’s fluid in the lungs, among other things, and it has to be monitored carefully, and it usually requires — depending on the severity and the age of the patient — hospitalization.
But up until Sunday, up until yesterday, they kept telling us it was nothing wrong other than Mrs. Clinton’s lingering effects from a concussion, which is requiring her to take blood thinners. But aside from that, everything else was just a giant conspiracy theory. All these alt-right-wingers and these conservatives and these conspiracy fruitcakes were just making things up. There was nothing to see. It was all a big bunch of rigmarole. And it turns out that they have known for a long time she’s not well, and the diagnosis we get on Sunday is that…
Well, the news we got on Sunday is she was diagnosed with pneumonia on Friday. Well, why not tell us that on Friday? You know, she’s makes this comment about “deplorables” and really eats it. I mean, really steps in it. I mean, this is worse than what Romney said. It is much worse than Romney’s 47% comment, because this statement contained two elements, both of which are devastating. In the first half of the statement, she refers to half the American people or half of the people supporting Trump as “deplorables,” undesirables.
They’re just the kind of people — ew, yuk — that sophisticated liberals don’t want to have anything to do with. Now, this is not good, because liberals are not supposed to be looking at people this way. Liberals make themselves out as loving everybody, tolerant, compassionate, equality, everybody is wonderful. And yet here she goes and starts talking about half of Trump supporters as a bunch of essentially human debris.
The second thing she said is that the other half of Trump supporters are legit; they have legitimate grievances over the last eight years. They’re unhappy. The economy… She just indicted the Obama administration. So in this statement she stepped in it big time twice. The Drive-Bys are trying to cover it up as best they can. Why not…? After she says this, why not announce then that she has pneumonia and is not feeling herself and take the occasion of the announcement of pneumonia to apologize for the deplorable comment and get rid of it.
They didn’t do that. They let the deplorable comment fester for a while, then they send her out with a quasi-apology, then the thing happens yesterday; they backtrack. “Oh, yeah, we forgot! It’s pneumonia. She was diagnosed on Friday.” Now, again, folks, you understand what’s happening. Twitter is not covering any of this. The Twitter timeline doesn’t have the video of Mrs. Clinton’s collapse. The Facebook timeline’s trying to diminish this.
So this is one of these events where you think everybody knows it, where you think everybody’s seen it, and they haven’t. So if you’re wondering, “Why aren’t people more worked up about this,” don’t forget that not nearly everybody has seen this. Now, some in the Drive-Bys are talking about it, and they’re very concerned, and there are elements that have leaked into the body politic and the portion of the public that the mainstream media tries to hide things from.
Such as: Tweets about emergency meetings at the DNC with the possibility of needing to come up with a replacement. They haven’t firmly said that they’re doing this, but it’s been alluded to. I guarantee you there has to be various degrees of panic within the inner sanctum of the Democrat Party at whatever level you’re talking about, because they can’t predict these episodes. And what they know now is the doctors can’t control them. Whatever medication she’s on, whatever maladies she’s suffering, every time she goes in public, it is a roll of the dice.
And this has to have them quaking in their boots.
Now, Democrats also have a history of replacing people they think are problems. Thomas Eagleton back in 1972. So we’ll just have to watch this and pay attention to it as the Democrats are, ’cause make no mistake: They have grave concern. I mean, the polls are tightening now. In the battleground states, it’s become a dead heat. Trump has, in the words of the media, “seemingly matured,” is doing things right here, staying on message. His rallies continue to draw tens of thousands of people. Mrs. Clinton can’t draw 500. It’s panic time.
They’re not showing it yet, but there’s no question that it is.
BREAK TRANSCRIPT
RUSH: I knew this was gonna happen. I’ve got people saying, “No, no, Rush! No, no, it’s not two videos. They’ve just flipped it. They just flipped the videos.” Well, then somebody explain to me something. How come in one video you can see more of what happens to her than you can in the other? If all they did was flip the video… You cannot create a new angle with the same video. This second angle attempts to make you think the camera is to the left of where the original camera is and therefore has a better view of Mrs. Clinton getting in the van.
If all you’re doing is flipping the video and reversing the direction, you’re not gonna change any angles because there’s not a second camera. “But, Rush! But, Rush! In that second video, you can really see her stumble. You can really see her fall to the ground.” Yeah, but why can’t you in the first? People are in the way in the first video. You can’t see… “Well, the second video they’ve zoomed it, Rush! That’s part of the flipping. They reverse it, and you’re closer.”
Okay. All right. Fine. I’m just… You’re not gonna change what’s on video if all you’re doing is reversing it. You cannot fake a second camera with a new angle showing something new if all you’re gonna do is take the same video and reverse the direction that it plays. The second video… That’s second in the order I saw them, so it could be the first one you saw. That’s what makes this tough to go through. Anyway, this shall continue. I’m not suggesting the event didn’t happen, folks, not by any stretch of the imagination. I’m just suggesting here that one must always be careful.
BREAK TRANSCRIPT
RUSH: Look, all this stuff on the video is interesting, but it’s a distraction. So I don’t want to get too much in the weeds on this. My only point is that the original video I saw which aired on Fox News has the van coming from the left with all of the street, the corner, the curb, and Hillary approaching as though the van’s pulling up and everything’s on the right. Door’s on the right side, door opens, Hillary gets in. The camera is at a distance, and as you’re looking at the screen it’s to the right of the van.
Then the second video comes, it’s much closer, like been zoomed. And it’s been flipped, the video shows van coming from the right as though the curb is on the left of the van and the door is on the left side, and it opens, and it purports to show you even much more information. You see much more of Hillary getting in the van in the second zoomed video than in the first video. And I’m just asking, how is it possible, since the data on both is identical? You can’t create a new angle by reversing it. You’re seeing everything just reversed, but not a new angle as though there’s a new camera with a new view that’s not in the first one.
So I guess what’s happening here is that zooming in is helping somebody see what you can’t see in the original video. But that’s really beside the point. The real point here is how sick is she, how sick do they know she is, and are they not telling us the full extent of it? Haven’t been any health records released. Bill Clinton’s health records have never been released so we don’t know. He’s been, strangely, absent during all this. I wonder why.
The video that we saw is fascinating in that Mrs. Clinton looks real — it looks bad, folks. She falls. I mean, it looks like she faints, and before that, her head is bobbing up and down as though she’s having a seizure of some kind. And people are holding her on each side of her. One woman, looks like her doctor, taking her pulse, even as she’s walking toward where the van is eventually going to drive up and stop and pick her up.
Then there’s this near collapse, and they just shove her in the van. They don’t take her to a hospital. They take her to her daughter’s apartment where she emerges an hour and a half later looking 200 percent better. I’d like to know what they gave her in that hour and a half, ’cause a lot of people would like to access it. Because in an hour and a half later, an hour and a half later from that incident, she came out, she looked like — well, not a million dollars, but she looked tremendously better than when she got in that van.
And, remember, this is the incident where a young girl comes up and hugs her, and the Secret Service let that happen. This is after we’ve been told she’s got pneumonia, which is contagious. You know, so a lot of legit questions being raised by this.
In addition to that, up until this time, anybody expressing concern about her health was labeled a kook, a conspiracy kook. All of those people have been vindicated here. We now have learned once again that it was Hillary and her aides and her team and the media that were hiding news from us, hiding the truth, which is not a surprise. We all knew that was going on. What we don’t know is how bad it is.
But if she’s canceling fundraising — this is the reason the Clintons exist. Fundraising is why they do what they do. And if she’s canceling a fundraising trip, of all places, to California, to the Left Coast — but then, folks, they lie so much that we don’t know what to believe. Maybe they simply cancel a trip because they admitted she’s got pneumonia and it would not make sense for her to get on an airplane and fly for five or six hours and then get off and start doing a bunch of fundraising. That wouldn’t look good after having told everybody she’s got pneumonia.
So maybe they’re sitting her down just to make the diagnosis of pneumonia stick. But there are a lot of people who are very much concerned that it’s much more than that. Because the fainting and the neurological behavior, the spasms, the seizures are not things usually associated with pneumonia, even walking pneumonia. So that’s the real question is just how bad is it and how much are they continuing to keep from us.
But put yourself in their shoes again, now. They obviously — this is the problem the Hillary team has. And I don’t mean to exclude her from it. She’s the one suffering from whatever it is, and it isn’t good. She’s on blood thinners to the extent — this we know — she’s on blood thinners to the extent that if she falls and suffers a cut it could be catastrophic. She’s essentially on anti-stroke medicine, these blood thinners kind — what’s the name of the medicine, Coumadin, it’s a very powerful blood thinner. Because she’s had clots and the concussion and so forth.
Well, whatever else, if there is anything else that’s going on, these episodes are not predictable. The coughing spasm for four minutes in Cleveland and another one same day, few hours later, then now this at the 9/11 ceremony where they, “Oh, yeah, she got overheated.” It wasn’t hot, 79 to 82 degrees. The heat wave broke. But if she’s wearing a bulletproof vest, well, that could cause you to overheat. You might be surprised to learn, folks, I have worn a bulletproof vest while appearing in public in parades and so forth. And they make you sweat out the wazoo.
So if she’s wearing a vest, and that may be why she’s wears those house coats with Captain Kangaroo pockets on them is to cover the vest. If she’s wearing a vest, she could have been overheated. It’s entirely possible. Depending on what she was doing and how much sunlight, direct sunlight she was in. I mean, anything’s possible here. We still are being held back on.
The thing that has to be concerning them is they can’t predict when these incidents are gonna happen, and there’s still a long time to go before the election. A lot of things are coming together now: why she’s off the grid for four days at a time. Why, when she gets back on the grid, she can’t make it for very long before having to retreat to off the grid again. Her appearance and her behavior and her stamina and her energy are not there. Her stamina and energy.
And I think when Trump pointed that out some weeks ago, the way they reacted to him on that looking back on it, indication, boy, he must have really hit the bull’s-eye, because they went into overdrive trying to refute that one, but it’s abundantly clear that she isn’t healthy.
Now, one of the things that some in the Drive-By are saying, “This is a great example of how there is still bias against women. That if she were a man suffering pneumonia and was struggling to persevere, that she would be given all kinds of credit for toughness and stamina and willing to do the tough things to get the job done.” But because she’s a woman, they say, she’s being portrayed as weak and incapable and incompetent and unable to overcome it.
So they’ve got a lot of things on the Clinton side ready to go to explain this. Everybody on the staff now coming down with pneumonia is another one. And they’ve got their willing accomplices in the Drive-Bys. People magazine is out with a full-fledged cover-up kind of story. “Oh, yeah. Robby Mook, everybody’s got pneumonia in the Clinton campaign. It’s just one of these unfortunate things, but we’re working hard, we’re struggling, we’re persevering.” But it’s bad, and it’s worse than they’re telling us, and we don’t know who even among the Clinton staff is fully up to speed on it.
It’s conceivable that not everybody on her staff knows how bad it is, but it is bad, and I’ll tell you this, too. If this were happening to Trump, there would have been calls for him to drop out months ago, weeks ago. The media would be saying to Trump, “The only responsible thing for you to do is to drop out. You are potentially damaging your party. You’re damaging the country. You’re putting you and your family and the country and the party at risk with this selfish pursuit of yours.”
If it were any Republican going through this, the drumbeat would be quit and quit now. And if the Republican refused to quit, it would be a never ending barrage. Not the case with Mrs. Clinton. They’re circling the wagons and finding ways, imaginative and creative, to cover this all up, or to explain it as essentially no big deal, something temporary, and she’ll get it behind her pretty soon. We’re gonna be back to normal, kicking ass and all that. But that’s not in the cards. They can’t predict — this has got to be, I would think, if I’m on the staff, the biggest scary thing every day. They can’t predict when these are gonna happen. They don’t have medication that can control it. Because if they did, then these incidents would not be happening. And they can’t.
And it’s clear they don’t have — this is another amazing thing. You can look at the coughing fit for four minutes in Cleveland; you can look at this that happened yesterday. They don’t have what I would call emergency procedures in place. Do you realize the protocols that were violated, Secret Service protocols violated yesterday? I can tell you the subject, meaning the people the Secret Service are protecting never, ever, ever are to be seen or allowed to stand and not be moving, waiting for ground transportation to show up. The subject doesn’t move until ground transportation is in place.
The one thing that you do not do, if you’re the Secret Service and you’re moving your protectee around, they don’t stop. They don’t stop, period. In a circumstance like this, once you make the decision to leave, it’s go until you get inside that van. So something happened in there is that nobody could predict, that nobody was prepared for. This was a totally unscripted, unprepared for instance yesterday or event.
BREAK TRANSCRIPT
RUSH: Okay. The Fox News headline: “Hillary Clinton Has Medical Episode at 9/11 ceremony, Sources Say.” The AP headline: “Doctors: Pneumonia Is Serious, But Clinton Should Bounce Back.” So don’t worry, ladies and gentlemen. Everything is going to be fine. It’s absolutely fine. Let me go to the phones. People want to weigh in on this. We’ll start in Madison, Wisconsin, with Chris. It’s great to have you. Hello.
CALLER: Good morning and welcome. It’s an honor to speak with you, Mr. Limbaugh.
RUSH: I appreciate that |
m undergraduate engineering facility for the University of Sheffield, built to house 20,000 sq m of laboratories, lecture theatres and workshops inside its garish latticework garb. In one of the most tenuous justifications in the history of planning applications, the designers claim the pattern “references the stone tracery of an adjacent church”.
Poole Methodist Church extension by Intelligent Design Centre
Another building allegedly inspired by its ecclesiastical neighbour, the extension to Poole’s Methodist church sadly looks more like a pile of site Portakabins they forgot to remove. Its designers, the optimistically-named Intelligent Design Centre, might do well to think about a rebrand.
5 Broadgate, City of London, by Make Architects
Facebook Twitter Pinterest Photograph: Make Architects
Rearing above the braying bankers’ den of Broadgate Circle like a silvery mothership from Tron, this gargantuan grey shed is the work of Ken “the Pen” Shuttleworth, designer of the Gherkin while at Foster’s, whose catalogue of carbuncles since leaving Norman’s side suggests the magic pen may well have belonged to someone else. A mute groundscraper slashed with gun-emplacement windows, you can’t help feeling 5 Broadgate is what the City deserves.
Lincoln Plaza, Isle of Dogs, by BUJ Architects
Perhaps the most representative building on the list of the kind of lumpen, crazy-paving-clad dross that accounts for much modern residential development, Lincoln Plaza is Galliard Homes’ latest gift to the Isle of Dogs, proving that it’s not just banks that know how to desecrate the skyline. With jutting cantilevers, random voids and a frenzy of bolt-on balconies, it is yet more proof that busy isn’t always best.October 20th, 2015. Quartzsite, AZ. 112 miles and 5,992 calories later. It’s not that late but everyone has gone to bed. Except for me and Luci who is typing my blog for me. I kinda want to go to bed too but I’m drinking my fourth protein shake of the day. I may make fun of Rae for the seriousness with which she takes her task, but at this point, she’s probably the only thing keeping me on the bike. It was 51 degrees yesterday when we left Descanso. It was 81 degrees today when we left Brawley. It didn’t get any cooler. We spent a good portion of today riding through the desert surrounded on all sides by huge sand dunes. Hydration is the next problem to solve.
My weight dropped below 140 for the first time and I’m sure water weight was a good part of the weight loss (yes, yes, denial again. I know). I can’t drink from the water bottles while I ride because I can’t let go of the handlebars with my good hand to get them. So we have to stop riding whenever I wanted to drink. Before you suggest the camelback my cheek muscles don’t work so well. I can’t use a straw (or kiss for that matter). On the plus side I can finally say without fear of contradiction that I don’t suck (badaboom! We’ll be in town till tomorrow and I’m available for weddings, birthdays and bar mitzvahs). Whenever our support crew meets up with us Rae asks Ian how much I have drunk. He usually tries to change the subject. One of the good things about this arrangement is that Ian generally gets in trouble for my infractions. “Ian! You’re supposed to be looking after him.” Whenever I stop riding, the support crew descends upon me, removing layers of clothing, putting on others, applying sunscreen, filling water bottles, cleaning wounds, wiping off blood, throwing peanut butter sandwiches at my face. Then we get back on the road. To be honest I feel like a formula one racer at a pit stop.
There is no GoPro footage today because the mount snapped. All the vibration finally took its toll. It may be tested by BMX racers, mountaineers and extreme skateboarders but did anyone think to send it on a little road ride? Huh? Anything to say Mr. GoPro man?
Since the beginning of the ride two people have mentioned that I have been ruining my one fall per 100 miles average. Well, not to disappoint, I did manage to fall today. Right in front of Rae and Ian, too. Both of them witnessed me do it. I was barely moving and we’re still not quite sure how I managed to fall. I guess I’m just talented, what can I say?
Towards the end of the day we crossed the Colorado River and are now in Arizona. We spent what seemed like way too much time on Highway 10. Compared to the bleak moonscape of the desert in the morning it was quite the contrast. We began the day in total isolation and by afternoon we were riding along the interstate shoulder, dodging chunks of rubber and engine parts; just four feet from instant death.
Rae commented that my voice is getting worse. I responded that that was because whenever we’re together she’s shoveling food down my throat.
Rae: “You’re losing weight, here eat this sandwich.” Me: “Hmgh phut mmhg phut.” Rae: “Then I want you to drink this protein shake.” Me: “gmgh frchk phut.” Rae: “Ian. How many times did he pee while riding?” Ian: “I think we can still catch the Cubs-Mets game.” Rae: “Eat this hard boiled egg, it’s good for you.” Me: “Shphung phut gugh” Rae: “I really don’t like the way your voice sounds.”
And so it goes. Life on the road with Team: Ray Goes For A Little Ride.
Peace, love and midwives
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Leicester City have rejected a bid from Bournemouth for winger Demarai Gray.
The Mercury understands the Cherries have tabled an offer for the 21-year-old, which was immediately turned down.
The bid has been reported to be around the £20m mark, but Leicester have no desire to sell the England under-21 international.
The Mercury also understands there is no release clause in Gray’s contract, despite reports back in May that there was one of £22m.
(Image: Plumb Images/Leicester City FC via Getty Images)
Gray’s representatives held talks this week with City director of football Jon Rudkin earlier this week about his future.
The winger has grown frustrated with his lack of game-time, having made only nine starts in his 30 Premier League appearances last season.
That has led to speculation this summer about his future, having been linked with interest from the likes of Everton, Tottenham and even Borussia Dortmund.
City boss Craig Shakespeare says he has spoken to Gray about giving him more game-time this season, and insists the winger is happy at the club.
"They (Gray's representatives) came in to have a meeting with the director of football, I wasn’t privy to that," said Shakespeare.
"We’ve had conversations, myself and Dimi. It is well-documented. We have spoken about trying to give him more game-time and we are both happy with that."
Gray impressed off the bench in the pre-season defeat at Burton on Tuesday, but faces competition from Riyad Mahrez and Marc Albrighton for a place in the starting line-up.Trey Parker & Matt Stone discuss Mormonism at TAM5:
“When you read the beginnings of Mormonism, when you read the Joseph Smith story, you’re just like ‘Wow … wow, really?’ The idea of anybody like Joseph Smith, who can get people to give him money and let him have sex with their wives, I know ‘respect’ is the wrong word, but there’s something incredible about that. I want to know more about *those* guys. That’s just fascinating.”
All About The Mormons? (Commentary by Trey Parker & Matt Stone):
That South Park episode spawned an apologetic website ( South Park Mormon ) and garnered a mention at the LDS Newsroom:
When the comedy writers for South Park produced a gross portrayal of Church history, individual Church members no doubt felt uncomfortable. But once again it inflicted no perceptible or lasting damage to a church that is growing by at least a quarter of a million new members every year.
I think I’ve still got some old “Yes on 8” signs lying around somewhere that I can repurpose for the protest I’ve planned. Any suggestions for pithy signage? Someone suggested “Joseph Smith died, Matt & Trey lied” but that seems awfully morbid. For anyone planning on catching the show who’d like to show up a half-hour early and join us on the sidewalk, please remember white shirts and ties for the guys, Sunday best for the gals, cheers!
Tickets go on sale to the general public November 19th. Previews begin February 24, 2011.
Update: New York Times Arts Beat blog:Do drug companies make too much money?
Imagine being charged with a crime, but an imaginary friend takes the rap for you.
That is essentially what happened when Pfizer, the world’s largest pharmaceutical company, was caught illegally marketing Bextra, a painkiller that was taken off the market in 2005 because of safety concerns.
When the criminal case was announced last fall, federal officials touted their prosecution as a model for tough, effective enforcement. “It sends a clear message” to the pharmaceutical industry, said Kevin Perkins, assistant director of the FBI’s Criminal Investigative Division.
But beyond the fanfare, a CNN Special Investigation found another story, one that officials downplayed when they declared victory. It’s a story about the power major pharmaceutical companies have even when they break the laws intended to protect patients.
Internal company documents show that Pfizer and Pharmacia (which Pfizer later bought) used a multimillion-dollar medical education budget to pay hundreds of doctors as speakers and consultants to tout Bextra.
Pfizer said in court that “the company’s intent was pure”: to foster a legal exchange of scientific information among doctors.
But an internal marketing plan called for training physicians “to serve as public relations spokespeople.”
According to Lewis Morris, chief counsel to the inspector general at the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, “They pushed the envelope so far past any reasonable interpretation of the law that it’s simply outrageous.”
But when it came to prosecuting Pfizer for its fraudulent marketing, the pharmaceutical giant had a trump card: Just as the giant banks on Wall Street were deemed too big to fail, Pfizer was considered too big to nail.
Why? Because any company convicted of a major health care fraud is automatically excluded from Medicare and Medicaid. Convicting Pfizer on Bextra would prevent the company from billing federal health programs for any of its products. It would be a corporate death sentence.In a major defeat for the anti-abortion group that released controversial recordings of Planned Parenthood employees, a federal judge on Friday banned the activists from sharing undercover video of an annual conference of abortion providers, saying that hundreds of hours of tape contain “no evidence of actual criminal wrongdoing”, as the activists claimed.
Grand jury investigating Planned Parenthood indicts anti-abortion activists instead Read more
The ruling, by US district judge William Orrick, also details for the first time how members of the group, the Center for Medical Progress, pursued their targets and tailored their footage to maximize political damage. At the annual meeting, hosted by the National Abortion Federation, activists operated off a “mark list” and, in one case, waited to approach a particular doctor until after she had been drinking.
Before releasing its first videos of Planned Parenthood employees, the center circulated a press release with “messaging guidelines”, Orrick wrote. The goal, the release said, was to inspire “Congressional hearings/investigation and political consequences” for Planned Parenthood, and increase “political pressure”.
Orrick previously blocked the center from releasing any footage taken at the NAF meeting. On Friday, he rejected claims by the Center for Medical Progress and its founder, David Daleiden, that its activities were a form of investigative journalism protected by the first amendment.
Videos of the NAF meeting “thus far have not been pieces of journalistic integrity, but misleadingly edited videos and unfounded assertions of criminal misconduct”, Orrick wrote. “Defendants did not – as Daleiden repeatedly asserts – use widely accepted investigatory journalism techniques. Defendants provide no evidence to support that assertion and no cases on point.”
The Center for Medical Progress burst on to the national scene last summer with a series of sting videos edited so they appeared to show Planned Parenthood employees selling fetal tissue in violation of federal law. Planned Parenthood denies the accusations, saying it donates fetal tissue to medical research companies at no cost.
The accusations in the videos have been disproved and 11 state-level investigations found no wrongdoing on the part of Planned Parenthood. Still, the videos resulted in five separate congressional investigations of Planned Parenthood and unsuccessful efforts by Republicans in Congress to strip the group of half a billion dollars in federal family planning funds.
But Friday’s ruling, out of San Francisco, is another sign that the center’s campaign may be faltering.
In late January, a grand jury in Harris County, Texas, investigating Planned Parenthood over the videos declined to take action against the women’s healthcare provider and instead issued several indictments against Daleiden and another activist.
The indictments related to the false IDs Daleiden and Sandra Merritt used to present themselves as members of a fake biotech company. The charge, of tampering with a governmental record, carries between two and 20 years in prison and up to a $10,000 fine. Daleiden received a second indictment under a law prohibiting the purchase and sale of human organs. Daleiden offered to buy fetal organs from Planned Parenthood of the Gulf coast in an email to which Planned Parenthood never responded.
In a separate legal fight, StemExpress, a biotech firm conducting tissue research, won a restraining order against the center in Los Angeles superior court. It has promised to sue the group over invasion of privacy. The firm had ties to Planned Parenthood, and the sting videos caused the company’s CEO to receive online death threats. The restraining order prevents the center from releasing any video footage it took of StemExpress employees.
In his Friday ruling, Orrick said “a documented, dramatic increase in the volume and extent of threats to and harassment of NAF and its members” after the revelation of some video footage contributed to his ruling.
“There’s no denying that the fraudulent campaign launched by the defendants has put abortion providers at risk,” the NAF president, Vicki Saporta, said in a statement. “We are very grateful that the judge granted this preliminary injunction, which will help protect the safety and security of our members.”
Attorneys for the center vowed over the weekend to appeal against the ruling.United Nations to appoint space ambassador to act as first contact for aliens visiting Earth
If aliens ever land on Earth there will no longer be any confusion over who will greet them with the news the United Nations is set to appoint an astrophysicist to be their first human contact.
Mazlan Othman is expected to be tasked with coordinating humanity's response to an extraterrestrial visit, if ever required.
The 58-year-old Malaysian will tell a conference next week that with the recent discovery of hundreds of planets orbiting around other stars, the detection of alien life is becoming more and more likely.
Take us to your leader: Mazlan Othman is expected to be tasked with coordinating humanity's response to an extraterrestrial visit
Ms Othman, currently the head of the UN's Office for Outer Space Affairs (Unoosa), recently told fellow scientists that mankind needed to be ready to deal with alien contact.
'The continued search for extraterrestrial communication, by several entities, sustains the hope that some day human kind will received signals from extraterrestrials,' she said.
'When we do, we should have in place a coordinated response that takes into account all the sensitivities related to the subject.
'The UN is a ready-made mechanism for such coordination.'
Friendly? Professor Stephen Hawking has questioned the theory of non-threatening alien visitors, such as ET in the Hollywood film
Plans to make Unoose the coordinating body for dealing with alien encounters are set to be debated by UN scientific advisory committees.
If the idea is backed it will then head to General Assembly.
Professor Richard Crowther, head of the UK delegation to the UN committee, admitted recently: '[Ms] Othman is absolutely the nearest thing we have to a "take me to your leader" person.'
In April though Professor Stephen Hawking warned that the alien contact, if it ever comes, may not be as friendly as has been hoped.
In a documentary, the 68-year-old scientist said he imagined aliens arriving in'massive ships' and could try to colonise Earth and plunder the planet's resources.
'We only have to look at ourselves to see how intelligent life might develop into something we wouldn’t want to meet,' he said.
'I imagine they might exist in massive ships, having used up all the resources from their home planet. Such advanced aliens would perhaps become nomads, looking to conquer and colonise whatever planets they can reach.'
He added: 'It would be 'too risky' to attempt to make contact with alien races. If aliens ever visit us, I think the outcome would be much as when Christopher Columbus first landed in America, which didn’t turn out very well for the Native Americans.'Support for the Conservatives inched up a point on a monthly poll, as optimism over the UK economy hit its highest level since 1997.
According to the latest February Ipsos Mori Political Monitor, half of Britons believe that the state of the economy will improve in the coming year, as they support prime minister David Cameron and chancellor George Osborne's methods of dealing with major challenges such as unemployment.
Over the last month, the Tories have inched up by another point to reach 31, while the Liberal Democrats and UK Independence Party both slipped by a point each.
While Britain's opposition, Labour, remains in the lead with 38, it lost one point.
"Yet another surge in economic optimism to near-record levels has given Cameron a personal boost for his stewardship of the economy, while after a difficult month for Nick Clegg his personal ratings have fallen (as have Nigel Farage's)," said Gideon Skinner, head of political research at Ipsos Mori.
"And yet despite that, the party shares – and Labour's lead – have remained steady. How these different trends play out together - especially as other issues come to the fore - is going to be key as we get closer to an election."
Satisfaction Ratings and Issues
The growing level of economic optimism has helped boost Cameron's popularity across the board over the last month.
According to the recent poll, 42% people say that they now trust Cameron more than the other party leaders to deal with managing the economy and unemployment.
This is significantly higher than those who trust Miliband (20%), Clegg (3%) and Farage (3%).
The boost increases Cameron's lead over Miliband to 22 points from 14 points just over six months ago.
However, while Conservatives have gained the edge over dealing with the economy, Labour's leader Miliband is trusted by more Britons over regulating the banks and bonuses.
While banks, bonuses, unemployment, and the overall economic outlook was at the forefront from Britons' minds, taxation and immigration also featured in key points for swaying votes.
According to Ipsos Mori, 40% support Ed Balls' policy of 50p in the pound, after Labour's Shadow Chancellor pledged to hike the top rate back up, if his party wins the election.
Meanwhile, only 28% support Osborne's policy of 45p and 26% support Boris Johnson's policy of 40p.
The polling will add a little discomfort to the Conservative-ruling coalition after Danny Alexander, who is second in command at the Treasury to his Conservative coalition colleague Osborne, slapped down the suggestion that another cut to the top income tax rate could happen before the 2015 general election.
The top rate of tax has been an issue of late. Labour wants to take it back up to 50p. I think the 45p rate is the right place to be," said Alexander.
"I wouldn't go to cutting below 45p. That would happen over my dead body. It's better to say we are going to stick where we are."
Elsewhere, Cameron gained a lead on the issue of immigration, which is now joint top in the Ipsos Mori Issues Index.
Latest figures show that 23% trust Cameron most to deal with immigration, while anti-mass immigration party leader Farage is in second place with 20%.
Around19% trust Miliband on immigration issues while only 8% trust Clegg.As if more evidence were needed about the tragedy of black education, Rachel Jeantel, a witness for the prosecution in the George Zimmerman murder trial, put a face on it for the nation to see. Some of that evidence unfolded when Zimmerman's defense attorney asked 19-year-old Jeantel to read a letter that she allegedly had written to Trayvon Martin's mother. She responded that she doesn't read cursive, and that's in addition to her poor grammar, syntax and communication skills.
Jeantel is a senior at Miami Norland Senior High School. How in the world did she manage to become a 12th-grader without being able to read cursive writing? That's a skill one would expect from a fourth-grader. Jeantel is by no means an exception at her school. Here are a few achievement scores from her school: Thirty-nine percent of the students score basic for reading, and 38 percent score below basic. In math, 37 percent score basic, and 50 percent score below basic. Below basic is the score when a student is unable to demonstrate even partial mastery of knowledge and skills fundamental for proficient work at his grade level. Basic indicates only partial mastery.
Few Americans, particularly black Americans, have any idea of the true magnitude of the black education tragedy. The education establishment might claim that it's not their fault. They're not responsible for the devastation caused by female-headed families, drugs, violence and the culture of dependency. But they are totally responsible for committing gross educational fraud. It's educators who graduated Jeantel from elementary and middle school and continued to pass her along in high school. It's educators who will, in June 2014, confer upon her a high-school diploma.
It's not just Florida's schools. According to the National Assessment of Educational Progress, nationally most black 12th-graders test either basic or below basic in reading, writing, math and science. Drs. Abigail and Stephan Thernstrom wrote in their 2004 book, "No Excuses: Closing the Racial Gap in Learning," "Blacks nearing the end of their high school education perform a little worse than white eighth-graders in both reading and U.S. history, and a lot worse in math and geography." Little has changed since the book's publication.
Drexel University history and political science professor George Ciccariello-Maher disapprovingly says that the reaction to Jeantel's court performance "has been in terms of aesthetics, of disregarding a witness on the basis of how she talks, how good she is at reading and writing." Harking back to Jim Crow days, he adds: "These are subtle things that echo literacy testing at the polls, echo the question of whether black Americans can testify against white people, of being always suspect in their testimony. It's the same old dynamics emerging in a very different guise." Then there's Morgan Polikoff, assistant professor of education at the University of Southern California, who says: "Cursive should be allowed to die. In fact, it's already dying, despite having been taught for decades." That's the kind of educational philosophy that accounts for much of our nation's educational decline.
The educational system and black family structure and culture have combined to make increasing numbers of young black people virtually useless in the increasingly high-tech world of the 21st century. Too many people believe that pouring more money into schools will help. That's whistlin' "Dixie." Whether a student is black or white, poor or rich, there are some minimum requirements that must be met in order to do well in school. Someone must make the student do his homework, see to it that he gets a good night's sleep, fix a breakfast, make sure he gets to school on time and make sure he respects and obeys his teachers. Here are my questions: Which one of those requirements can be achieved through a higher school budget? Which can be achieved by politicians? If those minimal requirements aren't met, whatever else is done is mostly for naught.
I hope Rachel Jeantel's court performance is a wake-up call for black Americans about the devastation wrought by our educational system.
Freedom Center pamphlets now available on Kindle: Click here.Democrat Glenda Ritz pulled off an upset thanks to some grass-roots campaigning in the race for Indiana superintendent of public instruction.
Ritz had 52 percent of the vote with 85 percent of precincts reporting, compared to incumbent Tony Bennett's 48 percent. Ritz was projected as the winner. It's the first time a Democrat won the seat since 1972.
"We will have an educational agenda, not a political agenda," Ritz promised supporters in her victory speech Tuesday night.
"With the reorganization of the Department of Education, local public school districts will have the support that they need to address any challenges and address any barriers for students graduating with the opportunities that they deserve when leaving our high schools. Students will experience a well-rounded curriculum taught by highly trained educators. I am so excited about the students of Indiana," she said.
Many are calling this particular race a referendum on Bennett and his educational reforms over the past few years. Ritz only spent a fraction of what Bennett spent on his campaign.
"I have to thank the tireless work of countless education groups, parents, grandparents, who talked to voters for months about the change we need for our children," Ritz said.
"I'm an educator. I'm not a politician. And they have their work cut out for them when I told them that this would be a campaign about education policy. I also must think the thousands of dedicated volunteers. And last, I have to thank my family," she added.
Ritz, who was practically unknown to the public until recent weeks, was feeling optimistic about her chances earlier Tuesday evening. She has the support of educators and teacher unions across the state.
"I've been told my work begins tomorrow as I prepare my lesson plans for the children of Indiana. Thanks!" Ritz said, smiling.
Ritz told Eyewitness News that teachers are upset with Bennett, and that her campaign worked to gain support through the use of social media websites. Many current teachers and education students on campuses changed their profile pictures to the "Ritz 4 Education" logo and posted about their support for her throughout the Election Day.
Tony Bennett told supporters in his concession speech that he has "no regrets."
"We know when we came here four years ago we were gonna plow some ground. And I told Todd one day that this work was going to be like me being a disposable lighter. And that is, you've got to light the fire and sometimes you've got to throw the lighter away and that's what happened this evening," he said. "But you know what, I ask our state to never stop putting children first. I challenge our legislators, continue on the path of reform, and I beg this state to continue to spend the 55.6 percent of its state budget with the intent of advancing children first in this state."
See results here.Filing nomination papers on Sunday, the last day to be in the race, the Awami League-backed businessman Annisul Huq said he was not a party candidate but has support of Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina.
Huq is a former president of business body FBCCI.
Though the ruling Awami League chief Hasina has asked supporters to work for the chosen candidates, former MP and actress Sarah Begum Kabori has thrown her hat in the ring.
Another former FBCCI chief and BNP Chairperson Khaleda Zia’s Adviser Abdul Awal Mintoo is also vying for the post.
His son Tabith Mohammed Awal, vice president of Bangladesh Football Federation, filed his form too.
The forms will be screened on Apr 1 and 2. The last date to withdraw nominations is Apr 9.
Returning Officer Shah Alam said 21 aspirants submitted forms for the non-partisan local government election.
“Every candidate is equal to me. I’ll treat everyone in the same way. No one will be spared if he or she violates the code of conduct,” he said.
No other leader of the Awami League and BNP submitted nomination form for Dhaka North mayor’s post.
But Chowdhury Irad Ahmed Siddiky, son of BNP’s expelled leader Chowdhury Tanvir Ahmed Siddiky, and Bikalpadhara Bangladesh’s Mahi B Chowdhury have submitted nomination papers.
Bikalpadhara is not a part of the BNP-led 20-Party alliance but is close to the party. Its chief AQM Badruddoza Chowdhury was president of Bangladesh during the 2001-6 tenure of BNP.
Jatiya Party-backed Bahauddin Ahmed Babul has submitted the papers. He is a presidium member of the party.
Its Chairman HM Ershad expelled his adviser Boby Hajjaj for contesting the polls to the Dhaka North City Corporation without his consent.
Boby is the son of business tycoon Musa Bin Shamser.
The Communist Party of Bangladesh is backing Juba Union President Abdullah Al Kafi Ratan.
JaSaD leader actor-politician Nader Chowdhury and Ganasanghati Andolan Coordinator Zonayed Saki are also fighting for the top office.
The other candidates enjoying political backing are Islami Shashantantra Andolan’s Sheikh Mohammad Fazle Bari Masud, Sheikh Shahiduzzman from Nazmul Huda-led BNA, BNF’s AYM Kamrul Islam and Jatiya Swadhinata Party’s Moazzem Hossain Khan Majlish.
The independent candidates who submitted nomination papers are Nayeem Hasan, Kazi Mohammad Shahidullah, Anisuzzman Khokan, Shamsul Alam Chowdhury, Zaman Bhuyian and Mostafa Kamal Azadi.
Awami League leader Ekhlas Uddin Molla and Nagorik Oikya’s Mahmudur Rahman Manna collected the forms but did not submit.
Dhaka South City Corporation mayor aspirantsPresident of Cinema for RealD, Anthony Marcoli, kicked off the panel. He reflects when Chicken Little kicked off RealD's 3D innovations in movie theaters. He goes on to cite how many of the top 10 highest grossing films of 2015 were available in 3D, and it's 8. He wrapped up by introducing Sony's sizzle reel.
The reel, which played without sound, featured clips from previous films and upcoming movies like Passengers, Ghostbusters, and Magnificent Seven.
Tom Rothman, Chairman of Sony Pictures Entertainment, takes the stage. He fills the audience in on the massive amount of movies which are about to be previewed. The presentation will begin with two "very different" films, the first of which is Billy Lynn's Long Halftime Walk. Footage plays.
An army soldier - Billy Lynn -stands beneath fire works of a huge football game. Flashing back, he's in an intense battle of modern day warfare. He continues on the field, struggling with being honored for the worst day of his life. He reunites with his sister and family. It's very emotional. He is told that his story belongs to America now. Vin Diesel puts his hand on Billy's shoulder in a desert base. Billy is seen in love, at battle, crying on the field. To conclude the trailer, he watches fireworks on the field and is asked by his sister (Kristen Stewart) what really happened "over there."
Next up is Passengers, which Rothman calls "intimate" and "epic." He welcomes the movie's stars, Jennifer Lawrence and Chris Pratt to the stage. Lawrence descibes her character: a writer in New York who wants to take the 120 year journey to come back and write about. Pratt's Jim is a mechanic who enjoys fixing things. They present some early, incomplete footage for the film.
A huge ship, called Starship Avalon, flies through space with over 5200 character on board. Jim (Chris Pratt) is awoken ahead of schedule. He showers up and gets dressed, ready to meet people, but running around the extravagantly sci-fi ship, he finds no one. He soon learns that he won't arrive on the destination planet for 90 years. He has trouble getting food and drinks but eventually gets coffee from a machine. Later, he's excited to find a bartender, who turns out to be an android. Jim continues his exploring and innovating on the ship as the bartender's voiceover tells him that every cloud has a silver lining. He eventually finds Lawrence's character who is wondering what's going on. She asks how long he's been awake and it's been a year and three weeks. They want to go back into hibernation but nothing works. They come to grips with the fact that it won't work and start occupying each other on the ship by movies, dates, and swimming. They eventually got it on in the cafeteria, and the pool, and out in space (or at least hold hands out there). As Lawrence's character swims, the gravity in the ship is lost and she is trapped in a bubble of water as Jim drifts from his bed. They come to find out they're stranded on a sinking ship. Jim suits up to try and find a fix but the two are shown struggling on the ship and eventually he is pulled out into space.
Next up is a sizzle reel of films coming from TriStar. It includes looks at Jamie Foxx, Ansel Elgort, Lilly James, Alza Gonzalez, and Kevin Spacey's Baby Driver, Ewan MacGregor's T2 which will return the original cast and starts filming in May, and George Clooney and Julia Robert's Money Monster. Stage turns to Sony's faith based films from Affirm Films and then Sony Pictures Animation. Kristen Belson takes the stage to talk about the upcoming animated projects. She discusses the "big, big adventure," the Smurfs will go on in their next film and teases how the Smurfs world will be changed forever, highlighting Demi Lovato as Smurfette. Then, The Emoji Movie, which is set for August 11, 2017. It takes place inside of a cell phone where emojis live and work. Concept art looks like computer chips turned into communities and the movie will go to the "world of the wallpaper," where each icon is a massive cube containing a unique world. In December of 2017, Sony Pictures Animation will tell a Nativity story from the point of view of animals on hand for the first Christmas. On September 21, 2018, the third installment of the Hotel Translyvania will arrive. Finally, the Animated Spider-Man movie set for December of 2018 is highlighted with a logo on screen.
Screen Gems takes over the screen for a sizzle reel, starting with an ad from Resident Evil's Umbrella Corporation which transitions into a trailer set in Raccoon City. Alice says she'll be telling her final story. Zombies are everywhere. Explosions and fire are everywhere. She's leading a group to the hive. They have to get the airborne anti-virus. Alice ziplines and kicks ass and monsters look intense. Then, blood drips down the screen. A message appears on the screen about crossing the line between reality and entertainment. Footage of people being killed in a house is seen through the "Keep Watching" title. A woman sits, crying, "Why are you doing this to us?" but the man doesn't seem the least bit phased. In a kitchen, another man sees a photo printing from an old fashion Kodak camera. As the picture becomes more clear, he sees someone is standing behind him. Upon turning around, a masked man attacks the man in the kitchen. Third is another "seductive thriller" which looks very intimate and brutal: When The Bough Breaks. Then, a look at the next Underworld film. The girl kicks ass in shadows and is preparing for a new war. She is told to pursue special blood which will make her invincible. A very recognizable cast slays enemies with quick action and effects. It's Underworld: Blood Wars.
Lastly from Screen Gems is a film about a couple of poor decision making teens who attempt to rob a blind man but get caught. One gets killed and the two others are trapped in his house as he now has their friend's gun. What they find is quite haunting. It's action packed and claustrophobic as they try to escape. It's Don't Breathe. Now, it's time for the Columbia slate of films. They will be partnering with Skydance for Life with Ryan Reynolds, Rebecca Ferguson, and and Jake Gyllenhaal. Looks at The Shallows, Inferno, and The Angry Birds Movie take the screen.
The Shallows sees Blake Lively eerily in the ocean. When she elects to catch one last wave she is ripped under the water. Two surfers try to rescue her but they are brutally mauled by a shark. Someone finds the footage and might be able to help but Lively's character is stranded out in the middle of the ocean, claiming to have a plan. Inferno sees Tom Hanks trying to finish the plan. He finds art of Dante's Inferno and questions the map of hell. Chaos ensues and red smokey liquid erupts from a building. Angry Birds shows the humor of birds not being able to fly. Red has trouble fitting in because he is always so angry. The green pigs show up and while many are welcoming, Red isn't. He's rallying everyone to fight against them. It's time for the grand finale. The lights go down on the speaker and start going a little crazy. Whispers are heard throughout the coliseum. Ghostbusters footage starts to play. The ladies ride in their ECTO-1 to the scene of a Ghost. As the light scome up, director Paul Feig and the four members of the Ghostbusters team are on the stage. Kate McKinnon says she has a life long love of taking things apart. Melissa McCarthy says she grew up in a barn talking to ghosts. Leslie Jones jokes with an audience member who yells, "I love you, Leslie!" Kristen Wiig claims to have gotten a degree in particle physics for the role. After the banter, they introduce some a new clip.
The new Ghostbusters, minus Leslie Jones, are looking for Ed Molgrave. A young man tells them he died fifteen years ago. McCarthy is excited because that means he's a ghost and Ed Jr. approaches, looking exactly like Ed Molgrave. McCarthy |
was the product of America’s “white supremacist patriarchy.”
It's the white supremacist patriarchy, stupid. — George Ciccariello-Maher (@ciccmaher) October 2, 2017
But liberals will drown out all discourse with a deafening chorus screeching "gun control." — George Ciccariello-Maher (@ciccmaher) October 2, 2017
To believe that someone who would shoot down 50 people wouldn't circumvent any gun law you pass is the height of delusion. — George Ciccariello-Maher (@ciccmaher) October 2, 2017
White people and men are told that they are entitled to everything. This is what happens when they don't get what they want. — George Ciccariello-Maher (@ciccmaher) October 2, 2017
The narrative of white victimization has been gradually built over the past 40 years. — George Ciccariello-Maher (@ciccmaher) October 2, 2017
It is the spinal column of Trumpism, and most extreme form is the white genocide myth. — George Ciccariello-Maher (@ciccmaher) October 2, 2017
Yesterday was a morbid symptom of what happens when those who believe they deserve to own the world also think it is being stolen from them. — George Ciccariello-Maher (@ciccmaher) October 2, 2017
Ciccarriello-Maher has been criticized for his bizarre assumptions about the shooting. The shooter’s brother, Eric Paddock, claimed that his brother Stephen was not involved in any political or religious organization.
Las Vegas shooter's brother says Stephen Paddock was not involved in "any political organization" https://t.co/Xolt9gNEdb pic.twitter.com/kn0y72X1RK — Variety (@Variety) October 2, 2017
Ciccariello-Maher came under fire before for his remarks on social media. He has previously argued that “riots work” and that the police should be abolished. He came under fire for tweeting the Blank Panther Party slogan “Off the Pigs” in reference to the killing of police officers. He received major press on Christmas Eve of 2016 when he tweeted, “All I Want for Christmas is White Genocide,” which he claimed was mocking a white supremacist talking point. That same evening, he tweeted that the massacre of whites during the Haitian Revolution was a “good thing.”I'm Still Not a Libertarian
so I guess that means I'm opposed to personal freedom by Paul Kienitz
If there is one political movement today that is so up-and-coming that it's downright trendy, it's Libertarianism. It's become very popular in the high-tech industries, where there are a lot of people who have reaped great rewards from the operation of the free market, who are trained to an engineer's habit of reductionist problem-solving, and who tend to have less contact than the average person with the areas of human experience that don't fall within the scope of these things. Libertarianism is tremendously in evidence in places where the high-tech subculture predominates, such as in public discussion on The Net, and in the computer industry in general.
It has now become a commonplace for corporate leaders in high-tech industries to use high-toned Libertarian rhetoric to make their case for freedom from "government intervention" -- though of course, just as in traditional industry, the desire to be free of regulation tends to be highly selective. One of the types of government "intervention" that is most strongly protested is any law that holds them accountable to the public and to their own shareholders. More than one attempt has been made to get laws passed granting them, in effect, special immunity from lawsuits.
But such hypocrisy is not the issue when deciding whether one is going to personally support Libertarianism. I've had fairly extensive exposure to Libertarian beliefs and rhetoric by this time -- within the software industry, in online discussion, and elsewhere -- and believe I can say that I understand the philosophy and its arguments reasonably well. And it has not been without influence on me: as I have matured my political attitudes has definitely moved in a direction with somewhat more emphasis on individual liberty and responsibility, and less on collective action. On some issues such as gun control, I've shifted toward a more libertarian position. Nevertheless, there is no way I can be an actual Libertarian, as that term is currently understood. To me, there are many reasons to doubt that a Libertarian system is the smartest choice, and some basic fallacies underlying most arguments that doing everything according to Libertarian principles would make everything right.
The first fallacy is one I call the Fallacy of Revolution. It can be found in any movement that seeks to radically revise the underpinnings of society, whether by abolishing money, imposing a theocracy, eliminating undesirable ethnic groups, repealing all law, organizing everyone's diet according to principles of macrobiotics, or whatever other secret of a perfect society any group comes up with. In particular, it comes up in exactly equal form among communists seeking to eliminate private property and anarcho-libertarians trying to do the opposite. The fallacy can be expressed more or less as follows:
By making these radical changes, we are removing the root cause of all the failures and evils of society as it presently stands. This will eliminate all of the existing problems, and since we have no knowledge of what new problems might arise, we can assume there will be none. Everything will work right, because there are no foreseeable things that can go wrong.
A corrolary of this fallacy is that if one believes that there is one big solution, you usually have to believe that there is only one big problem. This means that once you have identified the bad guy, he gets blamed for everything. The identified group or institution becomes a scapegoat, so that even problems that have nothing to do with it are laid at its door. What communists, anti-communists, Nazis and other ethnic nationalists, religionists, fringe feminists, and revolutionaries of every kind all have in common is that they can name the source of society's ills in one or two words. For anarchists and libertarians, the word is "government".
We can laugh now at the naive Communists of 90 years ago, with their vision of a world of peace and plenty brought about by centralized bureaucracy. (For a particularly mind-boggling example, see the polemic novel Looking Backward by Edward Bellamy.) The horror that came from the revolution they once viewed with starry-eyed rapture is blood-chilling to us now. But the terms it was described in before the fact are eerily reminiscent of the way the Libertarians of today foresee a revolution in the opposite direction, abolishing public property instead of private property -- and without hindsight, each argument sounds about equally credible to the listeners of its time.
This is the first reason I do not support the present Libertarian movement: because it demands that I take so much on faith. It is too clearly an article of faith that one must believe that certain untested actions will have beneficial outcomes. Since the real world offers no evidence whatever to back up these expectations as certainties, but only offers the hope that it might happen if the path is cleared, any sensible person has to conclude that trying it might be quite a gamble. But a true Libertarian, in my experience, can be depended on to insist that it's no gamble at all.
I am not going to gamble my future on a movement that bases so much of its hope on such blatant wishful thinking. Especially when the fallback belief is that, should some hopes fail, it would only mean that such failure is therefore the right outcome and should be embraced.
The second fallacy is one that I personally refer to as the Libertarian Fallacy, since unlike the Revolutionary Fallacy it is specific to this branch of philosophy. It is popular with several subtypes of conservatives and most anarchists, as well as with Libertarians. It can be expressed as the idea that freedom is measured by absence of laws. Another say of stating it is that only the government can restrict your rights. (Some Libertarians strongly support this wording, saying that a law removes or restricts your rights, but a private entity can only infringe on your rights without changing them.) To me, this is an artificial double standard, which labels a restraint on your freedom by one outfit in a completely different way than the same restraint by a different outfit, because one has the label of "government" and the other does not. Indeed, much of the fabric of reasoning in Libertarianism is based on presuming that the government is uniquely unlike any other entity, and therefore must be judged by entirely different standards from how anything else is appraised.
To me, the question is how much power others have over you and how constrained your choice of actions is, not whether the constraint is by public action rather than private action. In the viewpoint of those who hold this fallacy, what matters is how free you are on paper, not how free you are in what choices are actually open to you right now in real life. According to this view, a destitute person with no public support is more free than one who gets some kind of pension or welfare, despite the fact that the latter is the one who can do many things that are closed off to the former.
I will refer to these two definitions of freedom as F 1 and F 2, the former being freedom on the books and the latter being freedom available in the concrete moment. Now there can be plenty of good arguments for why F 1 is somehow more essentially important than F 2, but I am not going to go along with a movement that dismisses F 2 from consideration. The freedom that I most value day to day is F 2 -- the practical opportunity to arrange my life the way I best like, not the theoretical opportunity to do things that some random legislator might want to outlaw someday. Now F 1 is indeed important, make no mistake; it is only by making sure of some guarantees in this area that we preserve our rights and make sure that F 2 has a stable foundation. It is the kind we like to fight for as an ideal, because we can speak of it in noble abstract terms and magnanimously promise that it will be equal for all. No such idealization is possible for F 2, since it can never be equal in practice for different people. It depends on things like how much money you have and how healthy you are. So we tend to avoid confronting the question politically, and many conservatives argue that it should not be considered at all, since that's a slippery slope leading to socialistic intervention. But in disregarding it for the sake of clarity and fairness, we can easily argue ourselves into a situation where by increasing "freedom" we curtail our opportunity in practice.
The Libertarian philosophy takes this to an extreme, sometimes arguing that even the most drastic loss of F 2 is right and proper and not to be worried about for an instant if it comes about by increasing F 1. In this, Libertarians can readily fall back on the tried and true argument long used by capitalist conservatives of the old school: namely that once you are free 1, then whatever goes wrong for you in the area of F 2 is axiomatically your own fault, and therefore it would be morally wrong to do anything but leave you to get yourself out of it however you can.
There are psychological reasons outside the scope of this discussion why our culture has often promoted an attitude of "blaming the victim", of finding reasons why anyone who suffers misfortune must have somehow brought it on themselves. This attitude manifests in extreme cases as a magical belief that whatever happens to you is something that you "chose" unconsciously. Politics aside, I find this behavior repugnant and consider it a symptom of emotional unhealth, a defense mechanism that soothes fears at the expense of other people. When any political philosophy incorporates this attitude, that philosophy and I part company. This is especially true when, as has often been the case with Republican-style conservatism, this blaming attitude is put in the service of class interests and racial and sexist biases. The argument implies that the advantaged must have earned and created their advantage through merit, whereas the disadvantaged are in a worse position strictly because of their own inadequacy. The hypocrisy of this self-serving sanctimoniosity is obvious enough, I hope, to require no elaboration here.
For anyone who believes in the principle I call the Libertarian Fallacy, it is difficult not to progress from there to some form of the it's-all-your-own-fault argument, and from there to a disregard for issues of unearned advantages held by a privileged class, race, or gender. Indeed, most Libertarians regard issues of discrimination as too intangible to support in their envisioned court system, which is usually described as being based on very clear and concrete rights focused on property. Since what I want for society is the best spread of opportunity as measured by the combination of F 1 and F 2, rather than by just one of them, and privilege issues greatly undercut F 2 in ways that, despite smooth lies to the contrary, have nothing to do with what people have brought upon themselves, I conclude that the Libertarian agenda is not the one I want to support in this area.
When taken to an extreme, this fallacy would lead to the conclusion that the ideal system is no laws at all. Libertarians do recognize that in order for people to be free in practice, there has to be some law to define and protect their individual rights. This is an implicit recognition that less law does not always mean more freedom. By granting a minimal recognition of this and giving it no further consideration, Libertarians have, in essence, tried to declare that the problem is solved simply because it is boxed in with no wiggle room. This gives a very definite answer to such questions, but that doesn't mean it's the most realistic answer. It's just the answer that is most satisfying to a mind that wants one simple set of rules to answer every question.
Speaking of logical extremes brings me to the third reason why I am not a Libertarian, which is not due to a fallacy of thought but simply because of the ideological absolutism the movement is so rife with. Or maybe this is a fallacy... the utterly commonplace fallacy of believing that your own opinions and moral judgments must be right. The movement attracts more than its share of absolutism, because it is based so much on axiomatic principles rather than on weighing different points of view. A political absolutist -- someone who believes that it is right that you should get a particular political environment, whether you agree or not -- is simply not a person to be trusted, especially in large and ambitious groups. One of the contradictions of Libertarianism, to me, is that it's based on leaving people as free as possible to create the way of life they want, yet it feels it must impose a system of Libertarian law on everybody, without regard to their own wishes. According to Libertarian belief, this system is simply the only one that's morally permissible, all others being in some abstract sense a violation of everyone's rights. Libertarians argue that I can be as communistic as I want in my own community, but this disregards the fact that my whole group would have no choice about living under laws based on the most rigid and extreme interpretation of property rights, in which if we go broke we're dead meat. I will not go along with a movement that wants to dictate to non-members what the only allowable way to run a society is, no matter how well they argue that the other systems, not theirs, are the ones really doing the dictating. (Libertarians excel at proving that everyone else is tyrannical.)
At least with what we've got we get to adjust it and change our minds, we get to incorporate a variety of differing philosophies, and make compromises back and forth. A society built on true Libertarian principle allows little or no compromise on any matters of law, and settles all such questions by simple absolute principles decided in advance by a small group of ideological leaders. We are then expected to live with the consequences as best we can, and if we happen to end up worse off than before, that doesn't matter; the important thing is not that we do what we feel works best for ourselves, but that we stick by the principles. I am not going to support putting some random goober's opinion of moral principle ahead of the consequences for live flesh and blood people. That's a form of "liberty" that, from one angle, looks suspiciously like theocracy.
Absolutism creates intolerance, of the sort that leads to violence. Once you convince yourself that any other agenda is morally wrong and violates your rights, it's not that big a step to the conclusion that you have a right to use force on those trying to advance the opposing cause. If you listen to some hardcore Libertarians talking about rights to self-defense and defense of property, and the incompatibility of those rights with such things as taxation for government actions outside the limited role they envision, you almost start wondering what reason they'd give for not having taken up arms. Certainly the odious Objectivist branch of the Libertarian movement (the people who some Libertarians say are the ones making the rest of them look bad) are capable of embracing such arguments for violence, since similar ones are endorsed in their guru's novels.
True political absolutism, if it gains power, is dangerous in another way, because no system of dogma is ever going to handle everything that comes up. The real world is bigger than the conception of it in our heads that we invent our rules from, and it always has ways to step outside of the pint-sized boxes we build for it. This means that sooner or later every absolutist will be confronted with some piece of reality that fails to fit his beliefs. When this happens, he can either deny reality, or alter his beliefs. But the latter means ceasing to be absolutist, so to remain a True Believer will inevitably require, sooner or later, pretending that certain facts are not real. Such instances of denial are not difficult for anyone to find in Libertarian discussion today.
For even more confusion, when absolutist beliefs move from the speech and the pamphlet to the legislatures and the courts, and try to cope with real life, they will inevitably run sooner or later into paradoxes, where the overly simplified principles end up working against their own supposed purposes. When this happens, the choice comes down to either waffling on principle for the sake of having things work out reasonably in practice (which undermines the presumption of moral necessity behind the new system and invites any amount of further twiddling), or sticking by the rules regardless of the consequences, even though somebody gets fucked over. The really dedicated man of principle will, of course, choose the latter. But not with my support.
For one example of how a paradox can arise from Libertarian principles as they have been explained to me so far, consider whether a citizen has a right to travel. I think most people would agree that to be held prisoner in one place is a violation probably second only to that of a physical attack on the body, more fundamental than a theft of property is. (Our penal system reserves imprisonment for more drastic crimes than the ones it punishes by seizing property.) I think this means that most of us would agree that the right to get up and go somewhere else is fundamental. Now, Libertarians are all for repealing laws that restrict travel, such as immigration quotas. But they also generally favor the privatization of all public roads, so that instead of being paid for by taxes, they would be paid by fees or subscriptions of those who use them. For roads to work on a private basis without taxes, it is of course necessary that the property rights of road owners should not be watered down; any requirement that a road owner has to allow travel by everyone greatly undermines both the financial attractiveness of road maintenance and the true elimination of centralized government coercion. So the person who owns the road outside your front door has every right to refuse to allow you to step onto it, if you don't have the toll fee or if he just doesn't like your kind of person. And it isn't just outside your front door, but wherever you go; you can hardly take a step in any direction unless you first ensure that you have an invitation or permission of the person controlling the land under your feet. We already have laws enough that make it a crime for a destitute person to lie down and sleep. Now the proposal is to make it a crime also for them to stand up and walk around, putting a hike along the shoulder of the road on the same footing with a hike through your back yard.
Libertarianism and other schemes involving maximum privatization are a completely untried experiment in seeing how human beings could get along with no public space. There has never been a society, to the best of my knowledge, that has found any way to live as a community without some kind of common public space. I would predict that the need for it is so great that eventually something must give way: either we would have some landowners throwing up their hands and ceding their holdings to free public use just because somebody's got to do it, or people will get so uncomfortable with restrictions that there would be civil disobedience of private property laws in areas that people had the strongest public-land feeling about. I don't think people can really manage without some amount of public space, especially not if they take the right of travel seriously.
It might well be that some public-minded landowners would contribute their land to be free public space, but then the cost of this falls on just one person. There's a tremendous incentive to hold back and wait for someone else to blink first. How many other amenities that we take for granted would be hard to find if each one required that some individual chooses to sacrifice the profit he could make?
The agenda for privatizing all the roads is not only an instance of discarding people's freedom 2 in the name of freedom 1, it is also an example of the kind of paradox that always finds a way to crop up when people try to address a wide range of topics with a simple absolutist set of rules. In this case, the headlong pursuit of F 1 in one area ends up not just impeding F 2 in practice, but in fact violating another basic right just as fundamental as the one that the effort was made for the sake of. It doesn't just sacrifice F 2 to F 1, but F 1 to F 1, since the law on the books would state that you are not permitted to travel from your home or wherever without someone's permission.
Another paradox arises when you take the right to bear arms to an absolutist extreme. According to Libertarian thought, citizens are not truly free from the threat of tyranny until they are privately armed at a level that can match the government. These days, that doesn't just mean machine guns and grenades, it means fighter jets and nuclear missiles. With any lesser armament, a tyranny can always end the fight in its favor, so if you truly don't compromise, you can't stop short of this. When nobody has the right to blow your entire city to Hell but everybody has the right to be ready to do so (if they can afford it), and your only recourse if somebody decides to let fly is to either hire a private anti-missile battalion and pray, or just sue the attacker after you're dead... what you've got isn't freedom, it's a reign of terror. A cold war on every block? Once is enough, include me out. At least when weapons of mass destruction are handled through a democratic government, you can hold them accountable, limit their construction, and put rules on their use before people get slaughtered. Though a government monopoly on hydrogen bombs is hardly to the liking of those uncomfortable with the power it gives to the evil State, it's probably the reason we're still alive. There is no man less free than a dead guy.
There is one way around these kinds of paradoxes: people have to be willing to compromise on hard-and-fast rules of dogma, and cease treating them as moral absolutes. In the case of guns, for instance, we must recognize that somewhere there is a cutoff level beyond which it is suicide to have most of society decide one way, and a minority decide the other way. We made it through the cold war alive because we had the capacity to make one decision about whether to launch or not to launch, without fearing (much) that some faction would decide otherwise and take matters into its own hands. We can argue later about how bad a weapon should be before we either ban it or restrict it to collective use instead of individual use, but first we had better acknowledge that some division point must exist. Until the Libertarian movement recognizes the need to permit and practice such compromises, and qualifies their morally righteous stance with some admission that the rules they propose will need to be made less pure and exacting in practice, I cannot support them.
Speaking of privatization brings up my fourth disagreement with Libertarianism, which is the focus on private property as the central individual right. This disagreement especially applies to ownership of land, where every legally earned title traces back eventually to simple theft if you follow the history far enough. I have nothing against the right to keep what you've produced with your own labor or traded for with your labor, but it's hard to apply that reasoning to land, and not much easier to apply to "labor" that consists of grabbing natural resources. In any case I hardly consider that right to be of the same core primacy as the right to not being bodily violated, or the right not to be coerced by force or threats into doing what you don't want to do. Some Libertarian thinkers elevate property rights so high that they subsume all other rights under it, defining one's bodily rights on the basis that your body is your property. If it is, of course, then you can sell it, and the most antiliberty practice of all, slavery, is legal. I would hope Libertarians at some point clarify better to what degree their system would permit or forbid the "voluntary" signing away of basic rights by contract.
I'm not convinced that ownership is so fundamental. I rather think that it is essentially an artificial right -- at bottom, an ad-hoc legal creation that has been found to be useful in preserving various other rights and freedoms that are less easily defined, like the right to make a bed and not find someone else sleeping in it. The most basic rights, such as the right not to be maimed, are based on what is necessary for human survival and well-being. Property rights have no such direct foundation; their justification is indirect and secondary. The system that defines one's body as one's property has only one redeeming feature: it makes everything simple. Apparently this is a big part of its appeal.
To me, making property rights the whole story is as silly as if we were to make, say, the right to privacy the most important thing in law. Privacy is a real right, to be sure, yet if the law said that we could only prosecute crimes committed in public, or only recover stolen property if the thief happens to bring it out in the open, we'd catch on pretty soon that there are one or two things in the world more important than avoiding intrusion into privacy.
There are far too many examples in history in which vigorous enforcement of property rights has become a primary tool of violating people's other rights. The history of slavery is the most blatant example, but even if you outlaw overt slavery, there are many examples of ways in which economic advantages have been leveraged, through uncompromising enforcement of property rights, into various forms of pseudo-slavery. (Even if techniques such as perpetual debt are not used, people today have forgotten the literal truth the term "wage slavery" once had. When chattel slavery was abolished in the USA, many industrialists were not slow to learn that just by maintaining a large enough local labor surplus, they could actually get more work at less cost than the plantation owners did, when the alternative was to starve.) Many Libertarians today endorse the view that slavery is a perfectly reasonable thing for a creditor to inflict on a debtor. The whole fundamental principle of Libertarianism is supposed to be that nobody is allowed to initiate coercion on anyone else, but if you owe money then you are considered to have initiated coercion by not paying, and you lose your rights -- in the view of those who see the body as your property, you lose every right. There is nothing the creditor can't do to you as a way of trying to make you pay him back. The Libertarian Party's sacred principle of non-initiation of coercion wears pretty thin when you listen to some Libertarians list all the conditions that they would consider to be initiation of coercion against them, morally permitting them to respond with force. If a person is belligerent and prone to rationalizing, there's not much he can't justify to himself with Libertarian logic. All he has to do is, like any schoolyard bully, whine "But he started it!"
Many critics of Libertarianism have noted that the concept of "initiation of force" gets defined in very unexpected ways sometimes, to make their other ideas consistent with it. For example: the Libertarian Party opposes all legislation against ethnic discrimination, on the grounds that it violates one's right of free association and the right not to engage in a contract when you don't wish to... and this means that if a business puts up two drinking fountains labeled "white" and "colored" and a nonwhite person drinks from the white drinking fountain, the drinker has "initiated force" against the owner of the fountain.
Historically, the elevation of property rights has always been most strongly advocated by, and of course most to the advantage of, those who already had all the property. When there is unrest at differences in privilege, that's when you'll hear the most urgently sanctimonious declarations from the upper strata about how much we all need to revere property rights. But when a movement among have-nots embraces and advocates the values most promoted by the haves, that is when the existing social order is least threatened and real change becomes least likely. I would probably be a lot more sympathetic to Libertarianism if its view of fundamental rights was not so tied to ownership. I would love to see someone develop a branch of liberty-based thought that is less tied to such agendas as privatization, and less a stooge for the interests of the existing advantaged class (which knows very well how to use Libertarian ideals as a stick to beat down their reformist opponents with).
Both communism and anarcholibertarian capitalism have tried to answer the question of how to deal with property rights by picking an extreme and declaring that there is no need for compromise, one giving personal property zero credence and the other giving it infinite credence. Neither seems willing to acknowledge any validity in the middle ground, despite the fact that every human society has existed somewhere in that middle and every attempt to hold it to one end has been a failure, sometimes a very destructive one. I don't think a society in which property is everything, and everything is property, is one that real flesh and blood people can live in. Every society has had to temper ownership with commonality, and vice versa.
In their day, Communists were famous for being so absolutist that rival sects with only minor differences could be declared to be no different from their worst enemies. To (say) a Stalinist, a rival Trotskyist might be no better than a Nazi, just as in the golden age of Protestantism it was easy for (say) a Baptist to believe that the Congregationalists were all going to burn. Nowadays it's among Libertarians that you hear statements such as "Reagan was just another liberal" or "Democrats and Fascists are basically the same thing". (I keep noticing these parallels, as if Libertarianism is just a sort of Communism turned inside out, that are of course completely invisible to anyone inside either camp...) To their credit, though, it does have to be admitted that Libertarians are glad to accept partial measures and small steps in the desired direction, and don't demand all or nothing the way Communists have often done.
Given that Communism doesn't seem to work nowadays as an alternative to private ownership, we should wonder why the idea has so much appeal, generation after generation. What makes so many people wish it could be more successfully applied? I think the answer is that the ideal of communal living mirrors the way most of our ancestors lived before industry, and especially before agriculture. The fundamental way of human life, for most of the time our species has existed, was to live in village-sized bands, sometimes nomadic, in which most work was essentially communal and individuals generally had private ownership of little more than their clothes and some tools, which were continually replaced as they wore out. In present-day cultures that still live this way, a constant interchange of gifts is often a central part of both relations within a group and relations between neighboring groups. The process of evolution that made us what we are today took place mostly in this setting. It is shaped to fit our fundamental instincts, and our fundamental insticts have been shaped in turn to fit this way of life. This, I believe, is why when modern people get a chance to live a more communal way of life in which money is of minimal importance, they often become strongly attached to it. And it's why those who have gone from modern cultures to live among people whose cultures still follow a communal village-based model so often end up reporting that these people seem fundamentally happier than we are. A communal life feels better than a market-driven life.
Endless numbers of modern thinkers and observers and writers have discussed, from endless different viewpoints, the common observation that the mood of the typical citizen of the modern industrial market economy has an undertone of constant angst and discontent that can't be put into words. For generations, the observant among us have consistently been noticing that most of us are, at bottom, not happy living this way. Those who defend the modern social system often don't deny this, but instead try to ennoble discontent, characterizing it as the divine wellspring of our greatness, the force that pushes us to expand and achieve. But how much expanding and achieving do most people get to accomplish? Some conclude that we are discontented because the market wants us that way; it keeps us ready to buy tons of crap that they tell us will make us happier. But maybe the real reason for our common discontent is that having one's life controlled by money is simply not a decent way to live, or at least one that is a bad fit for our basic nature.
Besides arguing privatization on moral grounds, many Libertarians make an economic argument, and all too often they use a whopper which I call the Taxation Fallacy, which even a nine year old ought to know better than. The Taxation Fallacy counts how much wealth is taken away by taxation, but ignores the amount that comes back from it -- it treats money that is taxed as if it simply disappears, rather than being moved around. By using this fallacy, some respected Libertarians argue that the amount of wealth the typical person can reap would increase by a ratio of eight to one if taxation were eliminated, and nearly that much if it were reduced to the levels they advocate. The fact that many real countries, including ours at some times, have enjoyed low levels of taxation without any such fantastic prosperity arising is explained away by pointing to the growth of industry and technology, which was not advanced enough in those other cases to produce the wealth that would supposedly come about today without the burden of government. But this gaffe is not the foundation of Libertarian economic arguments; it is simply an indication of how uncritically eager some followers can be to believe in the free market.
I have my doubts as to whether we would prosper better under an economy managed on pure laissez-faire principles, as Libertarians and other free-market fans insist we would. As I look back over the history of modern economies, I am struck by a fact which I don't think I've ever really heard anyone point out: the times and cultures that enjoyed the most envy-inspiring prosperity, the greatest freedom from want, the most smug levels of well-to-do-ness in the broad population (barring a few that had windfalls from some natural resource they got hold of by luck), all came about under governmental systems that applied some pretty substantial progressive taxation to the citizens with the highest income. And when we look at situations where there was no such taxation and something closer to laissez-faire operation existed, we constantly find ourselves reading a story of a pyramid-shaped society with a small group of rich aristocrats or plutocrats and a large supply of poverty. Which is exactly the direction our present culture has moved back towards since the Reagan upper-bracket tax cuts of the early 1980s, and then inched away from again with the Clinton upper-bracket tax boost of the early 1990s. Even the most conservative and marketarian of economists will rarely be heard to admit a belief that a wide separation between rich and poor is a good thing in itself... they usually go along with more liberal folks in saying that yes, naturally a broad and prosperous middle class is the best thing for all in the long run, and just claim that somehow the market gets all the credit when this happens, and government gets the blame when it doesn't, despite the historical correlation so often running in the opposite direction.
Now I don't know what will happen under a Libertarian pure market economy, but my best guess is that it will sport the same misfeatures that we have seen in the past at times of little government power over money: more separation between rich and poor, less broad circulation of wealth (and all the secondary aspects of prosperity that go with it, such as good education) and therefore a lower median standard of living, even if the mean income keeps rising; a rebirth of economic systems of semi-slavery based on rent or debt or rights signed away by contract; and a flowering of monopolies, as a consequence of all the little ways that an existing advantage can be used to leverage a bigger advantage. (Maybe when the Libertarian revolution takes over, they will relocate their capital to Seattle, home of such paragons of fair and open competition as Microsoft, Boeing, and Starbucks.) When education and other things that support opportunity become more stratified, I believe we will see a sharper and solider set of class boundaries develop, such that it may still be possible for a low-born person to raise himself by his bootstraps to be the equal of the well-off, but it will take him five times as much work and smarts as it will take the young generation of the already advantaged. We have enough Bushes and Quayles rising to positions of power and influence without ability or hard work already.
Any loss of prosperity among the broad majority will reduce the creation of new wealth. The economy of the mid eighties showed this in action: speculative investments boomed, while productive ones stagnated, as money flowed from the many to the few. And current history is also warning us that when control of land is concentrated in few hands, we can expect ecological abuses to be more extreme.
As increasing technology enables ever greater amplification of abilities, the separation between those who start out with abundant resources and those who don't, in terms of what they can then get out |
have been Cruz. Or Rubio. Or the feckless Bush.
What we have is the most capable candidate in the entire field of candidates given to us, and quite arguably the most capable and prepared candidate, with obvious intelligence and insight, ever. Yet it's all to easy for you to begin carping from the sidelines. Because that's what failed conservatives and Republicans do. Flag
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NYT Pick Mary O Boston, MA 19 hours ago I'm trying to understand the point of this column. "The dangers" of Hillary Clinton? We live in a world facing many complex and dangerous issues: climate instability, geopolitical upheavals, mass migration due to war and economic desperation, income inequality, growing polarization and intolerance. These are problems which will confront whichever leader is elected.
Wouldn't you vote for the more rational candidate to deal with complicated problems? I will. I can't find one reason to vote for the unstable, vindictive, self-centered, temperamentally volatile one, Donald Trump. Clinton's pragmatism is a feature, not a bug. I embrace someone who calculates the options and makes the best choice possible with the information available, rather than someone who spews simplistic slogans and tries to stir up hatred. Clinton is someone who studies the issues and is willing to consider alternatives, and build consensus. I don't think that is a bad thing. Trump didn't even agree on the issues with his running mate, and didn't want to take advice from his team. He thinks he knows enough to make potentially rash decisions solo.
Trump's reckless jump into the casino business, something he knew nothing about, led to huge losses and banks writing off huge amounts. Is this the kind of person we want in the White House, potentially leading us into wars? Would it be VP Pence's job be to contradict all of Trump's hotheaded remarks to other world leaders? It is folly to even consider him. Flag
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NYT Pick GV New York 19 hours ago After trashing Donald Trump, to his credit, Ross Douthat must do his duty as a conservative and beat up on Hillary Clinton. So be it. What he neglects to remind us forcefully enough us is that Trump would be so much more apt to do something catastrophically stupid in office than Clinton. In the final analysis, that is why we must vote for her. And I also take issue with his notion that "her record embodies the tendencies that gave rise to Trumpism in the first place." Really? I can think of a lot of other things -- like demographic change favoring minorities and the election of an African-American president -- that better explain the rise of an essentially bigoted movement than establishment elitism. Unless, of course, you believe that a country with an $18 trillion economy, 4.9% unemployment, low gas prices, the world's most desired currency, and 121 medals in the summer Olympics never wins at anything any more. Flag
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NYT Pick Vin Manhattan 19 hours ago I generally don't share Ross's political and cultural leanings, but I have to say I find it difficult to disagree with much in his column. Indeed, the numerous crises and blunders that have roiled the west in the 21st century have been propagated or made worse by an elite too sure of its own wisdom to question its own views. It's not about liberalism vs conservatism, as some of the commenters chastising Ross opine - it's a bipartisan political, media and financial elite that blundered into Iraq, the 08 economic crisis...and the euro and refugee crises across the Atlantic.
Does anyone seriously doubt that we will not have a large presence in Syria by this time next year? I'm not sure one can call Clinton a neoconservative, but it's no surprise so many neocons lean her way these days.
Trump must be stopped at all costs. His rise eerily mirrors the rise of Europe's 20th century fascists (Godwin's Law be damned; pick up a history book). And unfortunately our political system is such that Clinton is the one to do it. And just as is currently the case in Europe, the only movement that seems to put forth any opposition is the far-right, with its troglodytes and cranks and xenophobes. We are not above or beyond the reach of history - unless the establishment and its cheerleaders take heed, we're only at the end of the beginning. Flag
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NYT Pick John Kingston Leverett, MA 19 hours ago There's a fallacy or two lurking here, namely, that the US is all powerful, because it's most powerful, and therefore if our leaders only thought things through better, we would be able to solve the our and the world's problems rather than making present problems worse and adding new ones to the mix. But this country and the rest of the world is a very messy place, with many actors trying to achieve conflicting goals. Failures to solve problems cannot therefore be laid entirely at the feet of misguided leaders, even of a country as powerful as ours. Sure, we can blame them for their mistakes, and try to choose leaders who will make fewer and less harmful mistakes, but to presume that their failures to solve problems are entirely a product of their own inadequacies and blindesses is itself a mistake. Imagining anything else is wishful thinking and perhaps even childish. Flag
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NYT Pick Gerard PA 19 hours ago Tired of the old saw that the vote on Iraq represents a lack of judgement. Judgement in general, and voting in particular, must be seen in the context of both the situation and the information available. Congress was trapped in an impossible position: the normal checks and balances were disrupted by the imperative to support the President in a time of war.
Bush provided firm evidence that Iraq had WMDs which posed a real threat to the United States. We now know differently, the French and Germans said differently then, but Congress and the UN were told that clear, certain evidence existed... and Congress had a choice: to either support the war or to dispute the President's unequivocal judgement.
The ability of one senator to change the outcome is dubious. The only effective course would have been to lead a rebellion against the then President based on doubts but without evidence: it is difficult to charge a wartime President with dangerous delusion. As a senator, Clinton made the only judgement possible; the gross error resided within the White House, and the country which elected Bush, twice. Flag
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NYT Pick GRaysman NYC 16 hours ago I think Ross Douthat is right insofar as he's warning us establishment-oriented Republicans NOT to continue to ignore the issues that drive Trump supporters, after Hillary wins.
Their disaffection and disassociation with what they perceive as "received" American elite opinion, whether it has to do with transgender rights or affirmative action, deserves to be addressed by any politician claiming to want to draw Americans together again.
My worry is that any "mandate" that Hillary might receive will bury those issues under a blanket of self- congratulatory policy-making that makes his supporters feel even more left out of our political system. Flag
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NYT Pick Ellen San Francisco 15 hours ago I respectfully disagree: I suggest that the election of Hillary Clinton is about to usher in a huge shift in the status quo.
First, the Supreme Court will undoubtedly move to the left...after how many years of conservative rule?
Second, America will move closer to a more secure healthcare system as the Republican's obstructive behavior continues to dismantle. No one understands the system better than Hillary. Remember the 90's?
Third, the assumption of a patriarchal top down world order is shattered.
Fourth, the idle fears of blind folly thrown out by fretful journalists such as yourself will no longer carry the weight of the unknown.
How's that for a paradigm shift. Ross, you may see this as dangerous...but i think the majority of the American public welcomes it...as does much of the rest of the world! Flag
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NYT Pick Ted Cape Toronto, Ontario 14 hours ago I hope Mrs. Clinton's supporters will stop a moment to absorb Ross Douthat's insight. When she wins, Mrs. Clinton will need to be careful of her worst self, if it is not to mark her presidency, the way Richard Nixon's worst self marked his. But judging by the hostile response of Mrs. Clinton's endlessly forgiving supporters to this wise counsel, I fear there will be no one in court brave enough to urge her to this vigilance against her own bad instincts. Flag
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NYT Pick jimjaf dc 13 hours ago Odd that so many take issue with his argument misconstrue it as an argument for voting against Clinton or, worse yet, for Trump. Doesn't seem like it is either to me. It does say that Clinton is a typically imperfect candidate. That's hard to challenge. And also that, until now at least, she's been part of an establishment whose overconfidence should have been punctured by the Trump candidacy. Hillary has a reputation for listening. Hope she keeps this critique in mind. Flag
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NYT Pick parthasarathy glenmoore 13 hours ago Okay, Ross. Every functioning democracy needs a robust and sane Opposition, one that opposes because of well-considered policy positions and that resists the impulse to follow the crowd. It would posit alternatives. Ideally it would think with the times and not hand down the same nostrums that don't even work. It would at the very least have a nodding acquaintance with facts, with science. It would not denigrate knowledge and those who are responsible for furthering it. It would hold the country above itself and go along with the government where it is clear that that is the best policy without continually plotting to deny, or steal, credit. At the very least, it would have a policy position that people could reasonably debate and not just stream-of-consciousness gibberish.
The perils you outline are not unique to Hillary -- they await any government that does not have a rational opposition. See one on the horizon, Ross? Anywhere? Some 40 years of deliberate attempts to destroy government have finally come to fruition. You can't possibly look at the only sane person left and say "Good lord, there is no one to rein her in!".
What have you accomplished Ross? Flag
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NYT Pick Casey Dorman Newport Beach, California, USA 12 hours ago A clear and sober assessment that avoids the hyperbolic accusations of most anti-Hillary messages. In fact, it's not really anti-Hillary so much as making a realistic assessment of the mainstream thinking of the European and American establishments that has led us into some serious foreign policy blunders over the last 15 years (he doesn't mention the domestic and international economic blunders - or rather philosophies - that have led to massive income inequality due to the elected officials listening to and giving power to the wealth and corporate sectors). I'm still for Hillary and I think anyone reading this column would be after reading it, but we can thank Mr. Douthat for bringing up the real dangers that are no doubt less than those posed by Trump, but nonetheless real. Flag
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NYT Pick M Pittsinger New York city 12 hours ago Disclaimer: I am a Democrat and a longtime Hillary supporter who generally disagrees with most of your commentary; nevertheless, you make thought-provoking arguments and I take them seriously.
Your point about the dangers of mainstream groupthink, across the political spectrum, is well-taken. I take issue with your assertion that Clinton is unable to evaluate new information and act in the best interests of the country instead of just those belonging to political elites, but the larger discussion seems completely valid. Likewise, your point about the dangers of Trump's approach to tear it down are clearly supported.
Where you lose me, though, is the lack of discussion of alternatives or remedies. Beyond the specific cast of characters of this particular election, your piece speaks to a larger political reality that has had dire consequences the across the globe. I'm uncertain of what approach wouldn't be "dangerous". Tearing it down in blind frustration is dangerous. Leading it from a centrist moderation governed by groupthink's universal truths is dangerous. Demagoguery is dangerous. Socialism is a trap. So what are we to do? Groupthink seems like the inevitable, maybe even necessary, byproduct of a Republic. I'm not sure how any modern candidate could function outside of the structures you are denouncing. Flag
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NYT Pick leftcoastTAM Salem, Oregon 12 hours ago Hillary Clinton is a hardheaded pragmatist whose views tend to reflect the "elite consensus". Douthat has that right. But he criticizes her for it, saying that she is "just as ready to march into folly as her peers [political elites]."
He downplays the traditional conservative idea that elite, or mainstream, opinion may be close to the only steady guide in typically unstable times. In doing so, he contradicts his own sense of conservatism: steady, evolutionary change in the political culture, in adaptive political institutions, and in political opinion.
As is his tendency, he wants to have it both ways--a national leader must be clairvoyant and ready to make radical changes while also keeping the ship of state on an unerringly steady course. Yes, and philosophers should be kings and kings philosophers. Flag
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NYT Pick Rich Long Island 11 hours ago You are dead right about "groupthink." But to some extent complaining about groupthink is complaining about human nature. Certainly the R's have the same problem, with their worship of tax cuts, top-down economics, and a "market" that does precisely what is designed to do while begging the question of how it is designed in the first place.
The insights of Madison seem more and more profound: we can increasingly see that "faction" is not only an alliance of interest (potentially against the greater good) but a hermetic circle of the like-minded who fail to see their own deep biases and blind spots. His solution -- designing an electoral system that forces confrontation (and hopefully compromise) between contrasting world-views seems sound in principle but has perhaps been cleverly defeated by gerrymandering, campaign finance, etc. An issue, maybe, for another day.
In the mean time, second-best seems to be to elect pragmatists who have learned the hard way about their own fallibility (see Hillary on health care, 1993-94) and have a record of working across party-lines, listening, and seeking consensus. Not a perfect solution, not a perfect candidate, but more than good enough given the current set of choices. Flag
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NYT Pick Randy NY 11 hours ago Thank you Mr. Douthat for an opinion that is rarely expressed in the NY Times. Although most of the Times readership seems enraged to read anything but fawning adulation about Hillary, and lustily defend her with glowing platitudes and endless diatribes of how feckless and scheming and obstructionist the Republicans are, it is good for the republic and our democracy that opposing viewpoints, no matter how upsetting to closely held self-evident truths, be shared and considered. Those who reject all views but their own as invalid and baseless are really just the mirror image of the 'others' whom they so heartily denigrate. Flag
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NYT Pick Charles holden 9 hours ago Yes, Hillary Clinton is a calculating politician. Politician almost has "calculating" pre-baked into it, although she is a bit more focus-grouped and self-defeatingly secretive than many. So it goes to the often-cited point that we will never have a perfect President. Barack Obama came pretty darn close; if it wasn't for the immoral, treasonous Republican obstruction of his every move even if it was originally theirs, he might have gone down in history as one of the best Presidents ever. So Obama is term-limited out. Let's knock off the silly false equivalence and support the only sane candidate for President in 2016! Flag
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Loading...Prayers of Confession and Pardon O Holy One, we call to you and name you as eternal, ever-present, and boundless in love. Yet there are times, O God, when we fail to recognize you in the dailyness of our lives. Sometimes shame clenches tightly around our hearts, and we hide our true feelings. Sometimes fear makes us small, and we miss the chance to speak from our strength. Sometimes doubt invades our hopefulness, and we degrade our own wisdom. Holy God, in the daily round from sunrise to sunset, remind us again of your holy presence hovering near us and in us. Free us from shame and self-doubt. Help us to see you in the moment-by-moment possibilities to live honestly, to act courageously, and to speak from our wisdom.
Dear Heavenly Father, we lower our heads before you and we confess that we have too often forgotten that we are yours. Sometimes we carry on our lives as if there was no God and we fall short of being a credible witness to You. For these things we ask your forgiveness and we also ask for your strength. Give us clear minds and open hearts so we may witness to You in our world. Remind us to be who You would have us to be regardless of what we are doing or who we are with. Hold us to You and build our relationship with You and with those You have given us on earth.
Almighty and most merciful Father, we have erred and strayed from Your ways like lost sheep. We have followed too much the devices and desires of our own hearts. We have offended against Your holy laws. We have left undone those things which we ought to have done; and we have done those things which we ought not to have done; and there is nothing good in us. O Lord, have mercy upon us, miserable offenders. Spare those, O God, who confess their faults. Restore those who are penitent; according to Your promises declared unto men in Christ Jesus our Lord. Grant that we may hereafter live a godly, righteous, and sober life; to the glory of His name. Amen
Almighty God, who does freely pardon all who repent and turn to Him, now fulfill in every contrite heart the promise of redeeming grace; forgiving all our sins, and cleansing us from an evil conscience; through the perfect sacrifice of Christ Jesus our Lord. Amen. The Book of Common Worship, 1946
Gracious God, our sins are too heavy to carry, too real to hide, and too deep to undo. Forgive what our lips tremble to name, what our hearts can no longer bear, and what has become for us a consuming fire of judgment. Set us free from a past that we cannot change; open to us a future in which we can be changed; and grant us grace to grow more and more in your likeness and image, through Jesus Christ, the light of the world. Amen. From the PCUSA Book of Common Worship
Louisville: Westminster John Knox, 1993; p. 88
Psalm 103.8,10-12 The Lord is compassionate and gracious, slow to anger and abounding in lovingkindness. He has not dealt wit us according to our sins, nor rewarded us according to our iniquities. For as high as the heavens are above the earth, so great is His lovingkindness toward those who fear Him. As far as the east is from the west, so far has He removed our transgressions from us.
Most merciful God, we confess that we have sinned against you in thought, word, and deed, by what we have done, and by what we have left undone. We have not loved you with our whole heart; we have not loved our neighbors as ourselves. We are truly sorry and we humbly repent, for the sake of your Son Jesus Christ, have mercy on us and forgive us; that we may delight in your will, and walk in your ways, to the glory of your Name. Amen. Episcopal Book of Common Prayer
Almighty God, since thou delayst with so much forbearance the punishments which we have deserved and daily draw on ourselves, grant that we may not indulge ourselves but carefully consider how often and in how many different ways we have provoked thy wrath against us. May we learn humbly to present ourselves to thee for pardon, and with true repentance implore thy mercy. With all our heart we desire to submit ourselves to thee, whether thou chastisest us, or according to thine infinite goodness, forgivest us. Let our condition be ever blessed, not by flattering ourselves in our apathy, but by finding thee to be our kind and bountiful Father, reconciled to us in thine only-begotten Son. Amen. By Calvin, taken from Prayers of the Reformers compiled by Clyde Manschreck
I have betrayed Leader: Lord, I have betrayed you
By following my own way.
All: I have denied you
By fearing to follow yours.
Leader: And I have mocked you
By not taking your death seriously.
All: Lord, I am lost.
Let your forgiveness find me.
Leader: Hold me in your strong arms
And give me your new life.
All: Live in me and with me day by day,
That together we may make a world
That is new.
Taken from Be Our Freedom, Lord prepared and edited by Terry C. Falla
Paradoxes O Changeless God,
Under the conviction of the Spirit I learn that
The more I do, the worse I am,
The more I know, the less I know,
The more holiness I have, the mores sinful I am,
The more I love, the more there is to love.
O wretched man that I am! O Lord,
I have a wild heart
And cannot stand before thee;
I am like a bird before a man.
How little I love thy truth and ways!
I neglect prayer,
By thinking I have prayed enough and earnestly,
By knowing thou hast saved my soul.
Of all hypocrites, grant that I may not be an evangelical hypocrite,
Who sins more safely because grace abounds,
Who tells his lusts that Christ’s blood cleanseth them,
Who reasons that God cannot cast him into hell, for his is saved,
Who loves evangelical preaching, churches, Christians, but lives
Unholily.
My mind is a bucket without a bottom,
With no spiritual understanding,
No desire for the Lord’s Day,
Ever learning but never reaching the truth,
Always at the gospel-well but never holding water.
My conscience is without conviction or contrition,
With nothing to repent of.
My will is without power of decision or resolution.
My heart is without affection, and full of leaks.
My memory has no retention,
So I forget so easily the lessons learned,
And thy truths seep away.
Give me a broken heart that yet carries home the water of grace. Taken from The Valley of Vision edited by Arthur Bennett
Leader: God is light; in him there in no darkness at all.
If we claim to have fellowship with him,
yet walk in the darkness,
we lie and son not live by the truth.
But if we walk in the light, as he is in the light,
we have fellowship with one another,
and the blood of Jesus, his Son,
purifies us from sin.
If we claim to be without sin, we
deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us. (John 1:5b-8)
People: Most holy and merciful Father,
We confess to you and to one another,
that we have sinned against you
by what we have done,
and by what we have left undone.
We have not loved you with our
whole heart and mind and strength.
We have not fully loved our neighbors as ourselves.
We have not always had in us the mind of Christ.
You alone know how often we have grieved you
by wasting your gifts, by wandering from your ways.
Forgive us, we pray you, most merciful Father;
And free us from our sin.
Renew in us the grace and strength of your Holy Spirit,
for the sake of Jesus Christ your Son our Savior. Amen.
Psalter Hymnal,
Grand Rapids: CRC Publications, 1987
Eternal God, in whom we live and move and have our being, whose face is hidden from us by our sins, and whose mercy we forget in the blindness of our hearts: cleanse us from all our offenses, and deliver us from proud thoughts and vain desires, that with reverent and humble hearts we may draw near to you, confessing our faults, confiding in your grace, and finding in you our refuge and strength; through Jesus Christ your Son. Book of Common Worship,
Louisville: Westminster/John Know Press, 1993 Holy god, Lord most gracious!
Rebuke us not in your anger, nor chasten us in your wrath!
Holy you have called us to come to you.
We feel unworthy, for we have failed you again and again.
We feel like running away, yet you keep calling us.
Have mercy on us, O God.
Have mercy! Holy God, Father most gracious!
Rebuke us not in your anger, nor chasten us in your wrath!
Heal us from our sin, for we are troubled.
Deliver us for the sake of your steadfast love.
Our sins trouble us, O God.
We are troubled by how they have hurt others.
We are troubled by how they have hurt us.
Your ways are right! O righteous God!
And whenever we have refused to follow them
we have found out how right they are.
Have mercy on us, O God. Holy God, God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ,
have mercy on us for the sake of your Son,
who died to free us from our sins.
To you be honor and glory! Amen. Hughes Oliphant Old,
Leading in Prayer,
The Book of Common Worship (1932),
Grand Rapids: Erdmans Publishing, 1995 Almighty Father; we enter your presence confessing the things we try to conceal from you and the things we try to conceal from others. We confess the heartbreak, worry, and sorrow we have caused, that make it difficult for others to forgive us, the times we have made it easy for others to do wrong, the harm we have done that makes it hard for us to forgive ourselves. Lord have mercy and forgive us through Christ. Amen. Paul E. Engle,
Baker’s Worship Handbook,
Grand Rapids: Baker Books, 1998 God, be merciful to me;
On Thy grace I rest my plea;
In Thy vast, abounding grace,
My transgressions all erase.
Wash me wholly from my sin;
Cleanse from every ill within. For my sins before me rise,
Ever present to my eyes.
I have sinned ‘gainst Thee alone.
In Thy sight this evil done;
That Thy judgment may be clear,
And Thy sentence just appear. Lo, brought forth was I in sin;
When conceived I was unclean.
Lo, Thou dost desire to find
Truth sincere within the mind:
And Thou wilt within my heart
Wisdom unto me impart. Then with hyssop sprinkle me,
And form sin I clean shall be.
Wash me from its stain, and lo,
I shall whiter be than snow.
Make me hear joy’s cheering voice;
Make my broken bones rejoice. From my sins hide Thou Thy face;
My iniquities erase.
O my God, renew my heart,
And a spirit right impart.
Cast me not away from Thee,
Nor Thy Spirit take form me. Give salvation’s’ joy again,
And a willing mind sustain.
Then thy perfect ways I’ll show
That transgressors may them know;
They converted then shall be
Sinners shall be turned to Thee. Amen. (Psalm 51) Trinity Psalter,
Pittsburgh: Crown & Covenant Publications, 1994Last night Liberal Democrat MPs voted against lowering the voting age to 16 - despite promising to give 16-year-olds the vote in their election manifesto.
Last night Liberal Democrat MPs voted down a Parliamentary amendment to lower the voting age to 16 ahead of for the referendum on the voting system, despite promising to give 16-year-olds the vote in their election manifesto.
The amendment, brought by Labour MP and “former-16-year-old” Natascha Engel, to the Parliamentary and Constituencies Bill, was rejected by 346 MPs – with no Lib Dem MP voting in favour of it, despite the issue not being mentioned in the Coalition Agreement with the Conservatives.
The voting age looks to be another broken Lib Dem pledge – one of the youngest MPs in Parliament, Sarah Teather, boasts about the importance of giving the vote to 16-year-olds on her own website.
She says:
“It would help to demonstrate to young people that their opinions are valued… It still seems ludicrous to me that a person can work, get married and join the army in this country before they are allowed to vote.”
Ceredigion MP Mark Williams told the Commons that the Lib Dems shared the “Lady’s passion” for reducing the voting age – but voted against it nevertheless. Additionally, Lib Dem leader Nick Clegg, who in January expressed his strong support for 16-year-olds voting, notably voted against the amendment last night.
In January the Liberal Democrat leader had said:
“If you can ask someone to die for this country, they should have the right to vote for the Government of the country. So I can guarantee that we will continue to campaign for votes at 16.”
This latest u-turn follows on from the furore over tuition fees last week, with the Lib Dems reigning on their direct pledge to the NUS that they would fight any increase in tuition fees.
URGENT APPEAL: We need to raise £10,000 in the next few weeks to keep holding the right to account. Help us build a better media and back the crowdfunder to keep Left Foot Forward's progressive journalism alive.Against the advice of some doctors, Pucci, who had three diagnosed concussions in college and one in high school, worked her way back to make the 2014 Olympic roster. But in Sochi, she said, she knew that she would soon leave the game.
“I’ve put so much into hockey, and I’ve gotten so much in return, but it’s to the point where I feel like it’s time to walk away before I give hockey the opportunity to take too much away from me,” Pucci said.
Looking Ahead
Pucci has known Decker since youth hockey, and they have discussed creating a nonprofit organization to address concussions. Pucci works in clinical research at a cerebral vascular lab at NewYork-Presbyterian Hospital/Columbia University Medical Center and hopes to focus her work on concussions in the future.
For now, Decker occasionally posts on a blog she created in September, The Invisible Injury, while the hockey sticks in her garage gather dust.
She enrolled in a comprehensive concussion evaluation program with Kutcher at Michigan and said she was making “slow but steady progress.”
Decker said she did not know the best solution for curbing concussions in women’s hockey. Like many players, though, she said that more awareness would make a difference.
“You see left and right in doctors’ offices and wherever, your quick little synopsis of what a concussion is, what are symptoms,” she said. “Everyone knows those; it’s textbook. But when you get beyond the typical couple of weeks’ recovery, it’s like, then what happens? That was the challenge I faced.”
Decker added: “There wasn’t a clear-cut path for me or guidance as to what that next step should be. You can’t be running around like a chicken with its head cut off trying to get help. There’s a lot of room for improvement in terms of concussion awareness and what that actually means.”I rose at night and visited
The Cave of the Unborn,
And crowding shapes surrounded me
For tidings of the life to be,
Who long had prayed the silent Head
To speed their advent morn.
Their eyes were lit with artless trust;
Hope thrilled their every tone:
"A place the loveliest, is it not?
A pure delight, a beauty-spot
Where all is gentle, pure and just
And??violence?? is unknown?"
My heart was anguished for their sake;
I could not frame a word;
But they descried my sunken face
And seemed to read therein, and trace
The news which Pity would not break
Nor Truth leave unaverred.
And as I silently retired
I turned and watched them still:
And they came helter-skelter out,
Driven forward like a rabble rout
Into the world they had so desired,
By the all-immanent Will.NAPLES, Fla. — Eleven days after Tiger Woods won the Masters in his first full season on the PGA Tour, an 8-pound, 8-ounce girl was born in Seoul, South Korea. Seventeen years later, Lydia Ko provided further evidence that the game’s next transcendent player, the crown prince to Woods’s king, may in fact be a princess.
On Sunday, in the last event of her first full season as a card-carrying member of the L.P.G.A. Tour, Ko recorded a four-under 68 in the Tour Championship at Tiburon Golf Club to secure the inaugural $1 million bonus awarded to the season’s points leader and catapult herself into a three-person playoff, which she won with a par on the fourth extra hole to pocket the $500,000 first-place prize. Her combined payday was the richest in the tour’s history.
It was Ko’s fifth victory in 42 L.P.G.A. starts and her third since making her professional debut in the United States at this event last year. Ko, also the youngest to win Rookie of the Year honors, held off Julieta Granada, who bowed out with a bogey on the second hole of sudden death, and Carlota Ciganda, who was seeking her first L.P.G.A. victory.
Nobody has won five professional golf tournaments before turning 18. Ko, whose family immigrated from South Korea to New Zealand, where her love of golf took root, is the youngest millionaire in L.P.G.A. history, with her Sunday payday effectively doubling her season earnings coming into this week.The Godless Perverts have two events coming up soon! Mark your calendars!
Join us for another evening of blasphemy and depravity at our next performance event, the Godless Perverts Story Hour, on Saturday, August 31! The Godless Perverts Story Hour is an evening about how to have good sex without having any gods, goddesses, spirits, or their earthly representatives hanging over your shoulder and telling you that you’re doing it wrong. We’ll be bringing you depictions, explorations, and celebrations of godless sexualities, as well as critical, mocking, and blasphemous views of sex and religion. The evening’s entertainment will have a range of voices — sexy and serious, passionate and funny, and all of the above — talking about how our sexualities can not only exist, but even thrive, without the supernatural.
Our lineup for August 31 features Molly Weatherfield (aka Pam Rosenthal), Victor Harris, Jen Cross, Virgie Tovar, M. Christian, and Simon Sheppard — plus your charming hosts Greta Christina, David Fitzgerald, and Chris Hall. The Godless Perverts Story Hour will be at the Center for Sex and Culture, 1349 Mission St. in San Francisco (near Civic Center BART). Festivities start at 7:00 pm. $10-20 sliding scale donation; no-one turned away for lack of funds; benefit for the Center for Sex and Culture. Hope to see you there!
IMPORTANT NOTE: The Bay Bridge will be closed on the weekend of August 31. If you’re coming from the East Bay strongly suggest that you take BART. If you have to drive, take alternate routes — and give yourself plenty of extra time.
And the Godless Perverts Social Club is now meeting on the first Tuesday of every month — and our next gathering is Tuesday, September 3. Community is one of the reasons we started Godless Perverts. There are few enough places to land when you decide that you’re an atheist; far fewer if you’re also LGBT, queer, kinky, poly, trans, or are just interested in sexuality. And the sex-positive/ alt-sex/ whatever- you- want- to- call- it community isn’t always the most welcoming place for non-believers. So please join us at Wicked Grounds, San Francisco’s renowned BDSM-themed coffee house — 289 8th St in San Francisco, near Civic Center BART — for an evening of conversation and socializing. All orientations, genders, and kinks (or lack thereof) welcome. 7:00 – 9:00 pm. There’s no admission, but we ask that you buy food and drink at the counter, or make a donation to the venue.
If you want to be notified about all our Godless Perverts events, sign up for our email mailing list, or follow us on Twitter at @GodlessPerverts. You can also sign up for the Bay Area Atheists/ Agnostics/ Humanists/ Freethinkers/ Skeptics Meetup page, and be notified of all sorts of godless Bay Area events — including the Godless Perverts. You can RSVP on the Meetup page for the Story Hour and the Social Club, if you like to RSVP to things. Hope to see you there!Now in its 4th year, The Great Aircraft Carrier party is back and we have a feeling that this one will be the wildest yet! Last year over 2000 revelers rode the infamous bus journey to the ocean and witnessed the largest party of its kind worldwide. Over the years this event has morphed into an unofficial 'Summer Halloween' with groups of partygoers following the strict dress code - 'Anything goes, but sexy is best'. Throw on (or indeed off) your most outrageous party |
The attack on the prominent ‘alt-right’ figure was turned into a meme and sparked debate over the use of violence in political discourse
Richard Spencer, a prominent figure in the “alt-right” movement, was punched in the face while giving an interview in Washington on Friday. The punch spawned debate and a number of memes.
In a video widely circulated online, Spencer spoke on camera amid protests against Donald Trump’s inauguration. Voices off camera asked him questions such as “Are you a neo-Nazi?” Spencer – who at a post-election conference in Washington famously led shouts of “Hail Trump” while audience members gave straight-arm salutes – replied that he is not.
At one point, someone asked Spencer about what appeared to be a pin on his lapel. He began to explain that it showed Pepe the Frog, a cartoon adopted by white supremacists and labelled a hate symbol by the Anti-Defamation League. Suddenly, a figure dressed in black entered the frame to punch Spencer in the face.
#SavePepe: cartoon frog's creator tries to take meme back from alt-right Read more
On Twitter, Spencer said there was “no serious damage” and that he can “take a punch”. He also put a video on Periscope in which he said he was with documentary film-makers and had walked into a “serious demonstration in Franklin Square” and said he was later spat on. He later posted a longer video to YouTube.
According to Spencer’s video and the Australian Broadcasting Corporation, which filmed the encounter, that was the second time Spencer had been punched in public.
Spencer is president of the National Policy Institute, which hosted the post-election event, where Spencer said, “Hail Trump, hail our people, hail victory!” A December appearance at Texas A&M University was met with protests. His Twitter account was once suspended but has been reinstated.
Spencer tweeted that he had filed a police report on Saturday; a Metropolitan police department spokesperson confirmed that a report was filed. The police department said no one has been arrested in Spencer’s case.
Meanwhile, edited versions of the video of Spencer being punched were shared on Twitter, including videos set to songs such as Bruce Springsteen’s Born in the USA.
Others compared the act of punching Spencer to punching Nazis, which occurred in Indiana Jones films and in Marvel Comics’ Captain America. The first issue of Captain America, in 1941, featured the red, white and blue-clad superhero punching Hitler in the face.
On Twitter on Friday, writer Gerry Duggan said such punches were “as American as apple pie”; the blow that hit Spencer, he said, was actually an “alt-highfive”.
Gerry Duggan (@GerryDuggan) As American as apple pie. pic.twitter.com/WQ4z2UgWts
The attack sparked debate over the use of violence in political discourse, including a column from the Spectator. The New York Times summarized the debate in a piece headlined: “Attack on Alt-Right Leader Has Internet Asking: Is It OK to Punch a Nazi?”
Others denounced those who were “cheering” the punch, including Nick Spencer, current writer of the Captain America series – an intervention that created debate on what the superhero’s take would be.
Nick Spencer (@nickspencer) Today is difficult, but cheering violence against speech, even of the most detestable, disgusting variety, is not a look that will age well.
“Something I hope we can all agree on,” Nick Spencer later wrote, calling for donations to the American Civil Liberties Union. “Freedom of speech is worth protecting.”Melania Trump filed a libel lawsuit Thursday against the publisher of The Daily Mail, contending that it published an article that contained “false and defamatory statements,” including that she was once an escort.
In the lawsuit, which was filed in state court in Montgomery County, Md., Ms. Trump, the wife of Donald J. Trump, the Republican presidential nominee, said the “defamatory statements” in the article “were attacks on her reputation which discouraged members of the public from having a positive opinion of her.”
The Daily Mail, a British tabloid, removed the article from its website, but by the time of the filing it had not issued a retraction and apology, according to the complaint. The Daily Mail published a retraction and apology after the lawsuit was filed Thursday.
Ms. Trump also sued Webster G. Tarpley, who runs the blog Tarpley.net, for a post published Aug. 2. Tarpley.net retracted the post on Aug. 22 and issued an apology to Ms. Trump.CMS has released a series of publicly available data files that summarize the utilization and payments for procedures, services, and prescription drugs provided to Medicare beneficiaries by specific inpatient and outpatient hospitals, physicians, and other suppliers. These Medicare Provider Utilization and Payment Data files include information for common inpatient and outpatient services, all physician and other supplier procedures and services, and all Part D prescriptions. Providers determine what they will charge for items, services, and procedures provided to patients and these charges are the amount that providers bill for an item, service, or procedure.
Please use the navigation bar to the left to view more information on the inpatient, outpatient, physician and other supplier, and Part D prescriber analyses and to access the data for download. Data are being made available in Microsoft Excel (.xlsx) format and raw text file data format (comma separated values (.csv) for inpatient and outpatient and tab delimited for physician and other supplier and Part D prescriber).
For answers to any questions about the data, please see our Frequently Asked Questions page.
Inquiries regarding this data can be sent to MedicareProviderData@cms.hhs.gov.Two TV spots for Rob Zombie‘s upcoming “H2: Halloween 2” are now online.
It’s that time of year again, and Michael Myers has returned home to sleepy Haddonfield, Illinois to take care of some unfinished family business. Unleashing a trail of terror that only horror master Rob Zombie can, Myers will stop at nothing to bring closure to the secrets of his twisted past. But the town’s got an unlikely new hero, if they can only stay alive long enough to stop …
The sequel to Zombie’s 2007 remake of the John Carpenter classic Halloween stars Scout Taylor-Compton, Tyler Mane, Danielle Harris, Daniel Roebuck, Ezra Buzzington, Mark Christopher Lawrence, Jeffrey Daniel Phillips, Dayton Callie, Richard Brake, Matt Bush and Howard Hesseman.
“H2: Halloween 2” comes to theaters August 28, 2009.
H2: Halloween 2 TV spot 1:
H2: Halloween 2 TV spot 2:
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OnX2b10YDms[/youtube]With the help of the information age, Democracy is being “re-imagined” and there are several organizations outside of parliaments trying to open up this information for the people. Andrew Mandelbaum, of the National Democratic Institute, describes a Parliamentary Monitoring Organization (PMO) as “organizations that are involved in monitoring and evaluating parliaments, helping to engage citizens in the legislative process, and support the democratic strengthening of parliaments”. More than 190 PMO’s exist around the world but up until lately the collaboration and exchange of ideas between them has been very limited.
The creation of a normative framework, known as the Declaration on Parliamentary Openness, brought together PMO’s from more than 38 countries in discussing how it should be formed. The declaration was officially launched on the International Day of Democracy in 2012 (September 15). Today the declaration has more than 120 PMO supporters in 73 countries. It is available in 14 languages and hopefully a few more soon with your help.
The declaration has four parts: creating a culture in society were openness and citizen engagement are respected and encouraged making more information available using different channels for broadcasting parliamentary information open data standards
The existence of these four parts helps a parliament identify where they are weak and put their focus on adjusting that part. A normative framework is a start to creating suggestions forming and promoting advocacy around the world (some of the examples can be seen in the time-line below). It has also been proven to increase the collaboration between different PMO’s across the world.
With the help of the declaration it has been easier to discuss and introduce new standards into the parliamentary debates when showing that many of the issues proposed have been suggested and approved in other countries. Melissa, from ‘Fundar‘ in Mexico, has found she gets more response from the parliament when she encourages them, “Let’s try to do like Brazil!”, instead of their previous strategy of trying to shame them by rankings.
A time-line of events related to the declaration of parliamentary openness:
Featured image: CC-BY-SA – opensource.comWill the defeat of Islamic State in Iraq be a foreign policy victory for Donald Trump? With the fall of Mosul imminent, what happens next?
An Iraqi military tank in al-Zanjili district in western Mosul, Iraq, June 11, 2017. REUTERS/Erik De Castro
There will be winners, like the Kurds. There will be losers, like Iraq’s Sunni minority. There will be gains for Iran, which backs the Shi’ite militias drafted to fight Sunni-dominated IS. And there may be a silver lining for the Trump administration - specifically in the form of Kurdish independence and permanent American bases in a Shi’ite-ruled Iraq. But any declaration of “victory” on the part of the United States depends on how the measure of those results is taken.
Start with the Kurds. Their military forces currently control a swath of northern territory, including the oil-rich province of Kirkuk. The area has been a functional confederacy since soon after the American invasion of 2003 and in spite of likely opposition from Baghdad, a fully-realized nation-state of Kurdistan seems inevitable. The Kurds certainly think so; they’ll hold an independence referendum on September 25.
Previous U.S. administrations restrained Kurdish ambitions, trying to keep “Iraq” more or less as it was within its 2003 borders. George W. Bush, and to a lesser extent Barack Obama, wished for a unified Iraq as a symbol, the conclusion of the invasion narrative of eliminating Saddam Hussein and establishing a new semi-secular ally in the heart of the Middle East. A unified Iraq that enveloped the Kurds was also sought by NATO ally Turkey, which feared an independent Kurdish state on its disputed eastern border.
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The Trump White House appears less anguished about Kurdish independence; Trump is for the first time, for example, overtly arming pro-Kurdish independence militias, whom the Turks call terrorists, to take on Islamic State. Washington doesn’t seem to have a plan for disarming the militias before they start fighting for control of disputed ancestral Kurdish lands held by Turkey.
So the key question has become not if the Kurds will announce some sort of statehood, but whether the Kurds will go to war with Turkey to round out their territorial claims in the process. The United States, with the ties that previously bound Washington and Ankara weakened following Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan's authoritarian crackdown, might just be ready to stand aside and allow Kurdish ambitions to play out. The Kurds are respected in American conservative circles important to Trump, and the Turks have fewer friends than ever there. Kurdish oil will be welcome to Washington, and the Kurds have always championed close security ties with the U.S. A strong U.S.-Kurd alliance will also help Trump keep Iran in check.
Meanwhile, an Obama-era marriage of practicality which brought Shi’ite militias into the fight against Islamic State will not play out as well for Trump.
Any reluctance on the part of the United States to act as a restraining force on the Iraqi central government’s empowering of Shi’ite militias disappeared in 2014. As the Iraqi National Army collapsed in front of Islamic State, the crisis demanded battle-ready forces, and the militias were the only option available outside of Kurdish-controlled areas.
The problem for America is that many of those Shi’ite militias owe significant allegiance to Iran, which helps arm them and supplements their efforts with special forces and leadership. Unlike the post-invasion years of about 2006 forward, when the United States and Iran fought a shadow war for control inside Iraq, America has had to accept that it needs the militias to defeat Islamic State.
Time will tell what Iran will do with its influence in Iraq. But there is certainly nothing for the White House to celebrate in seeing Iranian boots on the same ground where Americans died to hold territory. Or with having to deal with a Baghdad government beholden to Tehran and its Shi’ite militias.
In the Sunni parts of Iraq, there is no real win for the Trump administration. The fight against Islamic State is destroying Mosul, and has already devastated Sunni cities like Ramadi and Fallujah. Neither Washington nor Baghdad has any realistic plans to rebuild.
Yet despite a tangential win alongside the Kurds, and with clear losses vis-vis the Shi’ite and Sunnis, there is perhaps a real silver lining in Iraq for Trump. Permanent American military bases.
Post-Islamic State, Iraq will be a Shi’ite nation with close ties to Iran. The price Iraq and Iran will be forced to pay for America’s reluctant pragmatism over this will likely be small but permanent American military bases inside Iraq, mostly out of sight in the far west. (You won’t laugh if you remember that the U.S. maintained its base at Guantanamo even after it severed ties with Soviet-dominated Cuba.)
Trump is unlikely to give up bases in a rush to declare victory in Iraq, as did his predecessors, and has several thousand American troops already in place to back up his plans. America seeks bases as a symbol of some sort of victory, a way to block any politically-ugly Shi’ite reprisals against the Sunnis, and as a bulwark against whatever happens in Syria. In addition, Israel is likely to near-demand the United States garrison western Iraq as a buffer against expanding Iranian power.
U.S. soldiers from the 2nd Brigade, 82nd Airborne Division at a military base north of Mosul, Iraq, February 14, 2017. REUTERS/Khalid al Mousily
Sealing the deal is that Iran will have little to gain from a fight over some desert estate that it would probably lose anyway, when their prize is the rest of Iraq. Those bases even might, at America’s expense, keep any Sunni successors to Islamic State from moving into Iraq - as happened after al Qaeda outstayed its welcome.
While the fight against Islamic State in Iraq isn’t over, an ending of sorts is clear enough to allow for some reasonable predictions. But whatever happens will leave an unanswered, and sadly, perhaps unasked, question: was the outcome worth to Americans the cost of some 4,500 dead, and the trillions of taxpayer dollars spent, over the last 14 years?
(Peter Van Buren, a 24 year veteran of the State Department, is the author of Hooper’s War: A Novel of WWII Japan. @wemeantwell)It is amazing.
Here is Washington Post “fact checker” Glenn Kessler headlining:
Trump’s claim that Clinton lacks the ‘physical stamina’ to be president
Kessler’s conclusion?
“Trump has claimed twice, without proof, that Clinton lacks the physical and mental stamina to be president. In the absence of any evidence, he earns Four Pinocchios.”
Kessler’s article then gets picked up by the Post’s Callum Borchers, who breezily asserts:
“The Washington Post Fact Checker last week awarded Trump (who is 70, by the way) four Pinocchios for his unsubstantiated "stamina" argument….”
Alas for Messrs. Kessler and Borchers, they appear not to have checked in with one of the most famous and informed reporters in the entire history of the Washington Post. That would be one Carl Bernstein, famously of Nixon Watergate Woodward and Bernstein fame. Carl (full disclosure a CNN commentator colleague of mine) writes books these days, and way back there in the ancient time of 2007 wrote a great biography titled: A Woman in Charge: The Life of Hillary Rodham Clinton. And what do we find on page 313? This, bold print supplied by me:
"More than Bill, she was physically exhausted; she lacked his stamina and was losing weight. A newspaper story noted archly that Hillary 'looks thinner than ever, even though she confesses that her exercise regimen has gone the way of the middle-class tax cut since she moved into the White House.' On trips to the Hill, her aides noticed how she would perform perfectly during an appointment, then immediately afterward begin yawning and then collapse in the car on the way back to the White House.”
Say again, after a trip to Capital Hill “her aides noticed” that “then immediately afterward (she would) begin yawning and then collapse in the car on the way back to the White House.”
And there it is. The flat out statement as fact that way back there in 1993 the then-46 year old First Lady of the United States was seen by her aides as being “physically exhausted” by her duties, that she “lacked” her husband’s stamina and in fact was so exhausted by simple Capital Hill appearances that she would “collapse in the car on the way back to the White House.”
Hmm. Did Mr. Kessler the “Fact Checker” ever bother checking the reporting of one of the best reporters in the history of his own paper? Did Mr. Borchers? Obviously, not. So what we get instead from them both is the assertion that Donald Trump has lied with an “unsubstantiated ‘stamina' argument” about Hillary Clinton when in fact it has been very much substantiated by Carl Bernstein who got the information from Hillary Clinton’s own staff members.
This is the kind of horse hockey that passes as “fact checking” today. It is called “fact checking” when in fact it is nothing more than one more set of factual misstatements coming from a virulently anti-Trump paper. A paper that has, no kidding, said this on its editorial page about Trump: “Mr. Trump is pathologically dishonest and morally bankrupt.”
Today, of course, Hillary Clinton is no longer 46 years old. She is about to turn 70. Logic dictates that a person who had stamina problems at 46, by the account of her own staff, would have even more stamina problems a full 23 years later. Yet, with the fact of her stamina problems fully evident in a biography by one of the most respected and well-known journalists of the day - and, I might add, no conservative - the media not only totally ignores.
Examples?
The Christian Science Monitor headlines an AP report :
Trump's stamina attack on Clinton stirs talk of gender bias (+video)
Intent on undermining his Democratic rival, Trump is increasingly relying on rhetoric that some say has an undeniable edge focused on gender.
Writes the AP in the CSM:
“NEW YORK — Donald Trump and his Republican allies say Hillary Clinton is weak, lacks stamina and doesn't look presidential. Intent on undermining his Democratic rival, Trump and GOP backers are increasingly relying on rhetoric that academics and even some Republican strategists say has an undeniable edge focused on gender.”
The New York Times picked up the ball headlining:
Donald Trump’s Latest Jab at Hillary Clinton: ‘No Stamina’
Reported the Times:
“The questioning of Mrs. Clinton’s energy levels comes as some of her conservative critics have been trying to push the narrative that she is battling an undisclosed illness that makes her unfit for the presidency. Last week, the Fox News host Sean Hannity devoted considerable time on Mrs. Clinton’s rumored medical problems. The right-wing Drudge Report has also prominently displayed images of Mrs. Clinton appearing to stumble and looking unwell. Kathleen Hall Jamieson, a communications professor at the University of Pennsylvania, said that Mr. Trump appeared to be nodding to age and sex stereotypes of women being too frail to handle strenuous activities. “He is playing into that loop of clips that Sean Hannity is playing,” Ms. Jamieson said. “What does it mean that she’s not up to it? It could be ‘she’s a woman and you know what happens when a woman gets older.’”
In other words? This time not only is the stamina issue gender bias - sexist - but it’s all a put up job by Sean Hannity and Matt Drudge.
Over at the late Gawker, now gone with the wind of a massive lawsuit that forced it to shut its doors, the headline was:
Donald Trump's Attack on Hillary Clinton’s “Stamina" is Ripped From the Conservative Conspiracy Playbook.
Wrote the now deceased site:
Trump’s “….fixation on Clinton’s energy—down to theorizing about when and where she sleeps—is a high-pitched dog whistle aimed at the sort of people who read Republican-interest publications ranging from crypto-conspiracy Bibles like World Net Daily and The Drudge Report to more “mainstream” right-wing websites like The Daily Caller and Breitbart.”
Ah yes. The old “dog-whistle” routine. Then again, Gawker has vanished.
But wait! Over at Politico, there is a report on former Hillary campaign manager Patty Solis Doyle telling former Obama aide David Axelrod (and full disclosure both Patty and David are CNN colleagues of mine) on his "The Axe Files" podcast (done for the University of Chicago Institute of Politics) the following, bold emphasis supplied:
“You know, Bill Clinton, he gets so much energy from the people at his rallies. When he’s working a rope line, you can just see him light up. You know, she’s tired. She gets tired. She does it. She does it dutifully. Is it her most fun thing to do? No. Would she rather be looking at policy and going through legislation and working with a bunch of experts on how to, you know, improve the Affordable Care Act? Absolutely," Solis Doyle explained. "This is not her favorite thing to do. It’s a mean, you know, to an end, I guess.”
In other words? In other words what Solis Doyle is saying in 2016 is exactly the same thing Carl Bernstein reported in his 2007 biography. Simply put: Hillary Clinton does in fact have a stamina problem. She is also highlighting something else. By saying that Bill Clinton "gets energy from people at his rallies" - and Hillary doesn't, but instead gets it from hanging with policy wonks, this is an inadvertent admission that Bill Clinton likes people - while Hillary Clinton likes to rule.Get it by Saturday, Mar 2 from Bolton, Massachusetts • Seller refurbished condition
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This iPhone is only for use with Boost Mobile and cannot be Unlocked for use on any other carriers. iPhone has been fully tested and reset to factory settings by a certified technician and is in great cosmetic condition with minor wear and tear including scratches, scuffs, dings and blemishes present. Comes with a compatible USB cable and wall adapter. No SIM card is included.
This iPhone is only for use with Boost Mobile and cannot be Unlocked for use on any other carriers. iPhone has been fully tested and reset to factory settings by a certified technician and is in great cosmetic condition with minor wear and tear including scratches, scuffs, dings and blemishes present. Comes with a compatible USB cable and wall adapter. No SIM card is included.In 2010, Lady Gaga shocked audiences – and animal rights activists – by accepting her Video of the Year award at the MTV Video Music Awards in a dress made of meat. At the Grammys a year later, she was carried down the red carpet concealed in a giant egg, which later "hatched" her on stage.
But on Sunday night, Lady Gaga attended the 2013 VMAs in something much more shocking: a simple black dress by designer Prabal Gurung. Some may have been underwhelmed by her lack of surprise -- but others wondered how the same designer could dress both Lady Gaga and Michelle Obama. Should we be praising Gaga’s newfound fashion maturity?
Gone are the days of dresses adorned in miniature Kermit the Frogs and 3-D geometric cubes. Her wild, almost cartoon-like style has been replaced with higher-end pieces fresh off the runway, muted colors, and longer, draped fabrics. Even her performance of “Applause” on Sunday night featured a series of wild costume changes (one of which, albeit, ended with her wearing nothing but a shell bra and a thong) but she spent much of the performance in a simple garment made out of black spandex. With all her newfound minimalism, it’s hard not to wonder: is this Gaga 2.0?
On August 19th, Lady Gaga debuted her new single, “Applause,” on Good Morning America, signaling her return to the spotlight after a hip surgery and a cancelled tour. Yet instead of making an “I’m back” splash in typical Gaga fashion -- which would be timely, with a new album being released November 11th -- the singer sported a plain black Balenciaga shift dress. Her hair was simple in both color and cut (with no hair bows or crazy color wigs in sight), and her accessories were nothing more than a pair of simple Ruthie Davis black heels, aviators, and matching gold bangles and earrings.
Later that day, the Queen of Costume appeared on the Howard Stern show in head-to-toe Balmain -- including a long-sleeve, fur turtleneck, and baggy white pants -- fresh off the Fall 2013 runway. She looked great, but her Tom Ford sunglasses and Alaïa boots weren’t much to write home about.
It seems that since Lady Gaga resurfaced to the public while doing performance art with Marina Abramovic in Watermill, New York, the singer has taken to muted tones and longer, oversized fabrics -- not unlike Abramovic herself. Never did anyone think they’d see the day when Gaga would wear a green Calvin Klein raincoat when it was actually raining, or abandon all of her neon ensembles for a series of blacks, grays, and whites. It’s clear that, looking back on our reaction to Gaga’s style, we haven’t cared so much about who she wears -- but rather what.
Now, all that seems to be changing. As her stylist Brandon Maxwell told WWD in July, the singer’s new fashion direction would be “more toned down and pulled back and chic.” He added: “But it’s also that we’re making suits out of things that they would not normally be made out of, like plastic, but they’re super well-tailored and clean. Maybe she’s just wearing a simple catsuit and a head wrap like she’s wearing here, but we sort of do the craziness on the face.” That explains Gaga parading around town with a face painted in wild colors.
And while we may still be waiting for that splash of craziness, besides her “Applause” video featuring the aforementioned face paint and an array of bras, things have been pretty simple. But maybe it’s a good thing. After all, where is there to go when you’ve already done it all?House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) faces a test in 2018 that will seal or undermine her legacy: winning back the House. (Carolyn Van Houten/The Washington Post)
Nancy Pelosi wanted everyone to know that she had been here before and knew what to do.
"Let me just give you some hope," the House minority leader told campaign donors on Oct. 17 at a private gathering on the patio of the Las Vegas Four Seasons Hotel. "Any time a president in office is below 50 percent [approval] in recent history, his party has lost the Congress in the next election."
Her sample size was a bit small for comfort — in the past half a century, only the three most recent presidents have given up the House. But this was a pep talk, not an academic symposium.
Pelosi, a San Francisco Democrat who has raised more than $633 million for her party over the past 15 years, was on a seven-city, eight-day tour to show that the 2018 midterm campaign was in full swing. The Democratic effort to retake the House and return from the wilderness would probably rise or fall on the performance of one of the most polarizing figures in modern American politics.
"We have a plan and a vision to unify," she told the donors, according to attendees.
After three decades in Congress, Pelosi, 77, makes an unlikely general to lead the troops into another change election. Her party, deemed elite and out of touch in 2016, is struggling to win back Midwestern working-class voters, and anger at Washington's entrenched leaders is pretty much the only thing that unites the country.
But rather than shrink from the spotlight, Pelosi is once again in control — her party's top fundraiser, senior midterm-election strategist and top legislative negotiator, in partnership with Senate Minority Leader Charles E. Schumer (D-N.Y.).
She has for months led a rolling battle with President Trump's agenda, setting a disciplined, pugilistic tone for her caucus and casting herself as the official face of the resistance. With substantial help from the opposition, she has been winning more than not, at least as measured by a growing number of competitive seats, her ability to outmaneuver Republican leaders on Capitol Hill and Trump's low approval ratings.
"There are a lot of ways to skin a cat," she likes to joke about the president. "And he is skinning himself."
That doesn't mean that anything is ordained. "It's not a slam dunk," she told the donors. Given all the things that can still go wrong, she was almost certainly understating the risk.
A second shot
The last time Pelosi led Democrats in an effort to take back the House, she was a new face on the scene, promising to "drain the swamp" a decade before Trump adopted the phrase. She became the first female speaker and the most powerful woman in American history, only to lose the gavel four years later — after passing the Affordable Care Act, the 2009 stimulus and new financial regulations.
These days, undocumented immigrant activists shout her down from the left when she visits the Bay Area. Some of the younger House Democrats have begun to call for a generational change at the top. And Republicans delight in the possibility of turning Midwestern races into referendums on San Francisco values.
[Women marched. Now what? A pillar of the resistance gathers in Detroit to figure out next steps]
Over the summer, the GOP won a special House election in Georgia by tarring the local candidate with the Pelosi brand. One ad featured the Golden Gate Bridge, cable cars and a pig-tailed hippie flashing a two-fingered peace sign. Democratic pollsters later found in focus groups that attacking Washington liberals proved effective in the Republican-leaning district.
"I certainly hope the Democrats do not force Nancy P out," President Trump taunted weeks later on Twitter. "That would be very bad for the Republican Party."
Pelosi denies that any of this affects her or her caucus, arguing that 70 seats will be more competitive next year than the one Democrats lost in Georgia. Instead, she defiantly flashes a gay-pride rainbow flag band on the Apple Watch on her left wrist, refusing to disguise her liberal credentials.
"Self-promotion is a terrible thing, but evidently someone has to do it," she explained a few days earlier, sitting in her Capitol office for one of several interviews with The Washington Post over the past two weeks. "The minute you do better, they will come after you, and that's why they come after me."
No one doubts that Pelosi can put points on the board. Through the end of September this year, she held 165 fundraising events in 35 cities, raising $38.9 million for House Democrats — helping top the committee fundraising haul of Republicans, according to her aides.
From left, Vice President Pence and President Trump meet Sept. 6 with Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.), Senate Minority Leader Charles E. Schumer (D-N.Y.) and Pelosi. Schumer and Pelosi secured a three-month budget extension in the talks, giving Democrats a leg up in a December faceoff. (Bill O'Leary/The Washington Post)
She also has made herself a constant national media presence, including with four hour-long CNN prime-time specials this year alone — more airtime than many of the network's paid contributors. "If you know the name of any legislator who knows how (and wants to) do that job, please give it to me so my children can have their grandmother back!" said her youngest daughter, Alexandra Pelosi, in an email.
Behind the scenes, Pelosi has been working with Republicans to undermine the Trump agenda. In recent months, she has strategized with Republican governors over preserving key parts of the ACA. She described Nevada Gov. Brian Sandoval as a "resource on persuading others" to resist Medicaid cuts, and aides said she also talked with Ohio Gov. John Kasich and Alaska Gov. Bill Walker, an independent. A spokesman for Walker confirmed the conversations; the offices of Sandoval and Kasich did not reply to a request for comment.
She also has led her caucus to negotiating victories in Washington. The budget agreement this past spring failed to fund most Republican priorities, including a new border wall, while providing billions for medical research, disaster funding and college grants. "Even though they had the signature and two majorities, we ate their lunch," Pelosi boasted. "That's what we do."
The process repeated itself last month, when she joined Schumer in winning Trump's support for a three-month budget extension, set to create a December showdown over the 2018 budget. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) later argued that the deal was not as bad as it seemed. "He was trying to pin a rose on it, poor baby," Pelosi said. "We now have more leverage."
Next she is leading the campaign to turn the American public against Republican tax legislation, which she calls "our Armageddon."
"Nancy is key to maintaining our unity," said Rep. Nita M. Lowey (N.Y.), the ranking Democrat on the House Appropriations Committee. "She knows the process, she knows the policy, and she knows the politics better than anyone."
Staying on message
The big task before Pelosi, the one that will ultimately seal or undermine her legacy, is the Democratic preparation for 2018. Her plan is much the same as in 2006: Keep her members focused on an economic message — "better jobs, better wages, better future" — raise a ton of money, recruit candidates and endlessly repeat her revolving databank of alliterative catchphrase trifectas.
"Money, message and mobilization," she says to describe Democratic priorities. "Cronyism, corruption and incompetence" is another, which she invokes to describe the party of Trump, echoing a phrase she deployed against President George W. Bush.
"Democrats have a growing number of takeover scenarios, but we won't know until later next year which races develop into serious opportunities," explained Nathan Gonzales, who runs the political handicapping operation Inside Elections. The takeover potential looks far stronger for Democrats in the House than in the Senate.
But Pelosi is convinced the effort will work only if Democrats stay disciplined. Her friend and Democratic donor Tom Steyer recently started airing television ads to demand Trump's impeachment, creating a clear risk to Pelosi's economic message.
Her response has been a study in nuance. "I think the presentation that Tom Steyer made was one that no one could disagree with in terms of justification," she said before explaining that outside advocates have a different role from those in government. She wants to keep the focus on jobs. "Everything is an opportunity cost of time," she added.
Pelosi has also opened the door to bringing more moderate politicians into the party. Her staff says she has no concerns if some Democratic candidates in tough districts, including Paul Davis in Kansas, promise on the campaign trail to turn her out of office.
That doesn't mean she does not share her colleagues' disdain for Trump. She jokes that her nicknames for the president are "Rock Bottom" and "Difficult Circumstances." But she also holds back. "I am respectful of the people that voted for him," she said. "They are way down the road with me already because they vote."
Underlying her entire approach is a fierceness, born not from the frontier liberalism of San Francisco but from the calculating, ethnic, big-city politics of Baltimore. There, her congressman-turned-mayor father regularly displayed the cold mathematics of coalition building in their living room, which also served as his headquarters.
Thomas D'Alesandro Jr.'s photograph hangs on his daughter's Capitol office wall. It's a picture of him speaking to first lady Eleanor Roosevelt at a 1940 hearing, given to her by former president Barack Obama.
Pelosi still embraces the formality of those days, preferring restaurants with tablecloths, greeting visitors in her office with poured glasses of ice water and often insisting on pleasantries before getting down to business. "Enjoyment is not it," said former congressman George Miller (D-Calif.), a longtime friend. "What she enjoys is opportunity. She came from a family where politics was about getting things done for people."
She also maintains an unflinching focus on her historic achievement. One of the reasons Pelosi did not follow through with her plan to step aside after the last election, she said, was the realization that without Hillary Clinton in the White House, she remained the only senior woman in government.
"I am a master legislator. I just love it," she said of her inherited appetites. "I consider myself a weaver, like I have a loom. And I bring all these different threads together."
While Pelosi said she has never experienced sexual harassment in the workplace, she also believes that the unacceptable level of sexism in the culture has changed little since the 1980s. "No, it's about the same: nick, nick, nick, nick," she said, pointing with her hands to demonstrate how women's power is undercut by the men. This is one of the reasons, she said, that she is so unabashed about pointing out her own abilities.
When former White House strategist David Axelrod, a longtime champion, recently asked her in an interview for his podcast whether she would serve out her term, she declined to answer and snapped back: "How many men have you asked that question to?" It's really a girl question."
After the interview, Axelrod spoke of Pelosi with unerring admiration. "She is tough as nails," he said.
Finding leverage
About a week after the Vegas fundraiser, Pelosi traveled to her alma mater, Trinity Washington University, a Catholic women's school in the District, where more than 10 percent of the student population are "Dreamers" — undocumented immigrants brought to the country as children.
Pelosi meets Dreamers at Trinity Washington University in the District on Tuesday. (Carolyn Van Houten/The Washington Post)
She told the students Democrats would not leave for the winter break without a legislative fix to give them legal status. It was an implicit threat: If Republicans wanted Democratic votes |
't even take a photo of the kit I'd just worn: a pile of hardware, consisting of a headset, two handheld controllers, a pair of headphones, and the cables that connected them all, all coiled together after I'd taken them off and returned to a far more boring reality than the one I had just experienced.
Faliszek remarked on how ungainly the whole thing looked—even though he'd let me snap a shot of the rig's even older prototype version an hour earlier—but I didn't care. A photo can't capture exactly what it looked like—what it felt like—to be a user inside of a SteamVR experience, the new "room scale" virtual reality concept powered by an early version of the HTC Vive headset. I've played all of the major VR contenders at this point, but none left me feeling so eager to dive back in. Even at this stage, SteamVR delivers a major feeling of immersion without even a hint of the usual VR nausea.
With a photo of this fresh-off-my-head hardware, at least, I'd have a memento to tide me over.
Two yoga mats
The demo I received was largely the same as the one Ars Technica editor Kyle Orland saw at March's GDC world premiere, but much of the experience bears repeating. This has been a big year for virtual reality, after all, and the major products coming down the pipeline can get mixed up if you're unfamiliar.
Virtual reality demos that we've seen for sets like the Oculus Rift and Sony's Project Morpheus require sitting down and putting on a headset, which we were asked to do with SteamVR as well. This HTC-produced headset, like others, contains high-res displays directly in front of your eyes—one 1080p display for each—along with a pair of headphones. Once you've put it on, your head is tracked in virtual space so that when you move, the entire virtual world appears to move in sync. If there's any lag or latency, we didn't notice it, and the screens benefit from a smooth, 90 frames-per-second refresh thanks to "global illumination, low-persistence" panels.
The same goes for the other modern sets we've used. What's different in this one is Faliszek's major directive: "This isn't a sitting demo, but a standing demo, so go ahead and stand up," he tells me. I do, and the virtual world keeps up with my every step and turn—up to a point, anyway. "See that wall?" Faliszek asks, referring to a virtual grid that has appeared in my vision after a few real-life steps forward. "That wall means it's a wall."
Sam Machkovech
Sam Machkovech
Oculus and Morpheus users must be directly in view of a camera, and those rigs are designed in such a way that larger, full-body motions—particularly walking around—are not completely trackable (though both competitors do let you stand and move about in a small area). SteamVR comes with two "base station" laser-tracking boxes, and they must be mounted on opposite corners of an ideal play space at a distance of up to five meters. In short, SteamVR lets you get up and walk around... provided you have room in your house to get up and walk around while wearing a headset that obscures your entire real-life view of the world.
"You can go as small as your desktop, right?" Faliszek says when I press about space requirements for SteamVR. "Be seated, if that’s what you want. Go any space in between. Jokingly, there’s a size we call 'two yoga mats.' Tape them together lengthwise, four feet by six feet. In a living room, four-by-six will fit, and that gives you enough room to react and move."
The unfettered space requirement can seem weird before trying the rig out, but SteamVR's other difference is its additional major peripheral: a pair of custom, tracked-around-the-room controllers. In our demo, Faliszek held the controllers a foot away from us in real space, and we could see and grab them in virtual space instantly and easily.
These controllers have a little in common with Morpheus, which uses the PlayStation Move wands, but again, SteamVR doesn't need users to be right in front of a webcam in order to be tracked in virtual space—and unlike Oculus, which announced its own "Touch" motion controller this week, the SteamVR motion controller will be standard and required, not optional. You really can get up and move anywhere in the playspace, hold SteamVR's controllers to represent your real hands, and manipulate all kinds of stuff in the virtual world.
"When [Valve and HTC] revealed their larger plans—the way you're tracked in full volume, the way they tracked hands—there was this revelation," game designer Denny Unger said from his studio in Vancouver Island. "Shit, this was the missing piece we'd all been waiting for in VR."
"A near-religious experience"
Unger, the lead creative director of CloudHead Games, was invited, along with roughly a dozen other game makers, to visit Valve Software last October in a meeting that was shrouded in secrecy. Unger called it a "three-day secret summit," while fellow participant and Owlchemy Labs founder Alex Schwartz described it as a kind of event draped in NDAs "with snipers perched on the roof."
Roughly two dozen people attended the meeting, including a few from Valve and HTC, but most of the attendees weren't even told what the meeting would be about. Unger suspected it had something to do with VR, since he'd been working on VR adventure game The Gallery: Six Elements since early 2013. Schwartz's team wondered if the meeting had anything to do with the fact that they'd been the first to ship an Oculus-compatible third-party game on Steam (the weirdly titled base-jumping simulator AaaaaAAaaaAAAaaAAAAaAAAAA!!! for the Awesome).
Both developers also attended the Steam Dev Days event earlier that year, in which Valve had shown off a virtual reality system that worked in a single room whose walls were covered in what looked like QR codes. It was described at the time as "inside-out tracking," and it too promised free movement in a virtual space. But at that earlier demo, even the eventual first wave of SteamVR developers wasn't convinced.
"It was a near-religious experience doing the room demo," Schwarz said. "After I calmed down, I was almost sad, because that quality of virtual reality, I thought, was not attainable within the next five years. It was like going to some academic place, where they’ve got a $10 million rig of some kind. You say, that’s cool, but I won't be able to play that in my house any time soon."
Reps at the October meeting that Schwartz and Unger attended stated otherwise. The SteamVR-powered HTC Vive would enable the same kind of full-room VR play. It would launch for general consumers by the end of the next year, Valve said, and they wanted new experiences built for it.
"HTC came and explained what they’d done previously with other partners, how quickly they can actually work, how reliably they can hit their marks, in terms of release dates," Unger said. "At that point, leaving that mini-conference, we thought, 'this is gonna get real, and it’s gonna get real really fast.'"
Unger's invite didn't just come because he'd been working on a virtual reality game already. Rather, his game was one of the few demos Valve had seen that locked perfectly into the company's VR vision. Quite frankly, the company was sick of, well, getting sick.
"The Gallery was a good example," Faliszek said. "Brian asked me to see his demo [last year], and I was sure it was gonna make me sick, because there was a lot of locomotion in it. But they did a bunch of smart things where it worked really well. I was moving around in the world that was that kind of world. It just worked. The first time I play [new games], I try to soak it in and not try to piece apart what’s going on. But that was one of those where right away, I wanted to play it again. You realize all this work they’d done, all these tiny things that all add up to you being able to have that kind of locomotion, and you can feel good about it. They went after the hard problem."
Do the locomotion
Unger describes The Gallery: Six Elements as an "'80s movie adventure" a la films like Labyrinth or Dark Crystal in which players explore classic fantasy worlds; the game will be split into four episodes, each offering roughly two hours of play. Its world premiere demo has players stand in a single room full of all kinds of items to manipulate. Wheels to turn, items to pull up and slam into each other, levers to yank—all before a gigantic monster shows up and taunts you from the distance.
This fantasy-playroom sliver of VR gameplay was the thing Unger had dreamed of when he began work on The Gallery in 2013—but surprisingly, that dream nearly slipped out of his fingers, mostly because VR started gaining momentum.
"After Facebook got involved with Oculus, they switched messaging into a more locked-down type of experience—one that required you to sit," Unger said. "That was a momentum killer for us. We had to rethink our game. We’d built it with the intention of standing up and using hands."
He also pointed out that the Oculus team had never gotten around to telling developers to expect "hand input," and Unger realized he had "assumed blindly that it would come." Instead, the messaging was about sitting down with a gamepad. He points out that this led his team at CloudHead Games to chat with Sony's Morpheus team, which at least supports a non-traditional motion controller. However, that route still forced players to be confined in a small space in front of a camera. Unger, like other VR developers, wanted players to feel free in virtual space, and that meant both smooth control and a complete removal of discomfort, sickness, and nausea from the equation.
Not "less" nausea, but none at all. Both Unger and Schwartz were emphatic on this point, and they'd each researched issues such as vestibular disconnects that occur when "moving" in virtual space with a controller, as opposed to naturally walking around.
"There’s no way to get a fully nausea-free experience if you are moving the character outside your own physical movement," Schwartz said. "People instantly think, 'Well, the Oculus said you’ll probably be seated, so just hit a button and drive forward.' Cockpit games are gonna be huge, surely. But personally, the direction Owlchemy's taking is a no-nausea approach, period, full stop.
"Valve doesn’t like to make crazy claims," he added. "They like their developers to make those claims and nod their heads in the background. But I’ve said, properly designed games in the Vive will get zero percent of the populace sick. Zero. That’s an amazing technical feat. My mother, our co-founder's grandmother, people who can’t put a DK2 [Oculus headset] on their face for a second without getting sick, stay in our game, Job Simulator, for over 20 minutes."
Owlchemy's first SteamVR game feels like Wii Sports for the VR generation. Its silly premises mock the concept of putting on a VR headset and simulating real life, as it puts players in a near-future world in which humans no longer do anything for themselves. As a result, Job Simulator has come out to remind our future selves of rudimentary tasks like working at a bar or manning a kitchen. The GDC demo simply has players grab various elements in a giant kitchen—full of tables, shelves, and sharp objects—and make food, though it supports both serious and silly play.
Want to "cook" eggs by walking halfway across the virtual kitchen and throwing them at a microwave? Go ahead—and because the SteamVR system tracks movement so naturally, there's no learning curve to throwing and manipulating objects in its virtual space.
It was the result of a wild seven-day VR game jam in January of this year, in which Owlchemy's small team gathered in a basement in Manitoba. With nothing more than a "super-janky" HTC Vive prototype, the team got to work, specifically trying to figure out how well the rig's motion controllers would function. For one early game prototype, Schwartz simply built a white virtual table, on which he'd coded a few colored blocks. He just wanted to see how it worked to attach "grab" and "hit" commands to these blocks.
"I remember sitting on the floor in that Winnipeg basement, like a kid playing with wooden blocks," Schwartz said. "And I knocked these blocks off the table. I was just stacking them. I had the physics, accuracy, and manipulation to play a fully fledged Jenga game without having to build Jenga."
That inspiration drove the eventual development of Job Simulator as a full video game, and the resulting title taps in to the joy Schwartz and his team felt from being able to pick up and manipulate virtual objects in SteamVR in ways they'd never been able to with other platforms. The pinpoint accuracy of reaching for and grabbing things and the haptic feedback within the controllers to confirm those actions cannot be undersold, Schwartz said.
"It’s not a sexy term," he added. "But near-field manipulation of physics objects is fucking amazing."
Snuggling up to a cozy virtual fire
Schwartz, Unger, and their respective development teams at Owlchemy and CloudHead insisted that their games will be ready by the time the HTC Vive headset and its matching controllers and base stations launch for consumers by the end of this year.
Unger, in particular, pointed out how long he's been working on his game already. He's got a handle on how moving around in his virtual world will work without making players feel trapped in a "two yoga mat"-sized box. He was hesitant to announce the final game's suite of movement options just yet—and told us to expect an unveil at this August's Penny Arcade Expo in Seattle—but he did hint to one system called "blinking," in which players can point toward an area in The Gallery's virtual world that they'd like to walk to. At that point, the game will black out, then fade back in with players standing in a new place. No sickness, all access.
Other SteamVR demos we tried already felt totally complete, particularly Tilt Brush, which Faliszek was careful to describe. "You can say, 'oh, that's Photoshop in 3D," he said. "But is it really?"
He then spoke about the entirely new experience that comes from a combination of fully tracked controllers and the ability to virtually walk around a space. It's so new that it's hard to type out, but a few minutes in Tilt Brush changes the language used. Here's how it worked: imagine holding something like a Wii remote in virtual space and pressing down on a trigger to "paint" in mid-air. When we first did, we created what appeared to be a 2D painting, but once we walked around, we realized each of our dabs of paint had its own x, y, and z axis position, meaning we could walk around the room and quickly build fully three-dimensional shapes in mid-air—and then add different textures and "paints" at that.
Schwartz, like SteamVR's other first-wave developers, mentioned that devs and friends of his got lost in Tilt Brush for "over an hour." One of those—possibly driven nuts by being in a cold Manitoba basement for a week—created an entire virtual scene with nothing more than Tilt Brush's early, rudimentary painting system. The friend had drawn a virtual, animated fireplace, then drew a 3D human sitting next to that fireplace. The artist then laid down next to the scene, as if he was chilling out by the fire.
That scene sounds a little creepy, sure, but it's also indicative of a whole new language of gameplay experiences—fueled by a sort of control simplicity that gaming has never before seen—that will follow when something as intuitive as SteamVR launches. The people behind SteamVR aren't talking about the "friendly to novices" kind of simplicity that the Wii had promised, either; rather, control and mastery will now mimic real life more than ever.
"In a room-scale system, people can instantly move around," Faliszek said. "I wanna go down and take a look at that? Guess what I do? I walk over, crouch down, and I look at it. And the controllers, they’re simple, we tried to make them become intuitive very quickly, so that your muscle memory is super quick on it."
He mentions a bow-and-arrow demo that required reaching behind my back to get more arrows from a virtual quiver that I quickly adapted to: "When you grab an arrow, that action would have been on a button before, but now it’s not. And equally, it’s not, 'I’ve seen that motion control before.' It’s not. It’s not abstracted. You’re not looking at the screen and thinking of what your avatar’s doing. You’re just doing it. When you were trying to shoot that balloon at the end, you were rapid-fire pulling the arrows out. You were doing that as if that’s how you’d always done it."
It's that very feeling that has Unger and Schwartz convinced that SteamVR's major space requirement will not be as big a hurdle as many expect. Unger believes that 2017 will be the tipping point for major VR sales, based on what he's seen and played already, while Schwartz says the issue of making room for SteamVR in your home is easier to swallow with the right comparison point. "The jump up in tech between playing a normal video game and playing with Kinect was X. The jump between a regular game and playing a room scale VR experience is X times 100. It’s like saying, 'I have an IMAX theater in my house.' It’s so much better that we can get away with a cumbersome setup."
As such, the game maestros at Valve really have no good advice for aspiring SteamVR developers, and they love it that way. Iterate, don't be married to good ideas, and on and on—a lot of standard development advice, now attached to the wildest game design frontier we've ever entered.
"Once you have [room scale movement] in your vocabulary, what’s the next step?" Faliszek said. "How do you look at things differently? Over the years, as we start exploring more and more, we’re gonna start really tapping into the potential. The example I’ve used is, when Pong first came out in homes, it was the most awesome thing, right? I had one of those Bally ones to play Pong, graduated to 2600, and had to go to a friend's house to play an Intellivision. We thought that was the end-all, man. Games are never going to get better than this. Those were horrible—well, not really, but they were very primitive, very simple steps towards something. That’s where we’re at now in VR.
"The good thing is, we’ve been making games for 40 years now, so primitive step one still starts off as pretty damned good. But where we take this, what it becomes, is really hard to define right now."
Listing image by Sam MachkovechA BRACE of US Senators have written to the US Federal Trade Commission (FTC) expressing concerns about Google's internet dominance.
The letter comes from Senator Herb Kohl, a Wisconsin Democrat, and Senator Mike Lee, a Utah Republican. They write that although they cannot pin anything anti-competitive on the internet search and advertising giant, the FTC might, if it takes the time to look at Google properly.
"While we take no position on the ultimate legality of Google's practices (PDF) under the antitrust laws and the FTC Act, we believe these concerns warrant a thorough investigation by the FTC," they said.
The two Senators headed up a subcommittee that looked at Google's business in September, and it appears that Google executives did themselves no favours there. Chairman Eric Schmidt is quoted as having said, "I would agree, Senator, that we are in that area," in response to questions about whether the company has an online search monopoly.
The Senators further warn that Google faces only one real competitor, Microsoft's Bing.
They add that the search business has grown from being a referrer into a provider of online services, and caution it is possible that Google might favour these when returning its results.
On hand is a quote from Marissa Meyer, Google's VP of location services, who in 2007 said that it was "only fair" that the firm posted its links first. She added that this had always been the firm's policy, according to the letter.
The Senators added that a key question for the FTC is whether this actually is the case.
They also ask the FTC to consider what Google could do with the Android mobile operating system, and suggest that although it does not now, the firm could force hardware makers that use Android to set its search engine as the default. µJanuary 7th, 2016
In Search of a Linux Calendar
One of my New Year’s resolutions this year is to only use cloud services when absolutely necessary. Web apps are great tools when you need to collaborate at a distance, but other than that you’re better off keeping your work on your own machines, for privacy reasons if nothing else.
The trouble with the cloud, however, is that it’s too easy. While we know we shouldn’t be putting information that needs to be safely secured on our own computers in the hands of the likes of Google — no offense Google — web apps are only a click away and it’s often easier to just clink-and-use than it is to stop what we’re doing to take the time to look for something that’ll serve our purpose while keeping our data safe and sound on our own hard drives. I’m guilty of this, and most likely, so are you.
This resolve was put to the test a few days after the holidays, when I realized I was having trouble remembering all the things on the schedule I keep in my head and decided it was high time I started using a calendar. My first impulse was to click to Google’s always handy online calendar, which I’ve used from time to time, but just before I clicked I pulled my hand from the mouse remembering my resolution.
It was time to do some calendar hunting. And because I’d saved myself from Google’s always-at-the-ready suite of online tools, I started my search with…well, Google. As anyone who knows me well will attest, sometimes my thinking has trouble getting out of reverse.
Sunrise Calendar
Hoping to take the easy way out, I looked first for a calendar extension for Chrome, my browser of choice, forgetting for a moment that a browser’s whole purpose is to access the Internet, which is the cloud when you get down to it. Right away I discovered Sunrise Calendar, which is touted for letting you work offline. I did a little searching, enough to find that plenty of folks are using it and think it’s just fine. Perfect, I thought. Just the thing. I told Google to “make it so.”
The good news is that Sunrise is a perfectly functional calendar that does everything a calendar should do. The bad news is that for about a year it’s been a Microsoft product — a deal breaker for me if ever there was one. But that isn’t its only drawback: It also offers no escape from the cloud.
Sunrise Calendar was originally developed exclusively for mobile devices and is popular on iPhones and Android devices. As you might expect from what is essentially a mobile app, it requires a connection with an online calendaring program, like Google Calendar or Microsoft Outlook, to function. You can work offline all right, but as soon as you connect to the Internet it’ll blab all it knows about you to its configured online calendar.
Just to be sure this is the case, I checked it out. Sunrise Calendar and my Google Calendar are now in perfect sync, just as Google — which wants to sync the world — would have it. I should say, they were in perfect sync, since Sunrise is no longer on my hard drive.
KOrganizer
Next up I tried KOrganizer, which is basically the calendar component of Kontact, KDE’s personal information manager suite. I was keen to have a look at it, because back in the days when I was new to Linux and running good ol’ Mandrake, I used KMail as my absolute favorite email client for several years, and still have fond memories of it. Although I’m no longer a KDE user — these days Xfce is my desktop of choice — that’s never stopped me from running KDE apps in other environments.
Finding KOrganizer using Synaptic was a snap, and a few clicks later I was ready to see where in the menu Mint dropped it. It was under “Office,” right where I expected it.
After opening KOrganizer I had to click through a couple of error messages to get to the main screen. Evidently the program doesn’t speak Xfce as fluently as it speaks KDE and was befuddled because it couldn’t find the system tray. Other than that, it worked splendidly. I especially like the fact that the work area to the left of the calendar graphic offers thumbnail calendars for three months — four if you want to squeeze the calendar against the right wall — which can come in handy for planning ahead. The calendar is also intuitive and easy to use.
Evolution
I was ready to adopt KOrganizer then and there, but I thought I’d be remiss if I didn’t at least give Evolution a try. These days Evolution is the full fledged PIM for the GNOME desktop, but back when I started using Linux it was somewhat independent, owned and maintained by Ximian, a company closely tied to GNOME which was eventually purchased by Novell. Evolution’s main claim to fame, then as well as now, is that it can connect to Microsoft Exchange Servers, although establishing the connection is said to be a daunting task.
Evolution is also the first email client I ever used in Linux, and it was never a favorite.
The Evolution calendar isn’t available as a stand alone app, at least not in my distro’s repository, so I installed the entire Evolution suite, including the email client, as a single package. The calendar is functional enough and is just as intuitive as KOrganizer. However, for some reason — probably connected with the numerous crashes of the email system I experienced back in 2002 — I don’t like it and pretty much knew going in I wouldn’t be using it.
Personal prejudices aside, it’s not a bad calendar and not all that different from the KDE calendar. As with KOrganizer, it has the ability to show thumbnail images for several months, although the thumbnails are wider, which means that keeping three months onscreen greatly reduces the size of the main calendar, but two works just fine.
Lightning
Finally, I took a look at Lightning, which is not a stand alone application but is the calendar and scheduling extension for the Thunderbird email client and the SeaMonkey Internet suite. This is another calendar app with which I have previous experience, as I used it at a business I operated from 2004-2012.
As was the case with KOrganizer and Evolution, the straight forward design is easy to use and is intuitive. To my eyes, it also has the most attractive GUI of all the calendars I tried. On the downside, it only displays one monthly thumbnail in the left screen, although it does offer the ability to navigate to future or previous months by use of navigation arrows. Also, it can only be considered as an option if you’re using Thunderbird or SeaMonkey.
When all is said and done, a calendar app is a calendar app is a calendar app. Except for Sunrise’s propensity for sharing secrets with its cloud based parent calendar, there’s not a nickle’s difference between any of these apps; they all do the same thing in basically the same way. I’ve put my affinity for KOrganizer aside for the time being and have settled in with Lightening, mainly because of its tight integration with Thunderbird. Among other thing, that means I won’t have to remember to open it, as it’ll be there automatically as a tab on Thunderbird, so I might even find myself using it.
I’m not uninstalling KOrganizer however. I might yet change my mind.
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RelatedThe chairman of the federal NDP’s Ontario caucus says he’s already got a seat picked out for Andrew Foulds in the House of Commons.
“Third seat from the left,” joked Malcolm Allen on Thursday night, as Foulds, the three-time city councillor, officially accepted the party’s nomination in Thunder Bay-Superior North.
The race was uncontested as Foulds, who was unsuccessful in a provincial run last June, takes aim at Liberal Patty Hajdu and Green Party incumbent Bruce Hyer, who won the seat under the NDP banner in 2011.
Foulds, who drew on the wisdom of NDP leaders Ed Broadbent, Jack Layton and Thomas Mulcair during his nomination speech, said he’s ready to go to work for the people of the riding, expected to be one of the most highly contested across Canada.
“I am not a quitter. I will never give up and I will not stop until the job is done,” Foulds said.
“I was born with NDP orange blood in my veins and I intend to die with NDP orange blood in my veins.”
A high-school teacher at Superior Collegiate by day and municipal politician representing the Current River Ward since 2006, Foulds said it’s time for the country to find out what an NDP government can do for Canadians.
Foulds listed a pharmacy-care program, affordable daycare, fighting the Conservatives controversial Bill C-51 and a national $15-an-hour minimum wage as four planks in a platform designed to improve the country’s quality of life.
Foulds called it a big night as he took the next step in his political career, a crowd of about 45 on hand at the Finlandia Club where the nomination meeting was held.
“It really gave me a lot of inspiration. It wasn’t contested, but it’s still a big night because it’s important that we get the message out of what we stand for,” Foulds said.
“I’m so pleased with our leader and with our party because I really feel our platform has some significant substance. The things Tom Mulcair and the NDP are saying really resonate with me and they really resonate with people.”
Greg Snider, who seconded Foulds’ nomination, said what you see is what you get with Foulds.
“I am telling you,” Snider said. “Andrew Foulds’ politics are the values he lives, the values his family lives.
“We need to get him (to Ottawa) because he gets it done.”
The federal election is scheduled for Oct. 19.**We have updated the content in this blog! Check it out here!
Today’s post will be short, sweet and to the point.
I was doing client research into the typical backer profiles and came across some interesting and perhaps powerful statistics on the nature of crowdfunding. I thought it could be beneficial for the community so let’s look a little deeper into the backer demographics of Kickstarter and Indiegogo.
Just maybe these mathematical mysteries will help entrepreneurs out there launch better businesses and understand their target crowdfunding customer segments just a bit better.
Numbers Never Lie(???)
One of the main advantages entrepreneurs of today have over those of the past is data. Where once startups relied on intuition and incredibly limited customer surveys, the advent of the internet, big data and split testing are taking entire industries by storm.
That is great news for entrepreneurs everywhere, but it can be overwhelming. When contemplating mountains of data, the road forward is often anything but clear.
The Big Picture
Honestly I’ve always found it challenging to overcome the noise and instead look at the bigger picture. That’s a major motivator of this post.
The Art of the Kickstart community has been rapidly growing, evolving and gaining momentum in the crowdfunding space. I’ve heard two heads are always better than one so let’s put that to the test. I’ll present the findings, my intrepretations and then see what other smart startup oriented individuals infer. Together just maybe we can make sense of all this crowdfunding data and uncover a couple tidbits to take our campaigns to the next level.
Crowdfunding Demographics
When analyzing stats it’s always important to preface them with sources and context. Everything you see here on crowdfunding customer demographics comes directly from Quantcast, arguably the most reputable of the online statistics companies. Also keep in mind the stats shown are only for US-based users.
While unfortunate and somewhat limited in scope, the US still makes up more than half of all crowdfunders and allows for pretty important trends to be seen. Note: IGG will always remain on the left with Kickstarter on the right.
Gender
[clear-line]
Wow! Just wow. I never imagined the incredible chasm which separated Kickstarter and Indiegogo audiences was so substantial.
This speaks to just how unique each of the juggernauts of crowdfunding truly are and cannot be ignored. Note: I’ve seen stats suggesting as high at 78% of Kickstarter visitors are in fact male, well above the internet average, and of course this plays a prominent role in strategizing your crowdfunding project.
While it’s not as black and white as Kickstarter for guy products and IGG for the ladies, truthfully it seems smart to consider: who exactly is your ideal customer?
Age
[clear-line]
Interestingly it appears Indiegogo appeals to a slightly older demographic of users. While I’m unsure how significant the stats are, at scale it’s important to consider. What age range and ideal customer are your targeting? Age almost always plays an enormous role in the audiences you’re attempting to reach.
Education and Income
[clear-line]
While the age statistics seemed relatively insubstantial, when paired with the income and education levels of both Kickstarter and IGG backers, the picture takes on a new light.
Kickstarter backers are younger, better educated and more financially successful than their Indiegogo counterparts. This is incredible important. Though Kickstarter visitors are younger they’re earning more and earlier in their careers than IGG audiences. Though differing in only relatively small proportions, this would suggest a stronger, more meaningful trend.
I’d hypothesize the Kickstarter crowd is more ingrained in up-and-coming, higher-salaried industries and almost assuredly more tech-oriented than their crowdfunding cousins of Indiegogo. This is further evidenced by the greater successes of next-gen tech startups on Kickstarter as opposed to IGG.
Mobile Users
This is the most powerful and shocking of all! Honestly the entire article was inspired by this incomprehensible stat.
At this point it’s evident mobile usage is taking off across the world. More and more individuals and customers are browsing the web via sophisticated and ever-improving smartphones. Yet even as mobile internet usage accelerates, anyone involved in ecommerce, internet marketing or online entrepreneurship understands the issues of mobile.
From lower conversion rates, responsive design challenges and less screen space it seems like an increasingly annoying problem. Well, the stats speak for themselves. This beyond significant statistic would suggest significantly reduced conversion and engagement rates with Indiegogo campaigns compared to Kickstarter.
As you can see, a much greater percentage of IGG users are accessing the site on the go. Any theories on the vast differences? This is particularly perplexing, and better understanding the backer behavior could be critical in not only deciding on a platform, but in conceptualizing how your campaign is displayed.
Moral of the math: If you build your business around IGG, ensure your images, campaign page and copywriting are effective on all screen sizes.
Final Thoughts
So there they are. What do you guys think? I’d love to hear your opinions on the article, the stats and of course the conclusions I drew.
Though I’d love to claim expertise, this isn’t exactly in my repertoire so I’d love to get some other educated opinions. Maybe as a team we can unravel some of the secrets to crowdfunding success…what do you say?
Numbers never tell the entire story…My journey toward a maintainable project structure for React/Redux
Matteo Mazzarolo Blocked Unblock Follow Following Oct 4, 2016
When I started learning Redux I was shocked by the number of discussions and “best practice” you could find online about it, but it didn’t take too much time to understand why: Redux is not very opinionated about the way of structuring a project around it, and this can lead to some annoyance when you’re trying figure out what kind of structure suits better your style and your project.
In this post I’d like to share some information on my journey to achieving a comfortable Redux project structure.
This is not an introduction/tutorial, a bit of knowledge of Redux is required to understand it entirely.
Also, apart from redux-sagas (which can be replaced by redux-thunk or by your favorite library for handling asynchronous actions), I won’t use any external Redux library/utility.
Hope you find it interesting!
First stop: grouping files by “type”
When I started using Redux I studied the official doc from top to bottom and I organized my project this way:
This structure is promoted by the official Redux repository examples and in my opinion it is still a pretty solid option.
The main drawback of a structure like is that even adding a small feature might end up in editing several different files.
For example adding a field (that is updated by an action) to the product store means that you’ll have to:
add the action type in types/product.js
add the action creator in actions/products.js
add the field in reducers/product.js
And it doesn’t end here! When the app grows you’ll probably add other directories to the mix:
So, after introducing redux-saga in my project I relized that it was becoming too hard to maintain and I started looking for alternatives.
A different approach: grouping files by feature
An alternative to the project structure above consists in grouping files by feature:
This approach has been promoted by various interesting articles in the React community, and it is used in one of the most common React boilerplate.
At first glance this structure seemed reasonable to me because I was encapsulating a component (the container), its state (the store) and its behavior (the actions) in a single folder, following the React’s component concept.
After using it in a bigger project though I discovered that it is not all sunshine and rainbows: if you’re using Redux you’re probably doing it for sharing a slice of store across you’re app… and you can see easily that this clashes with the encapsulation concept promoted by this structure.
For example dispatching an action from the product container might produce side effects on the cart container (if the cart reducer reacts in some way to the action).
You must also be careful not to be caught in another conceptual trap: don’t feel forced to |
Tatars boycotted a referendum on March 16 when local authorities say 97 percent of those who voted opted to join Russia. Kiev and the West derided the exercise as illegitimate.
The Tatars have continued to fly the Ukrainian flag at the Mejlis since the vote, despite a visit by armed pro-Russian “self-defense” units and threats to close their organization by the region’s chief prosecutor. “We’re used to constant struggle. We don’t trust the Russian authorities, and why should we? They have always opposed the Crimean Tatars,” Dzhelyalov said.
The Mejlis’ former leader, Soviet-era dissident Mustafa Dzhemilev, says he is banned from setting foot on Crimean soil.
“GOOD RIDDANCE KIEV”
While the Mejlis is the largest Crimean Tatar organization, some smaller groups are happy Russia has taken the region under its wing. One such group, Milli Firka, says Kiev had done little to rehabilitate the Crimean Tatars in the 23 years since the Soviet Union collapsed.
“In less than two months Russia has done far more for the Crimean Tatars than Ukraine ever did. Only after Crimea became part of Russia did Kiev even remember that we exist,” said Milli Firka’s chairman, Vasvi Abduraimov.
Russian President Vladimir Putin recently awarded Abduraimov the order “For services before the Fatherland,” second-class, for backing the annexation.
Among the reasons Abduraimov cited for his support of Russian control were the security of knowing that Crimea will be protected by a “strong, respected power” and a presidential decree making Crimean Tatar one of three state languages on the peninsula alongside Russian and Ukrainian.
Milli Firka says the Mejlis is a Western project whose aim is to integrate the Crimean Tatars into Europe rather than Putin’s planned Eurasian Union of former Soviet states.
“We believe it’s better for us to look east to Eurasia, especially as the centre of world economic development is gradually shifting to countries like China and India,” Abduraimov said.
Dzhelyalov said the Mejlis and Milli Firka have the same aims - the revival of the Crimean Tatar people and respect for their right to free speech, education in their own language, property rights and real representation in government - but that the two group’s methods are different.
FLYING THE FLAG
Rustam Temirgaliyev, Crimea’s deputy prime minister, told Reuters that Russia now treated the Tatars in an “absolutely open and democratic manner” and that they had been given ministerial posts in the latest government.
“Russia guarantees that all rights and freedoms of the Crimean Tatars will be respected,” he said.
The Mejlis says it hopes to receive official permission soon for a march through central Simferopol to mark Sunday’s anniversary, but that the government is insisting the Tatars don’t fly the Ukrainian flag or criticize the annexation.
After the annual march, the Mejlis typically adopts a resolution on its demands to the local authorities.
“What are we to say this year? Some want a peacekeeping force brought in to protect us, while others are more worried about solving everyday problems like housing,” Dzhelyalov said.
On a recent visit to Bakhchisaray, many were reluctant to give their views, saying they feared persecution for speaking their minds.
A middle-aged man, who would give only his first name, Edem, said: “There is no understanding of democracy in Russia, whereas in Ukraine we could defend our interests. The Russians refuse to recognize that we are the native people here, not them.”
Edem said the new authorities were deliberately trying to split the Tatar community from within: “Now people have started asking me whether I’m for Dzhemilev, the current leader of the Mejlis or some other group.”
Slideshow (3 Images)
Standing outside a mosque in Simferopol, pensioner Akim said the uncertainty of not knowing how life would be under their new rulers was tormenting Tatars most.
Akim said life was hardly easy under Ukraine. “For 20 years they failed to build a school or install drainage systems in our district. It’s because this is known as a Tatar district,” he said, also asking that his last name not be published.
“But our relations with the Russians are worse. We know perfectly well who deported our families in cattle wagons and don’t know how it will turn out this time.”Share this
I am still counting the signatures being sent in from across the state from the month of July, but I had to stop counting to let you know that we now officially have more than 50,000 signatures in hand! To put that number in perspective, we did not reach 50,000 signatures during the 2016 campaign until March 2016 with only two months left until the submission deadline, instead of the nine months left currently.
(Picture: Vietnam Veteran Jimmie signs the NAM petition at Ozark Empire Fair in Springfield, MO)
Our volunteers have placed the campaign in an excellent position to qualify for the ballot and pass medical cannabis in Missouri in 2018! You can support their efforts by contributing now!
However, what hurt us in 2016 was not the total number of signatures -- it was too few signatures in one particular congressional district. To prevent that, we need timely information such as how many valid signatures there are in each district, which petitioners are getting the highest proportion of valid signatures, and who could use some pointers to improve their validity rate.
That is why in the next few weeks, we will contract with a professional petitioning firm, not only to dramatically expand our capacity to collect signatures, but to check each and every volunteer signature we have against the voter file. That will help us make decisions about where to send our petitioners and ensure an efficient distribution of valid signatures across the priority congressional districts.
It is also not too late to become a petitioner yourself. Check our event calendar for any upcoming volunteer events in your area or contact a volunteer coordinator near you.
Thank you, and here's to the next 50,000!Telling the enemy that you won’t retaliate if attacked is simply inviting him to attack you.
“Canadian PM: We won’t bomb ISIS even if attacked,” by Raphael Poch, Israel National News, January 5, 2016:
Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau is keeping his post-election promises and planning to put an end to the participation of the Canadian Air Force in the allied bombings of ISIS. Instead, he is moving Canadian efforts towards training local forces and towards providing humanitarian aid in Syria and Iraq.
In an interview with Global News, Trudeau said that he sees no reason to change this new policy towards ISIS and the threat of Islamic terror, even if a terror attack similar to the one in Paris were carried out on Canadian soil.
Trudeau, who as Prime Minister receives daily briefings on matters of national security, said that “it is no surprise that there are angry extremists and terrorists out there who wish Canadians and Canada harm and countries like it around the world. The key on understanding that, is how we let that affect us.”
“Obviously one of the most fundamental responsibilities of any government is to keep its citizens safe, and that is something that we are very focused on. But more than that, do we let ourselves be ruled by fear? Do we give in to the fear that there is a terrorist on every plane that may come to Canada? No, we cannot live that way and continue to be the hopeful country that we are. Quite frankly, fear doesn’t make us stronger; it makes us weaker. I feel that the job of being Prime Minister is to demonstrate that there are concerns, But we are working very hard on them, and people shouldn’t go through their lives afraid.”…
“We need to ensure that our intelligence community and our police services have the tools necessary to locate threats to Canadians. But anytime you are giving more resources to the intelligence agencies and the police, you need to bring in more oversight on those agencies to make sure that those powers are being properly used and not damaging our free society, and to make sure that they are doing everything they can to me Canadians safe.”
Trudeau said that “Canada is committed to having a military engagement in the fight against ISIL (ISIS) but in a helpful and substantive way. We have made the decision that we will pull out the CF-18’s and ending the bombings that Canada has been involved in, and we will be doing something else.”…But whether to remain in the Paris Agreement was a core dispute of the 2016 president election. Hillary Clinton supported the accord, while Trump promised to “cancel” the treaty in his first major speech on energy in May 2016.
It’s possible that most Americans support Paris because the agreement is the status quo, and people generally like the status quo. A neatly identical percentage of Americans support Paris as endorse Obama’s Clean Power Plan for the electricity sector, for instance, which is also currently the law of the land.
The Yale program polled 1,300 Americans from a national sample. Using these results, they extrapolated from demographic information to arrive at state-by-state estimates of public support for Paris. This is a well-tested polling technique that works well for presidential elections: Young, college-educated white men tend to vote the same, no matter where they live, for instance. It can falter, however, if there are geographic differences in political opinion.
Using this technique, the researchers argue that a majority of Americans in all states support staying in the treaty. These include (of course) Texas, Tennessee, Oklahoma, and West Virginia—all states with a Republican senator who asked Trump last week to stick to his campaign promise and pull out of the treaty.
Public opinion can change quickly in reaction to events, especially when they have a partisan edge. In 2013, only 22 percent of Republicans supported President Barack Obama’s proposal to air-strike Syria in response to its use of chemical weapons. But when Trump followed through and bombed a Syrian airfield in March of this year, 86 percent of Republicans supported him.
This is a profound swing—more than 64 percent—but smaller shifts are also common. Seventy-eight percent of Democrats now say they have a favorable view of NATO, up 20 percent from last year. Republican opinion of the alliance, meanwhile, fell five points.
There’s actually one even brighter spot in climate polling: renewable energy. Across many polls, vast majorities of Americans—more than 85 percent—say they support building out wind and solar energy. Many of the Trump administration’s policies—such as a massive decrease in funding for renewables research, and a study of the electric grid that Republican Senator Chuck Grassley has called “anti-wind”—seem designed to slow the rollout of renewable technology across the national grid.
It remains unclear whether these policies will polarize opinion about these technologies as well.
We want to hear what you think about this article. Submit a letter to the editor or write to letters@theatlantic.com.The glow worm is a medium to large sized invertebrate that is famous for having a green and yellow coloured light on the end of it’s tail.
Glow worms are found inhabiting dense woodland and caves around the world with the exception of the Americas and glow worms are one of the few insects that are found inside the colder Arctic Circle. Glow worms are nocturnal animals which means that they are active during the dark night which is when their glowing rears can be seen.
Glow worm is the common name for various different groups of insect larva and adult larviform females which glow through bioluminescence. Glow worms may sometimes resemble actual worms, but all are insects as one species of glow worm is a type of fly but most glow worms species are actually beetles.
It is only the female glow worms that actually glow as they spend around 2 hours every night in the mating season with their bottoms in the air, trying to attract a mate. The male glow worms are attracted to the glowing object in the foliage but have also been known to be attracted to man-made lighting such as street lights.
Glow worms are most commonly seen in the UK between June and October and their green-lit tails tend to show up most clearly when the sun goes down at dusk. Legend says that early humans used to use glow worms to mark paths and provide light in huts. Glow worms were thought to have some kind of magical power and so people would also use the glow worm in medicines.
Glow worms are omnivorous animals but they tend to have a very meat-based diet. Glow worms predominantly prey on snails and slugs which make up the majority of the glow worm’s diet. Glow worms also prey on other insects and small invertebrates.
Due to their small size and the fact that they glow in the darkness, glow worms have numerous natural predators within their environment including spiders, large insects, birds, reptiles and centipedes.
Typically, the female glow worms lays between 50 and 100 eggs in moist areas, over a period of a few days. The tiny glow worm eggs are yellow in colour and can take between 3 and 6 weeks to hatch depending on the climate (the warmer it is, the faster the glow worm eggs will hatch).
Glow worms are considered to be an animal species that is threatened with extinction as the glow worm population numbers are drastically decreasing. The main reason for the lower number of glow worms is thought to be the expansion of human civilisations. Glow worms are known to be particularly vulnerable to changes in their environment including habitat loss, noise and pollution.
Quick Glowworm Facts
Glowworm Questions and Answers
WHAT IS A GLOWWORM?
Kingdom: AnimaliaPhylum: ArthropodaClass: InsectaOrder: ColeopteraFamily: LampyridaeCommon Name: Glow WormScientific Name: Arachnocampa luminosaFound: WorldwideDiet: OmnivoreSize: 2.5-5.0cm (1-2in)Number of Species: 12Average Lifespan: 5 monthsConservation Status: ThreatenedColour: Black, Brown, Yellow, Green, RedSkin Type: ShellFavourite Food: SnailsHabitat: Undisturbed woodland and cavesAverage Litter Size: 75Main Prey: Snails, Slugs, InsectsPredators: Spiders, Birds, CentipedesSpecial Features: Long, flat body and green light on tail
A glowworm is the larvae stage in the lifecycle of a two-winged insect. It grows as long as a matchstick and looks a bit like a maggot. There are many different types of glowworm. The one we have in New Zealand is arachnocampa luminosa. ‘Arachno’ means spider-like, which refers to the way glowworms catch flying insects like spiders do. ‘Campa’ means larva and ‘luminosa’ means light-producing.
WHY AND HOW THEY GLOW
A glowworm uses its glow to attract food and to burn off its waste. It’s tail glows because of bioluminescence, which is a reaction between the chemicals given off by the glowworm and the oxygen in the air. This chemical reaction produces light, which the glowworm can control by reducing the oxygen to the light organ. Insects fly towards the light and get stuck in the sticky lines that the glowworm hangs down to catch food. Glowworms also use their glow to put other creatures off eating them.
WHY THEY ARE FOUND IN CAVES
Glowworms can survive only in very damp, dark places where their light can be seen. They need a ceiling that is fairly much horizontal from which they can hang their sticky feeding lines, and a sheltered place where wind does not dry them out or tangle their lines. The Waitomo Glowworm Caves provide a perfect environment with an abundance of insects brought into the cave via the river.
The Glowworms Lifecycle
The lifecycle of a Glowworm is in four stages and takes about 11 months. Eggs are laid in clutches of 30-40 on walls and ceilings. Immediately on hatching from the egg, the larvae emit a light, build a nest, put down lines and feed. Sticky substances on the lines trap insects and these are drawn up and devoured.
The larvae stage is the longest phase in the creature’s life and lasts around nine months. It then turns into a pupa in a cocoon and emerges as a two winged flying insect, which looks like a large mosquito.
The adult fly lives no longer than a few days as it has no digestive system and so cannot eat. Instead it uses this time to mate and lay eggs. The glowworms found in the Waitomo Glowworm Caves is a species unique to New Zealand.
EGGS
The female fly lays around 120 small spherical eggs. Within around 20 days the young larvae hatch from the eggs and crawl away.
Larva
After hatching the young larvae build a nest, put down lines and feed. Sticky substances on the feeding lines trap insects and these are drawn up and devoured. Even at this small size, less than 3 millimetres long, they emit a strong visible light and slowly grow over 9 months to the shape and size of a matchstick.
PUPA
The pupa is the same as the cocoon stage in the butterfly lifecycle; it is the stage between the larva and the adult fly. This will last about 13 days with the pupa suspended by a thread from the ceiling.
ADULT
The adult glowworm looks like a large mosquito. They have no mouth and their only function is to reproduce and disperse the species. Usually a male is waiting for the female to emerge from the pupa, mating takes place immediately and the cycle continues. Adult glowworms live no longer than a few days
More Information on the Glowworm
The Glow-worm herself (it is always the females who do the serious glowing) has very poor eyesight, so with a bit of care it should be possible to approach to within a few inches of her for a closer look without her being aware of you. At this range you can see that the light comes from two broad bands and two small dots on the underside of her tail, which she twists over so that it can be seen from above. Far from being a worm, she is really an insect, a beetle (Lampyris noctiluca) belonging to the firefly family. She has no wings, which means that she can’t go off in search of a mate, so instead she uses her light to flag down passing males as they patrol overhead.
If you inspect enough females you should eventually come across one who has managed to attract a partner (these often appear dimmer than lone females, partly because the males tend to obscure the light and partly because the female normally switches off her display once she starts to mate). In fact Glow-worms are extremely broad-minded in their mating habits and in extreme cases it is possible to find the female submerged beneath a scrum of as many as eight males, each trying to prise the others off. Seeing a male on his own you would be hard pushed to recognize him as belonging to the same species: he has a full set of wings and wing-cases and looks like a proper beetle. His huge eyes cover most of his head and allow him to home in on the female’s light, and a transparent visor protect them from knocks during his travels.
Neither the male nor the female Glow-worm have any mouthparts, so they can’t feed and their brief adult lives are a race to meet, mate and lay eggs. Most males are dead within a few days of mating and very few females reach the ripe old age of three weeks. A female can’t afford to waste precious time and energy on travelling, so she rarely strays more than a yard or two from where she first emerged. Having mated, she lays about 50 – 150 small, round, faintly-glowing eggs, but by the time they hatch about a month later she will have long since died.
When it first hatches from its egg the Glow-worm larva is almost pure white, but it soon darkens to a distinctive soot-black, with cream spots at the corners of each segment of its body. Like most children it is very picky about what it will eat, accepting only slugs and snails. It nips its prey with sharp, sickle-shaped jaws that inject a poison to paralyse and digest the victim, dissolving it into a lumpy soup that the larva can lap up. In this way the young Glow-worm may polish off as many as seventy slugs and snails during the course of its childhood.
Again like many children the young Glow-worm is a messy eater, but unlike most children it will clean itself up after each meal. A special organ stowed in the tip of its tail can be opened out into a cluster of tentacles, which the larva uses to sponge down its head, legs and body, mopping up any remaining blobs of liquefied snail.
The Glow-worm larva itself seems to have very few enemies to worry about. Its body is thought to contain a poison that protects it against predators and it uses pulses of light from two small spots beneath its tail to warn would-be attackers that it is not to be messed with.
In fact it may be that the Glow-worm’s distant firefly ancestors first evolved their light as a warning signal and only later started using it as a way of attracting a mate. To repel predators with poor eyesight, such as ants, the larva has a row of white glands down each side of its body which produce an unpleasant taste.
A typical Glow-worm larva takes two years to grow up, hunting in the summer and passing two winters in hibernation below ground or under logs or stones. For most of its childhood it is strictly nocturnal and rarely seen, but in the spring of its final year it will change its habits and start to wander about in broad daylight, perhaps looking for new habitat or seeking out a good spot in which to pupate. Once it has found a safe retreat it sheds its skin for the last time and passes the next week or two as a pupa. Finally, two years after being born, the Glow-worm re-emerges as an adult, ready to complete its life cycle.
Glowworm Pictures
Fun Facts on the Glowworms
> Glowworms are not worms, but insects.
> The adult glowworm cannot eat because it has no mouth.
> It can take the female up to 24 hours to lay her eggs.
> A male adult glowworm lives for 5 days, but the female only lives for 2 days.
> The larva stage of the insect is the only stage that eats anything.
> The larva can last for several months without eating.
> The glowworm larva is more like a maggot than a worm.
> The female lays about 130 eggs and dies immediately afterwards.
> Glow worms are cannibals!.
> The female glow worm is generally larger than the male.
> They do not have to look for food – it comes to them. It is attracted by their glow.
> They catch their food in sticky fishing lines that they hang down.
> They eat meat, usually other insects.
> A glowworm lives for 10 – 11 months from birth to death.
> A glow worm spends up to 7months of its life glowing in the larva stage.
> The glow worm fly (adult) is a poor flyer.
> Glow worms live in dark, damp places like caves and river banks.
> The Māori name for the glowworm is “pura toke” (blind or one-eyed worm).
PDFs on Glowworms
> The Biology and Distribution of Glowworms
> Glowworms Fact Pack
Like this: Like Loading...John Amis/Associated Press
We are in the final weeks of the 2015 season, and the Georgia Bulldogs football team has three more games left on its schedule. It has not been a season to remember, but finishing strong is the goal so the season won’t be a complete disaster.
However, in order for the Bulldogs to finish strong, everybody on the roster needs to take his game up a notch. These last three games won’t be easy as Auburn, Georgia Southern and Georgia Tech bring something different to the table.
So here are five Bulldogs who need to improve down the stretch.
QB Greyson Lambert
When the season is all said and done, Greyson Lambert will have better numbers than what he had at Virginia last year. But he has been inconsistent, as he has only completed over 50 percent of his passes once since the end of September. Lambert has also thrown only three touchdown passes in the last four games.
One of the reasons the Bulldogs lost three games in October is the lack of offensive production, and Lambert has been a big part of that. He has shown that he can be efficient and accurate, completing 96 percent of his passes against South Carolina and 90 percent the following week against Southern. But if the Bulldogs want to finish the season 9-3, Lambert will have to play like he did at the beginning of the season.
RB Keith Marshall
Let’s be clear. Keith Marshall is having a good season considering he’s coming off two years' worth of injuries. However, he will need to be what Sony Michel was when Michel was the backup for Nick Chubb before he tore his MCL.
Marshall’s best game this season came in the opener when he rushed for 73 yards and two touchdowns against Louisiana-Monroe. He had a solid game last week against Kentucky, rushing for 60 yards and 13 carries.
The reality of the Bulldogs' situation is if they don’t rush the football effectively, they will have a hard time winning the next three games. Michel will get his yards, so this means Marshall will need to be more consistent in order for the Bulldogs to have a game like they did against Kentucky.
TE Jeb Blazevich
Jeb Blazevich is having a down year as he only has eight catches for 74 yards through nine games. Last year, Blazevich caught 18 passes for 269 yards and two touchdowns.
Blazevich is not to blame because he has been solid considering the passing game has struggled the last two seasons. Whoever is the quarterback needs to get the tight ends involved in the passing game. Blazevich showed great promise last season, and the Bulldogs have been known for producing great tight ends such as Ben Watson, Leonard Pope and Randy McMichael. The Bulldogs will be more dangerous as an offense if the tight ends are targeted more on third downs.
LB Jordan Jenkins
With this being Jordan Jenkins’ senior year, the thought was he was going to have a season where he would be named to the All-America team. While he has been solid, Jenkins has not been spectacular.
Kevin C. Cox/Getty Images
One of the things Jenkins has been good at during his career is getting after the quarterback, as he has at least five sacks in each of his three full seasons.
Right now, Jenkins has three, but he has been dealing with a groin injury, according to Marc Weiszer of the Athens Banner-Herald.
Jenkins has plenty of time to have a great 2015 season. Despite the injuries, he is still one of the more talented linebackers in the conference. His leadership will be needed for this three-game stretch.
WR Reggie Davis
Going back to the offense, Reggie Davis is a player who has had good and bad moments this season. And both moments can be found in the Tennessee game as he returned a punt for a touchdown, but he also dropped a touchdown pass late in the fourth quarter.
Davis was named Most Improved Player at the end of spring practice, and he was expected to take the next step in the fall with him being a junior. If there is a time when Davis can redeem himself for the mistakes he’s made this season, these final three games are a great opportunity for that to happen.The North American Man/Boy Love Association ( NAMBLA ) is a pedophilia and pederasty advocacy organization in the United States. It works to abolish age-of-consent laws criminalizing adult sexual involvement with minors [2] [3] and campaigns for the release of men who have been jailed for sexual contacts with minors that did not involve coercion. [2] [4] The group no longer holds regular national meetings, and as of the late 1990s—to avoid local police infiltration—the organization discouraged the formation of local chapters. [4] [5] Around 1995, an undercover detective discovered there were 1,100 people on the organization's rolls. [4] In 1997, NAMBLA was the largest group in IPCE, an international pro-pedophile activist organization. [6] Since then, the organization has dwindled to only a handful of people, with many members joining online pedophile networks such as DanPedo, BoyChat, and Annabelleigh, according to Xavier Von Erck, director of operations at the anti-pedophile organization Perverted-Justice. [7] As of 2005, a newspaper report stated that NAMBLA was based in New York and San Francisco. [4]
Onell R. Soto, a San Diego Union-Tribune writer, wrote in February 2005, "Law enforcement officials and mental health professionals say that while NAMBLA's membership numbers are small, the group has a dangerous ripple effect through the Internet by sanctioning the behavior of those who would abuse children". [4]
NAMBLA's website states that it is a political, civil rights, and educational organization whose goal is to end "the extreme oppression of men and boys in mutually consensual relationships". [8] According to NAMBLA, some of the organization's positions are:
Events such as Anita Bryant's 1977 "Save Our Children" campaign and a police raid of a Toronto-area newspaper, The Body Politic, for publishing "Men Loving Boys Loving Men" set the stage for the founding of NAMBLA.[5]
In December 1977, police raided a house in the Boston suburb Revere. Twenty-four men were arrested and indicted on over 100 felony counts of the statutory rape of boys aged eight to fifteen. Suffolk County District Attorney Garrett Byrne found the men had used drugs and video games to lure the boys into a house, where they photographed them as they engaged in sexual activity. The men were members of a "sex ring"; Byrne said the arrest was "the tip of the iceberg".[5] Commenting on this issue, Boston magazine described NAMBLA as "the most despised group of men in America", which was "founded mostly by eccentric, boy-loving leftists".[5] The "Boston-Boise Committee", a gay rights organization, was formed in response to these events (which they termed the "Boston witchunt"), allegedly in order to promote solidarity amongst gay men, saying in an official leaflet that: "The closet is weak. There is strength in unity and openness."[13] NAMBLA's founding was inspired by this organization.[13] It was co-founded by historian David Thorstad.[14]
In 1982, a NAMBLA member was falsely linked to the disappearance of Etan Patz. Although the accusation was groundless, the negative publicity was disastrous to the organization.[15] NAMBLA published a book A Witchhunt Foiled: The FBI vs. NAMBLA, which documented these events.[16] In testimony before the United States Senate, NAMBLA was exonerated from criminal activities; it said, "It is the pedophile with no organized affiliations who is the real threat to children".[17]
Mike Echols, the author of I Know My First Name Is Steven, infiltrated NAMBLA and recorded his observations in his book, which was published in 1991. Echols published the names, addresses and telephone numbers of eighty suspected NAMBLA members on his website, which led to death threats being made to people who were not members of the organization.[5]
ILGA controversy
In 1993, the International Lesbian and Gay Association (ILGA) achieved United Nations consultative status. NAMBLA's membership of ILGA drew heavy criticism and caused the suspension of ILGA. Many gay organizations called for the ILGA to dissolve ties with NAMBLA. Republican Senator Jesse Helms proposed a bill to withhold US$119 million in UN contributions until U.S. President Bill Clinton could certify that no UN agency grants any official status to organizations that condoned pedophilia.[18] The bill was unanimously approved by Congress and signed into law by Clinton in April 1994.[19]
In 1994, ILGA expelled NAMBLA— the first U.S.-based organization to be a member[14]—as well as Vereniging Martijn and Project Truth,[19] because they were judged to be "groups whose predominant aim is to support or promote pedophilia".[citation needed] Although ILGA removed NAMBLA, the UN reversed its decision to grant ILGA special consultative status. Repeated attempts by ILGA to regain special status with the UN succeeded in 2006.[20]
Partially in response to the NAMBLA situation,[19] Gregory King of the Human Rights Campaign later said, "NAMBLA is not a gay organization... they are not part of our community and we thoroughly reject their efforts to insinuate that pedophilia is an issue related to gay and lesbian civil rights".[21] NAMBLA said, "man/boy love is by definition homosexual", that "the Western homosexual tradition from Socrates to Wilde to Gide... [and] many non Western homo sexualities from New Guinea and Persia to the Zulu and the Japanese" were formed by pederasty, that "man/boy lovers are part of the gay movement and central to gay history and culture", and that "homosexuals denying that it is 'not gay' to be attracted to adolescent boys are just as ludicrous as heterosexuals saying it's 'not heterosexual' to be attracted to adolescent girls".[21]
Curley v. NAMBLA
In 2000, a Boston couple, Robert and Barbara Curley, sued NAMBLA for the wrongful death of their son. According to the suit, defendants Charles Jaynes and Salvatore Sicari, who were convicted of murdering the Curleys' son Jeffrey, "stalked... tortured, murdered and mutilated [his] body on or about October 1, 1997. Upon information and belief immediately prior to said acts Charles Jaynes accessed NAMBLA's website at the Boston Public Library."[11] The lawsuit said, "NAMBLA serves as a conduit for an underground network of pedophiles in the United States who use their NAMBLA association and contacts therein and the Internet to obtain and promote pedophile activity".[11] Jaynes wrote in his diary, "This was a turning point in discovery of myself... NAMBLA's Bulletin helped me to become aware of my own sexuality and acceptance of it... ".[22]
Citing cases in which NAMBLA members were convicted of sexual offenses against children, Larry Frisoli, the attorney representing the Curleys, said the organization is a "training ground" for adults who wish to seduce children, in which men exchange strategies to find and groom child sex partners. Frisoli also said NAMBLA has sold on its website "The Rape and Escape Manual", which gave details about the avoidance of capture and prosecution.[23] The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) stepped in to defend NAMBLA as a free speech matter;[24] it won a dismissal because NAMBLA is organized as an unincorporated association rather than a corporation. John Reinstein, the director of the ACLU Massachusetts, said although NAMBLA "may extol conduct which is currently illegal", there was nothing on its website that "advocated or incited the commission of any illegal acts, including murder or rape".[25]
A NAMBLA founder said the case would "break our backs, even if we win, which we will".[5] Media reports from 2006 said that for practical purposes the group no longer exists and that it consists only of a web site maintained by a few enthusiasts.[5] The Curleys continued the suit as a wrongful death action against individual NAMBLA members, some of whom were active in the group's leadership. The targets of the wrongful death suits included David Thorstad, a co-founder of NAMBLA. The lawsuit was dropped in April 2008 after a judge ruled that a key witness was not competent to testify.[26]Egypt's Salafis Emerge As Powerful And Controversial Political Force
Enlarge this image toggle caption Mohamed Abd El Ghany/Reuters/Landov Mohamed Abd El Ghany/Reuters/Landov
The uprisings of the Arab Spring unleashed a new political force in the region — Salafis. These ultra-conservative Muslims aspire to a society ruled entirely by a rigid form of Islamic law. Their models are the salaf, or ancestors, referring to the earliest Muslims who lived during the lifetime of the Prophet Muhammad.
To their critics, the Salafis are religious fanatics who are trying to drag the region back to 7th-century Arabia. But the Salafis maintain that they are offering the purest alternative to the dictatorships that have long dominated the region.
In Egypt, Salafis are now a vocal and powerful part of the political process.
Nader Bakkar, a young engineer, is the spokesman for Egypt's most successful Salafi political party, Nour. He insists their ideology is not backward-looking.
"It's not a thing that conflicts with civilization or modern society, not at all," Bakkar says.
He sits in a hotel lobby. Nearby, men drink beer and women sit unveiled. It certainly isn't the vision of Egypt that Nour has in mind.
Bakkar says the closest thing to a Salafi-run state is Saudi Arabia, a nation where women can't drive and have few rights, and where people live in a gender-segregated society. It is also a nation with strong ties to the West.
Enlarge this image toggle caption Leila Fadel/NPR Leila Fadel/NPR
"Politically speaking, the kind of Salafi regime — or the one that is very near to the Salafi regime — it is accepted worldwide," he said, referring to Saudi Arabia.
But he adds that Egypt is not Saudi Arabia, with its diverse population of Christians, Sufis and other types of Muslims.
"We cannot impose our religious point of view, our doctrine," Bakkar says, adding that people must choose it.
Salafis In Egypt
Prior to Egypt's revolt in 2011, Salafis were repressed. Pious men with unkempt beards were targeted by the secular and autocratic regime of President Hosni Mubarak, and the movement went largely underground.
Today, Salafis are out in the open and flourishing. Last year, in Egypt's first post-revolutionary elections, Nour Party candidates won about 25 percent of the seats in Parliament. It was second only to the Muslim |
campus of the National Renewable Energy Laboratory. It will officially open in late August and it will be the working home of 800 federal employees. The building employs techniques new and old to reach its zero-energy status, many of which are hundreds of years old and help the building make the best of natural light from the sun as well as use the earth below it to help heat and cool the building.
Typical office buildings use as much as 30% of their energy expenditure on lighting – not so with the Research Support Facility. The entire east-to-west facing facade is made of as much glass as possible and brings light to all of the building’s interior spaces. It is also outfitted with a smart lighting system which sends employees an on screen message on their computer monitor telling them when to open their blinds. Much of the construction material in the building is recycled including reclaimed steel natural gas pipes that are being used as structural columns. The DOE is hoping that this new building achieves a LEED Platinum rating for all of its green bells and whistles, and it looks like they have a great shot.
+ National Renewable Energy Laboratory
Via The New York Times Green BlogAccording to the Kainat family's account, the tribal elders declared her kari, (which literally means black female), for losing her virginity outside marriage.
In Pakistan, women and men who have illicit relationships or women who lose their virginity before marriage are at risk of paying with their lives.
"These are matters of honor and the leaders call a jirga and they declare that the woman or the couple should be killed," said Abdul Hai, a veteran field officer for the Human Rights Commission in Pakistan. These acts of violence are most commonly labeled as "honor killings."
The most recent report from the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan noted that in 2009 roughly 46 percent of all female murders in Pakistan that year were in the name of "honor." The report noted that a total of 647 incidences of "honor killings" were reported by the Pakistani press. However, experts say that actual incidences of "honor killings" in Pakistan are much higher and never get reported to the police because they are passed off by the families as suicides.
Kainat said that despite the pressures her family refused to kill her.
"It is the tradition, but if the family doesn't permit it, then it won't happen. My father, my brother, my mom didn't allow it," she said.
And that defiance has left the family fearing for their lives. The family's new home in Karachi has been attacked a number of times.
But, according to Abdul Hai, Kainat is lucky: "The woman or the girl usually gets killed and the man gets away," he said. "Over 70 percent of the murdered victims are women and only 30 percent of victims of honor killings are male."
In Karachi, Kainat and her family are now sharing one room in a run-down apartment block, and they have to rely on charities to help them pay for food.
"We go hungry many nights," said Kainat's older sister.
But their fight might never pay off. A local judge has already ruled against Kainat in the case. "There is no corroborative evidence available on record. The sole testimony of the alleged rape survivor is not sufficient," the judge said in a written decision.
Another problem is that material evidence is usually not collected in rape cases in Pakistan since the police rarely believe rape victims and therefore don't order rape kits in a timely manner.
Without medical tests to corroborate her story, it remains Kainat's word against the alleged rapists. But even having lost her case at the local court, Kainat insists, "I am not giving up, I will take this all the way to the Supreme Court of Pakistan."
This story was reported with a grant from the Pulitzer Center on Crisis Reporting, an Atlantic partner site.
We want to hear what you think about this article. Submit a letter to the editor or write to letters@theatlantic.com.
The New York Times, The Washington Post, Glamour among other publications. She is also an adjunct professor at Columbia University’s Graduate School of Journalism. Habiba Nosheen is a Pakistani born freelance journalists based in New York. Her writings have appeared inamong other publications. She is also an adjunct professor at Columbia University’s Graduate School of Journalism.Take your product design seriously and your customers will take your product seriously
Shina Charles Memud Blocked Unblock Follow Following Oct 8, 2016
How good design can positively impact your product
We have heard over and over again how businesses and startups like Airbnb, Dropbox, Netflix, Medium, just to name a few have created a product with strong design foundation at the very start of their product development. It helped them create a brand that got people curious even if their product wasn’t useful at the time, design and branding is not about making click buttons look pretty, its about create an experience for the user — a simple, clear and functional interface that makes your product easy to use.
The era of badly designed products is gone, bad design doesn’t necessarily mean poor UI but mainly UX. You see, when users struggle to use your product, then the value for them to use it become less and less meaningful. Your product is meant to solve their problem and by doing so means creating a design that leads to that solution.
So you’re asking yourself, how do I take my product design seriously?
Well, the answer is right there in front of you. You can either hire a professional and experienced designer or outsource the work to a design studio.
What are the benefits?
You can focus more on the business and development side of your product.
Less responsibilities and priorities, do what you’re actually good at doing
You have dedicated experienced team that helps you do the thinking and solving the design problems of your product.
As a new startup, business or even established companies building digital products, re-consider the design aspect of your product. How your users actually use your product, what makes your product stands out, how do your customers present your product or service to their friends and family. Taking all these into considering will decide if your product is actually useful or useless.
To end this post, I’ll leave you with this video(Don Norman: 3 ways good design makes you happy)
Follow Charlesmudy: Twitter | FacebookBill Wippert/AP Images
This week, ESPN analyst Trent Dilfer was on Miami radio station The Ticket talking Ryan Tannehill. The conversation started off normally. Tannehill has talent. … Blah, blah. … Tannehill is smart. … Yadda, yadda.
"I'm going to go down in flames being a believer," Dilfer said. "He's supremely talented. That's without question. People who say he doesn't have the talent, they're just wrong. He's very smart. He works hard at it.
"My only concern was, does he have the over-my-dead-body mentality? He's such a nice kid. Does he have enough pr--- in him?"
Hold on. Wait. What? Can we rewind the tape?
(Tape rewinds.)
Yep, Dilfer wondered aloud, on radio, if Tannehill is enough of a pr---.
Many people don't get this part of quarterbacking. Tom Brady is a good human being who can scream and holler and demand the most from the people around him. He can act like a pr---. So can Peyton Manning. Definitely Peyton Manning. So could Joe Montana or Johnny Unitas or Dan Marino.
Throughout the history of the NFL, quarterbacks have always acted like pr---- on the field, and it has served them well.
Joe Mahoney/Associated Press
This is what Dilfer is saying about Tannehill.
He added:
Does he have enough I will succeed no matter what, the world could go up in flames and I'm going to find a way to stay out of the fire? That's the mentality you have to have to be successful as a quarterback. That was my concern coming out with him. That's kind of my concern right now.
Some of you love Dilfer as an analyst. Some of you hate him. I love Dilfer because he actually says things. He doesn't sugarcoat, and the reason I used so many of his words here—including him wondering if Tannehill is too soft—is because he's not alone in thinking this.
The debate about the young quarterbacks today mostly focuses on ranking them. Is Russell Wilson elite? (Yes.) How great is Colin Kaepernick? (Pretty great.) Where does Cam Newton rank? (High.) How good is Andrew Luck? (Unbelievable.)
Tannehill isn't part of that conversation, and when speaking to personnel around the league, they say the exact same thing about Tannehill that Dilfer did.
Wilfredo Lee/Associated Press
So this is a fair question to ask: Is Tannehill a bust?
It's starting to look like the answer to that is yes.
Tannehill's story isn't written yet. It's not done, but it's getting close. Tannehill is beginning to look more Mark Sanchez than Miami savior.
This is particularly true when you consider some of the other quarterbacks from Tannehill's 2012 draft class. Robert Griffin III. Wilson. Luck. Nick Foles. All of those players are better than him.
Class of 2012 Top 8 QBs taken (pick #) G Cmp% Yds/G TD/G INT/G Win% Rating Russell Wilson (3-75) 37 64.0% 201.4 1.62 0.57 73.0% 100.5 Nick Foles (3-88) 26 61.7% 239.2 1.65 0.54 63.6% 95.5 Robert Griffin (1-2) 30 63.3% 223.6 1.20 0.57 43.3% 91.8 Andrew Luck (1-1) 38 58.6% 268.0 1.66 0.89 68.4% 84.7 Ryan Tannehill (1-8) 37 59.6% 225.8 1.19 0.95 45.9% 79.5 Brock Osweiler (2-57) 9 65.0% 11.9 0.00 0.00 0.0% 78.5 Kirk Cousins (4-102) 13 58.8% 222.4 1.38 1.38 12.5% 78.1 Brandon Weeden (1-22) 23 55.9% 222.4 1.00 1.13 25.0% 71.8 Pro-Football-Reference.com
I've always been a Tannehill supporter. On radio interviews. In columns. I've tweeted my belief that he can be a good player in this league. I've always believed, but as the years have gone by, one thing has become startlingly true: He hasn't dramatically improved.
Look at the rapidity and depth of growth in young throwers like Kaepernick, Wilson, Luck and Newton. It's been exponential. One assistant coach who has game-planned against Kaepernick several times called him "the fastest learner I've ever seen."
The same assistant, who has watched Tannehill on tape, says the Miami QB "at times still looks confused by the speed of the game."
Dilfer seems to be saying that Tannehill needs to be nastier, more of a grinder, have more of a will to win, like Luck or Newton.
Again, I've heard that, but another reason is Tannehill's limp learning curve. For whatever reason—coaching, maybe the talent around him—he still looks overwhelmed by the game.
This isn't all his fault. He's been ill-served by a horrible head coach, a bullying scandal and a front office that hasn't put much around him. His offensive line has at times been porous.
But enough with the excuses for Tannehill.
"Now he's really coming under fire," Dilfer said. "Up until this point it's been, Hey, project. Wow. We see the flashes. Good kid. Everybody likes him. Now it's like, Hey, forget you dude, you're not winning enough games."
Because he needs to be a bigger pr---.
Mike Freeman covers the NFL for Bleacher Report.Media playback is unsupported on your device Media caption John Kerry told the BBC's Kim Ghattas ''a united Iraq is a stronger Iraq''
US Secretary of State John Kerry has told the BBC there must be regional unity to expel Sunni rebels from the Isis group who have taken large swathes of northern and western Iraq.
He said there was no military solution, stressing the need for a new Iraqi government that empowered people in communities where Isis had taken hold.
Mr Kerry has been talking to Kurdish leaders in the northern city of Irbil.
The rebels continue to advance, and are fighting to take a key oil refinery.
The insurgents, spearheaded by Islamists fighting under the banner of the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (Isis), have overrun much of north and west Iraq, including the second-biggest city, Mosul.
Meanwhile, a United Nations human rights team in Iraq reported that at least 1,075 people were killed in Iraq so far in June, most of them civilians.
Media playback is unsupported on your device Media caption Sunni fighters target Baghdad as John Kerry calls for unity
The UN said the figures, which include a number of verified summary executions, should be viewed as an absolute minimum.
'No military solution'
In an interview with the BBC's Kim Ghattas, Mr Kerry said: "Every country in the region will combine in order to take on and expel Isis because it is simply unacceptable to have a terrorist organisation grabbing territory and challenging the legitimacy of governments."
Can Kerry pull Iraq back from the brink?
Voices from northern Iraq: "The fighters are everywhere"
When asked about military action, Mr Kerry said the Kurdish leaders had agreed there was "no military solution".
He said: "There may be military action but there has to be a political solution that deals with empowering the people in the communities where Isis is today.
"Just a strike alone is not going to change the outcome - you need to have a full-fledged strategy... which is principally a political strategy."
Mr Kerry said he had come away from his two days of talks - in Baghdad and Irbil - appreciating a sense of urgency and commitment among Iraqis to tackle the crisis.
Image copyright AFP Image caption Recruits line up in Baghdad to join the fight against Isis
Image copyright AFP Image caption Ramadi, in Anbar province, bears the scars of battle between Sunni rebels and government forces
Image copyright Reuters Image caption The refinery at Baiji has been a key objective for the Sunni rebels
Image copyright Reuters Image caption Declining fuel supplies have caused long queues at petrol stations, including here in Irbil
But he said: "Words are cheap. We know that. So it's actions that will matter."
Mr Kerry's meetings with Kurdish leaders came as the Kurdish region's President Massoud Barzani strongly suggested that it would seek formal independence from the rest of Iraq.
In a CNN interview, he said: "Iraq is obviously falling apart... The time is here for the Kurdistan people to determine their future and the decision of the people is what we are going to uphold."
Mr Kerry told the BBC he did not regard the Kurdistan region as separate and stressed that the US believed a "united Iraq is a stronger Iraq".
Jim Muir, BBC News, Irbil
It's been a really to-and-fro battle for the Baiji refinery. The capture of the complex would enable the rebels to supply Mosul with energy, which is seen as vital to the viability of the region they are carving out.
Meanwhile, extremely concentrated political efforts are going on behind the scenes to get the politics in Baghdad right.
Only then would America wade in and start doing anything physical. There are urgent efforts to get parliament to meet on time on 1 July and to agree in advance who will be the new PM. Everybody I speak to says this will not be Nouri Maliki but one of about three other figures acceptable to Iran and America, which has a key role to play in trying to broker a deal.
Could Iraqi PM Maliki be forced out?
Who speaks for Iraqi Sunni Arabs?
Rebel gains alarm Iraq's neighbours
Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri Maliki, a member of Iraq's Shia Muslim majority, has been criticised for concentrating power among his mostly Shia allies and excluding other groups including Sunni and Kurdish communities.
The US, which pulled out of Iraq in 2011 after eight years of occupation following the 2003 invasion that toppled President Saddam Hussein, has already announced it is deploying some 300 military advisers to Iraq to help fight the insurgents.
Air strikes
The rebels say they have now fully captured the country's main oil refinery at Baiji, north of Baghdad.
However, Iraqi officials said there was still fighting at the site and that troops were holding off the insurgents.
The refinery, in Salahuddin province, has been under siege for 10 days, with militant attacks repulsed several times. The complex supplies a third of Iraq's refined fuel and the battle has already led to petrol rationing.
Media playback is unsupported on your device Media caption Shia militants have been celebrating recent gains against Isis, as Jonathan Beale reports from the Baquba frontline
The AFP news agency quoted officials as saying that Iraqi air strikes near Baiji town on Tuesday had killed at least 19 people, with other air strikes on Husseibah in the west.
Reuters quoted Iraqi officials as saying rebels had attacked the huge al-Bakr air base, north of Baghdad.
They are also fighting for control of key border crossings in Anbar province that link Iraq with Syria, pursuing their goal of forming a "caliphate" straddling both countries.
Iraqi media on Tuesday reported that US drones had struck Isis bases at the al-Qaim crossing, but the Pentagon said the US had not hit any targets on the Iraq-Syria border. Earlier reports said Syrian warplanes had bombed the area.
There were also conflicting reports over who controlled the Walid border crossing with Syria and the Traybil crossing with Jordan.
On Tuesday morning, Sunni tribes aligned with Isis said they had seized the crossings, but Iraqi military spokesman Lt Gen Qassim Atta told a news conference in Baghdad they had been "fully recaptured" by security forces.In the finale of Marvel Comics Secret Empire event, Steve Rogers (aka the original Captain America) saved his country from the forces of Hydra by punching the terrorist group’s fascist leader in the face.
Unfortunately for Rogers, the face he was punching was his own, thanks to the fact that the reality altering powers of the Cosmic Cube created a world with both the original heroic Steve Rogers, and a villainous doppelgänger who had ruled the U.S. And Hydra with an iron fist for several months. Now, the original Captain America is back fighting for a country that’s not sure quite what to make of him, which means it’s time for Steve Rogers to hit the road and reconnect with the country he loves.
RELATED: Marvel’s Generations Cements Sam Wilson’s Legacy as an A-List Superhero
It all begins this November when the acclaimed creative team of writer Mark Waid and artist Chris Samnee take over Captain America with issue #695, the kickoff to a new Marvel Legacy arc titled “Home of the Brave.” CBR spoke with Waid about Cap’s cross country journey, the all-new incarnation of a classic Marvel he’ll initially run afoul of, and setting the stage for 2018’s milestone issue Captain America #700.
CBR: You’re returning to Captain America in the aftermath of one of the biggest event’s in the character’s history. So let’s start by talking about your approach to Cap. Will it be similar to how you handled Daredevil at the start of your run on that character; in that you didn't deny the impact of the big events that happened before, but your focus was on moving forward? Is that a fair description of what you're trying to do here?
EXCLUSIVE: Art from Captain America #695 by Chris Samnee and Matthew Wilson
Mark Waid: That's a very fair description. We certainly make nods to Secret Empire in our first few issues -- we're not in any way trying to disavow a seminal Marvel event -- but our fans have made it clear that what they want is Classic Steve Rogers back. That means drilling down and figuring out what Captain America means late in the second decade of the 2000s.
I understand one of the ways you're moving things forward is by having Steve embark on a cross country journey to sort of rediscover the country he loves and represents. What can you tell us about his mindset when you pick up with him in Captain America #695?
He's on two missions: One, to get back to the American heartland, and two... well, we can't talk about that one yet. But his mindset is, "I claim to represent all America, but I spent 95% of my time in New York. Maybe we can fix that."
What does Steve's cross country journey mean for the types of stories and characters we'll initially see in Captain America?
Honestly? Smaller stories in the first couple of issues that culminate into a big epic three-parter. One thing I want to make abundantly clear: Chris and I have been working on these issues since March, way ahead of time, way before some of the more volatile political events of the summer, so don't expect to see him punching Nazis on page one. It may be an issue or two before we get to that, but that doesn't mean we're not attempting to reflect the real world. We're just ahead of the curve.
EXCLUSIVE: Art from Captain America #695 by Chris Samnee and Matthew Wilson
One character Steve will cross paths with early on in his journey is a new version of the Swordsman. What can you tell us about this character and their motivations? How dangerous are they?
Dangerous enough to doom a whole town if Steve Rogers doesn't admit to being Captain America and stepping up for a shield-vs-sword battle the likes of which you've never seen.
I imagine part of the fun of coming back to Captain America is seeing that battle brought to life by your friend and long time collaborator, Chris Samnee, who has also worked on Cap a number of times and seems to have a great affinity for him. What's it like collaborating with Chris on this new era of Steve's adventures?
It's the reason I'm here. Very few writers are lucky enough to get four bites at the same apple (counting Man Out Of Time), and without Chris, I'd be too afraid of being compared to all my earlier work on the book. Chris is my safety net!
Finally, in 2018 you and Chris will hit the big milestone issue of Captain America #700. Can you talk at all yet about the scope and scale of that story? Are these initial issues setting the stage for what you have planned for issue #700?
There are clues in the first issue, but we're not ready to reveal anything yet except to say that I asked myself the question I always ask myself when I take over a character: what's the absolute worst thing that could happen to him or her?
EXCLUSIVE: Art from Captain America #695 by Chris Samnee and Matthew Wilson
Captain America #695, by Mark Waid, Chris Samnee and Matthew Wilson, arrives in stores Wednesday, Nov. 1.Dear friends,
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• You might also want to re-tweet our announcement on TWITTER.
Today we are sad to announce that our friend Bernie Torelli has been admitted in a hospital in Los-Angeles for a serious spine disease due to a cancer he was diagnosed with over two years ago.
Although it is very serious at this time, there are chances that Bernie will make a full recovery, if all the necessary care is done. But the medical costs have already devastated Bernie’s family financial situation, making any chance of necessary surgery nearly impossible!
We have therefore decided to help him out by raising funds by promoting and donating the receipts of Nomad Factory’s best selling products :
• MAGNETIC II, ECHOES and COSMOS at the no brainer cost of ONLY $19.
• The Magnetics Bundle II that contains ALL three plug-ins is actually dropped at ONLY $49!
• And all other Nomad Factory products are sold at up to 75% discount!
• Direct Donations may be adressed via Paypal at : order@nomadfactory.com
It is needless to say that 90% of the income provided through this promotion will be directly sent to Bernie’s wife for her to manage the mounting health costs but also continue to pay Nomad Factory’s employees that have been continuously working on product development and customer support during Bernie’s illness.
That is certainly the most important reason for Bernie to fight for his life as all of his time has loyally been devoted to his work, his employees, his friends and most of all, his family… Great new products are almost ready to launch…
We will keep the “Raising Funds” promotion live until Sunday, January 12.
Testimonials can be posted in our dedicated forum thread
Check out other great user testimonials posted at KVR Audio, Gearslutz, Motunation, Cakewalk, and many others found in your preferred audio blogs…
Thank you so much!
Eric Nolot
CEO & President
DontCrack
About Bernie Torelli – CEO and main developer at Nomad Factory
Many underestimate Bernie’s career as an incredible musician, composer, sound engineer and perhaps most of all, as a very talented software developer :
Bernie Torelli, founder of Nomad Factory is an internationally recognised recording engineer, producer and composer who has worked in Paris, Montreal, and Los Angeles with legendary musicians and artists such as Stanley Clarke in Los Angeles, Michel Polnareff in France, Marie Carmen in Montreal just to name a few. Bernie was nominated for a grammy award for mixing Cab2 “Best Contemporary Jazz Instrumental Album”.
In 2001, focusing on experience acquired through over 25 years of analog engineering, Bernie started developing products reminiscent of 60’s and 70’s technology. The Blue Tubes Bundle was born. As an engineer working at Track Star Studios in San Diego, California, Bernie quickly replaced the studio’s standard plug-ins with his own. A host of top notch player’s passing through could not help but notice the amazing sound quality, combined with user friendly features. After being asked over and over if these products were available on the market, in mid-2002 Nomad Factory became an official company selling plug-ins on the internet.
Licenses and Development : Bernie Torelli has developed for Spectrasonics most of the effects included in the Rack Effects section of the “Stylus RMX” and the incredible “Omnisphere”. Bernie Torelli, head engineer at Nomad Factory is also the Software Product Manager at BBE Sound Inc. in charge of all BBE Sound Inc. software development, Bernie also developed three new DSP effects for Fxpansion and quite a few Plug & Mix plug-ins as well as the final P&M installers.
Bernie has worked with : Nick D’ Virgilio, Jerry Goodman, Robert Lamm, Josquin des Pres, Bunny Brunel, Lenny Castro, Curt Bisquera, Reggie Hamilton, Carl Evans, David Stark, Jimmy Crespo, Gerry Brown, Kamil Rustam, Stanley Clarke, Scott Gorham, Jamie Reno, Michel Polnareff, Earl Thomas, Sunru, Mario Olivares, Tony MacAlpine, Patrice Rushen, Nicolas Peyrac, Jessica Moreno, William Sheller, Brian Auger, Karma Auger, Salvatore Adamo, Chris Pinnick, Jean-Paul Dreau, Philip Steele, Michel Fugain, Thomas Connor, Charles Elie Couture, Brianna Cara, Nicoletta, Joey Pearson, Allison Paige, Michael Greene, Oscar Aragon, Redbone, Dennis Chambers, Charley Pride, Randy Meisner, Dickey Betts, Da Vinci Vox, Jean-Jacques Chardeau, Eve Selis, Deadbolt, Marie Carmen, David Singletary, The Rockets, Steve Smith, David Maldonado, Dana Leewood, Pepper Williams, Viva Santana, and so many others…
There are bad guys, there are reckless guys, there are unlucky guys and there are those who have been damned by the system. Ashton fits into three of those categories.
Ashton is not a dirty player, not malign or malicious, not one who goes out with the express intent of inflicting harm on an opponent at some point in a game. But he was rash, he did make contact with the eye area of Luke Marshall and he has paid a severe price for it. His timing could not have been worse.
The prodigal son looks to be heading right back into the wilderness. The fatted calf is on ice. Ashton’s immediate international future has a dark cloud hanging over it, and his reputation is also severely frayed round the edges. This sanction will be there on the record books unless any appeal succeeds.
There is no doubt that the majority of rugby followers will feel that Ashton has been harshly treated.
True, there will also be an element who will have little sympathy for the person involved given that his grandstanding ways have annoyed and alienated in a certain measure. That would be unjust. Ashton has matured if not yet turned into a shrinking violet.
Never mind showboating or swallow dives. This is different. This is a hefty punishment for what was, at worst, a wild challenge. That sort of contact, with one player trying to wrestle another to the ground, will happen half a dozen times in a game.
It is a contact sport. But that contact can no longer take place in and around the eyes. That area is a no-go zone. And there is zero tolerance in that regard. Zero. Fingers stray near the eyes, whether accidentally or not, and there are potential ramifications.
That is now well known in the game. It has been the same with tip-tackles and contesting the ball in the air. You transgress at your peril. The sanction is there to act as a deterrent, to change players’ behaviour. If it appears over the top, then administrators believe that it is a price worth paying if it shapes patterns of play accordingly.
• England wing Chris Ashton: a career in pics
Sport has rarely been fair. That is part of its appeal. Yet it is in trying to bring objectivity to the disciplinary process that such cases throw up varied reactions. Referee Jérôme Garcès saw the incident, took advice from the television match official, and decided a penalty was the correct response. Ashton, though, was cited, and found guilty of an act deemed worthy of a red card. The low-end entry point for such an offence is 12 weeks. One week was added as per recent guidelines on deterrence, then three weeks deducted for previous good character and conduct.
Cases are judged according to precise legal criteria, as with civilian cases. There is no ‘rugby chat’ about an incident, no allowance for too many shades of grey. Black and white is the colour code of the process.
Those are the rules, as fixed a point as the laws on the field of play. Ashton now knows that better than any.Brisbane, Australia – A clash between UFC® heavyweight legends will headline the organization’s second visit to the Queensland capital, as No.9-ranked Mark Hunt will face two-time UFC heavyweight champion and current No.10-ranked Frank Mir at UFC FIGHT NIGHT®: HUNT vs. MIR on Sunday, March 20, 2016 (Saturday, March 19 in North America) at the Brisbane Entertainment Centre. Tickets will go on sale to the general public on Thursday, February 4 at 10 a.m. AEST.
Fighting out of Sydney, Australia by way of South Auckland, New Zealand, Hunt (11-10-1) is known for his spectacular walk-off knockouts. During his UFC run, the former K-1 champion has picked up stunning victories over Roy Nelson, Stefan Struve and Cheick Kongo. Hunt’s most recent outing saw him deliver another memorable knockout, stopping Antonio ‘Bigfoot’ Silva in front of a record-setting crowd of passionate Australian fans at UFC 193 in Melbourne this past November.
No stranger to jaw-dropping finishes, Mir (18-10, fighting out of Las Vegas, Nevada, USA) has proven equally adept at putting opponents away with both his striking and grappling skillsets. In the stand-up department, the seasoned veteran holds highlight-reel knockout wins against Antonio ‘Bigfoot’ Silva, Mirko Cro Cop and Todd Duffee. On the mat, Mir has earned legendary submission victories over Minotauro Nogueira, Brock Lesnar and Tim Sylvia. He looks to get back on the winning track after dropping a razor-thin decision to Andrei Arlovski in September.
The co-main event will feature a pair of elite welterweights, as former judo Olympian Hector Lombard returns to Australia to face No.8-ranked Neil Magny. Fighting out of Coconut Creek, Florida, USA by way of Sydney, Australia, Lombard (35-4-1, 1 NC) looks to continue his ascent up the welterweight ladder. A former champion outside the UFC, Lombard has picked up emphatic wins against Jake Shields, Nate Marquardt and Rousimar Palhares. He is also undefeated since dropping to welterweight in late 2013. Over the course of his career, Lombard has netted 26 stoppage victories (19 KO/TKOs and seven submissions).
A semi-finalist on The Ultimate Fighter®: Team Carwin vs. Team Nelson, Magny (17-4, fighting out of Denver, Colorado, USA) is among the most active fighters on the UFC roster. Since February 2014, Magny has put together an impressive 9-1 run with victories over Erick Silva, Alex Garcia and Tim Means. In his last outing, Magny made the most of his first UFC main event by winning a thrilling split decision over Kelvin Gastelum this past November.
Other bouts that have been confirmed for the card include:
• James Te Huna (18-8, fighting out of Penrith, Australia by way of Darfield, New Zealand) returns from an almost two-year hiatus when he battles former hockey enforcer Steve Bosse (10-2, fighting out of St-Jean Sur Richelieu, Quebec, Canada).
• Brisbane’s own Brendan O’Reilly (5-1-1) looks to earn his second consecutive win inside the Octagon™ when he meets touted prospect Alan Jouban (12-4, fighting out of Los Angeles, California USA by way of Lafayette, Louisiana, USA).
• Four-time Australian judo Olympian Daniel Kelly (10-1, fighting out of Melbourne, Australia) aims to continue his momentum when he faces The Ultimate Fighter: Brazil 3 winner Antonio Carlos Junior (6-1 1NC, fighting out of Coconut Creek, Florida, USA by way of João Pessoa, Paraíba, Brazil).
Tickets for UFC FIGHT NIGHT®: HUNT vs. MIR go on sale Thursday, February 4 at 10 a.m. AEST and are priced at $350, $250, $150, $95 and $50 AUD (prices do not include credit card and handling fees). Tickets are available for purchase online at http://www.ticketek.com.au. Ticket sales are limited to eight (8) per person.
UFC Fight Club® members will have the opportunity to purchase tickets on Tuesday, February 2 at 10 a.m. AEST via the website www.ufcfightclub.com. A special Internet ticket pre-sale will be available to UFC newsletter subscribers on Wednesday, February 3 starting at 10 a.m. AEST. To access this presale, users must register for the UFC newsletter through UFC.com.
UFC FIGHT NIGHT®: HUNT vs. MIR will be broadcast on Fox Sports 1 in the United States, Fox Sports 3 in Australia and SKY TV in New Zealand.
Since 2010, the UFC has hosted eight live events in Australia with each experiencing tremendous success. Collectively, the events have seen more than 145,000 fans in attendance and millions worldwide watching on pay-per-view and broadcast television. The five host cities to date – Adelaide, Brisbane, Gold Coast, Melbourne and Sydney – have had a cumulative gross gate of more than $20 million and millions more in economic impact. This past November, UFC set a new live attendance record with UFC® 193: ROUSEY vs. HOLM, filling Melbourne’s Etihad Stadium with 56,214 passionate fans. The live gate was also the highest gross gate in Etihad Stadium history.
For more information or current fight news, visit ufc.com. All bouts live and subject to change.How to Prepare to Care for Aging Parents
Written By Douglas Matus
If a person is lucky, he or she can look forward to a relationship with their parents that extends well into the elders’ golden years. Advances in medical technology have more than doubled the average life expectancy in the last 150 years, and some scientists see the age of 120 years old as obtainable for the average American within the next few decades.
As parents more frequently live into their 80s and 90s, it’s become important for children to manage end-of-life and assisted-living issues. As with any investment or major lifestyle transition, you’ll want to start planning early — ideally while your parents can still offer assistance.
Start a Conversation
The subject of end-of-life care and finances can be delicate, which makes it important to approach the topic gently. David Littell, who occupies the Boettner Chair in Research at the American College of Financial Services, suggests that you have this conversation sooner rather than later.
“It’s not an easy discussion, but you need to know whether they have resources that can be used to provide care, along with what type of care they want,” says Littell. “Have this conversation while your parents still have their full mental capacities. If you fail to do this and they can no longer make decisions, a court guardianship procedure begins.”
How you frame the conversation is also important. When you first approach the topic with your parents, make clear that you are asking for help and not commandeering their personal agency.
Engage the Family
If your parents have other children, you absolutely need to get them involved. It’s best to do this as early as possible to nip any acrimony in the bud.
“Not all children are able to emotionally take on the responsibilities of aging parents, so communication amongst the siblings is vital,” says Lisa Bahar of Marriage and Family Therapy, Inc. “I’ve also |
-cultural psychiatry, and related cross-societal and clinical epidemiological studies.
CultureBy – Grant McCracken
At the intersection of Anthropology and Economics. Trained as an anthropologist, Grant has studied American culture and business for 25 years. He has taught anthropology at the University of Cambridge, ethnography at MIT, and marketing at the Harvard Business School. He is a long time student of culture and commerce.
Cyber Anthropology
Anthropology of gaming, blogging, social networking, online communities and so much more! Diana Harrelson writes on cyber anthropology, human computer interaction, user experience design, gaming and various other topics.
decasia: critique of academic culture
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Decolonize All The Things
I’m a bio-cultural anthropologist and sociologist, currently a Physical Anthropology PhD student. This blog documents my journey through constant decolonization and depatriarchalization.
Display Adaptability: Adapting to Change in the 21st Century
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Donna Lanclos – The Anthropologist in the Stacks
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Doug’s Archaeology: Investigating the Profession & Research
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Dylan Kerrigan OpEds
Dylan Kerrigan is a lecturer and researcher in Cultural Anthropology, Political Sociology, and Criminology at the University of the West Indies, St Augustine Campus. His teaching and research looks at the world from a Caribbean centre because the way power is structured in the modern world most people do not have a good grasp of the importance of the Caribbean, both in the history and future of the world.
Elfshot – Sticks & Stones, Understanding the archaeological record
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Engagement – Blog of the Anthropology & Environment Society
Engagement features first-hand accounts by anthropologists and other social scientists broadly concerned with the cause of social and ecological justice. The blog aims to bring an anthropological approach to understanding the pressing environmental issues of our time, targeting a broad audience of scholars, educators, artists, and advocates.
Entomophagy Anthropology – Julie Lesnik
Julie Lesnik received her PhD studying the role of termites in the diet of fossil hominins and has since started exploring insects as food more broadly.
EPIC – Advancing the Value of Ethnography in Industry
EPIC is dedicated to providing practitioners, businesses, and partner organizations with access to the best practical ethnographic expertise from around the world.
Eriksen’s Blog
Thomas Hylland Eriksen’s blog is a companion to his Engaging with the world website. Eriksen is the author of Overheating: An Anthropology of Accelerated Change.
Ethnographer | Ecographer
Social Justice, Ecological Sustainability, Public Anthropology, Global Health. By Heather E. Young-Leslie, Ph.D.
Ethnography.com
We seek to change the way the world thinks about the Social Sciences in general and ethnography in particular. We believe that telling good stories as social commentary is at the heart of what social science should do. We also think that social sciences don’t always do this, which is why we need this blog.
Evolutionary Anthropology – E.O. Smith
Evolution is not a theory, it is a fact, and as such provides the most powerful tool to explain what goes on around us.
The Evolutionary Studies Consortium
The Evolutionary Studies (EvoS) Consortium is designed to facilitate the development and implementation of Evolutionary Studies Programs. An Evolutionary Studies Program introduces students from all majors to evolutionary theory early in their academic careers.
The Familiar Strange: A blog. A podcast. A social fact.
We want to familiarise you with the strange, after estranging you with the familiar. This is an anthropology social engagement project.
Fieldsights
The Fieldsights section of the Cultural Anthropology website was launched in 2012 and includes a number of content streams that, while not peer-reviewed, have extended the scope and reach of the Society for Cultural Anthropology’s (SCA) publishing program.
Filterrauschen
A blog about music and anthropology, at the moment mainly in German, with translation in process. How to do music, mediumship, infogenetic linkages, digitalization, constructivism music.
Financial Times – Gillian Tett
Gillian Tett is markets and finance commentator and an assistant editor of the Financial Times. Tett earned a PhD in social anthropology at Clare College, Cambridge based on field research in Tajikistan in the former Soviet Union.
Focaal Blog: Journal of Global and Historical Anthropology
FocaalBlog is associated with Focaal: Journal of Global and Historical Anthropology. It aims to accelerate and intensify anthropological conversations beyond what a regular academic journal can do, and to make them more widely, globally, and swiftly available.
Fongoli Savanna Chimpanzee Project
Jill D. Pruetz is the principal investigator of the Fongoli Savanna Chimpanzee Project, the longest-running research study of its kind in Senegal, West Africa.
Food Anthropology
Blog of The Society for the Anthropology of Food and Nutrition (SAFN), formerly known as the Council on Nutritional Anthropology (CNA), organized in 1974 in response to the increased interest in the interface between social sciences and human nutrition.
The Geek Anthropologist
The Geek Anthropologist is a blog where geek culture and all things geek are analysed through the perspective of socio-cultural anthropology. We write about the intersections between social science, cultural analysis and practice of anthropology with geek culture, whether they be embodied, literary, cinematic or cybernetic.
German Dziebel, Anthropogenesis
A Uniquely Anthropological Approach to Human Origins and Dispersals. German Dziebel is an anthropologist trained in the Russian and American schools.
Gina Athena Ulysse on the Huffington Post
Gina Athena Ulysse is an anthropologist, a poet, performance artist and multi-media artist. She is a professor of anthropology at Wesleyan University in Middletown, CT. Born in Haiti, she has lived in the northeast of United States since her family migrated eons ago.
The Global Social Media Impact Study Blog
The Global Social Media Impact Study had nine anthropologists inserted into fieldsites around the world conducting long-term ethnographic fieldwork on how social media is affecting the lives of ordinary people. The blog was for researchers to share some of the exciting experiences of anthropological fieldwork with a wider audience. The final post was in 2017.
Glossographia – Anthropology, linguistics, & prehistory
Dedicated to the interdisciplinary study of language from a social scientific perspective. Stephen Chrisomalis is a linguistic anthropologist and cognitive anthropologist working at Wayne State University in Detroit, Michigan. At the intersection of linguistics, archaeology, anthropology, cognitive science, and evolution, with particular foci on epigraphy, literacy studies, writing systems, numeration, and the history of science and mathematics.
Greg Laden’s Blog, Culture as Science – Science as Culture
Greg Laden is a Biological Anthropologist who studies Human Behavioral Biology and Human Environment Interaction using, among other things, Archaeology as a tool, but with a strong background in North American Historical Archaeology, North American Prehistoric Archaeology in the Glaciated Zone, and an Africanist.
Guava Anthropology – Taiwanese Anthropologists
GUAVA anthropology covers things that are Grotesque, Unabashed, Apostate, Virid, and Auspicious about anthropology!
Harris-Jones Anthropology
This website has been set up to provide resources and help to new and current anthropologists alike from across the whole discipline. There is a growing set of resources including brief introductions to important anthropological concepts, key texts you may want to look into, and more.
HawgBlawg – Broadcasts from NW Arkansas: Razorback Country
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How to be an Anthropologist
Being an anthropologist today is not what you might expect. Building on a legacy of reflection and critical thought, we thrive in the complex and the particular. As an anthropologist, I aim to align myself with web developers to flesh out our common interests and anxieties to enrich both anthropological and technical knowledge.
The Human Economy Blog – Bringing people back into economics
The Human Economy Program was created in 2011 and is located at the University of Pretoria, South Africa. It is designed to bring back human concerns into economic studies and brings together researchers from around the world with experience in diverse disciplines.
The Human Evolution Blog
Professor Nathan H. Lents and his students discuss human origins. Lents is a Professor of Molecular Biology at John Jay College of The City University of New York and author of Human Errors: A Panorama of Our Glitches, from Pointless Bones to Broken Genes.
The Human Family – Kinship, social organization, & the study thereof
In exchange for your patience in letting me learn how to blog I will teach you something about kinship (and social organization, too!)
International Cognition and Culture Institute
The website of the International Cognition & Culture Institute has, as permanent features, a blog section meant to stimulate and a news section meant to inform. We also organize online workshops, book-clubs, and other events.
ISS Archaeology: Boldly Going Where No Archaeologists Have Gone Before
Our project is the first archaeological study of a space habitat–in this case, the International Space Station (ISS). We seek to understand evolving cultural, social, and material structures in the ISS’s unique context.
John Hawks Weblog – Paleoanthropology, genetics & evolution
Tracking research into human origins, from the field to the laboratory.
Kate’s Portal – Archaeology, Technology & Interloping Cats
An archaeologist with skills in public outreach, museum work, archaeological mapping, and databases. Currently working on a PhD in anthropological archaeology at Binghamton University, studying the social network of community-based archaeologists.
The personal blog of P. Kerim Friedman 傅可恩
P. Kerim Friedman lives and teaches in Taiwan where he is an associate professor in the Department of Ethnic Relations and Cultures (within the College of Indigenous Studies), at National Dong Hwa University in Hualien. Kerim is a founding member of the anthropology blog anthro{dendum}.
Krazy Kioti: The Gene Anderson Webpage
I have been working on resource- and development-related issues for the last thirty-five years. My field is cultural and political ecology.
Kristina Kilgrove at Forbes
As a bioarchaeologist, I routinely pore over the skeletons of ancient populations so that I can learn about their health, diet, and lifestyles. Most of my research focuses on understanding the ancient Romans whose lives didn’t make it into history books. I did my PhD in anthropology and MA in classical archaeology. See also Powered by Osteons.
Lactation Journey Blog – Acquanda Y. Stanford
Acquanda Stanford: Is a Sociocultural Anthropologist (PhD Student), and writes the Lactation Journey Blog, which focuses on the social, political and cultural aspects of breatfeeding among people of the African Diaspora in the United States.
Language Log
Language Log was started in the summer of 2003 by Mark Liberman and Geoffrey Pullum.
Lawn Chair Anthropology – Biological anthropology, paeleontology, evolution and development
Zachary Cofran is a biological anthropologist studying human evolution, growth and development in the Anthropology Department at Vassar College in Poughkeepsie, NY.
Learning versus Schooling: Susan D. Blum
Who doesn’t think there is something wrong with education? Anthropology has a lot to offer when we think about how to raise up our young–in often unexpected ways! Join me as my thinking about higher education unfolds.
Leiden Anthropology Blog
The Leiden Anthropology Blog is written by scholars at the Institute of Cultural Anthropology and Development Sociology at Leiden University. They write anthropology blogs about their research, teaching in the Bachelor and Master program, and share anthropological perspectives on a wide range of social issues.
Limn
Limn outlines contemporary problems. It draws material from networks of experts in the social and human sciences and is intended to be timely, diverse in perspective, authoritative, well written and beautifully designed. Limn is somewhere between a scholarly journal and an art magazine.
Linguistic Anthropology Blog
Sponsored by the Society for Linguistic Anthropology (SLA). Linguistic Anthropology is the comparative study of the ways in which language shapes social life.
Living Anthropologically: Anthropology – Understanding – Possibility
Anthropology documents human possibility and creativity to effect change. Jason Antrosio is Professor and Chair of Anthropology at Hartwick College.
Living Ethnography
Resarch and Conversations on Ethnography, Writing and Folklore. Debra Lattanzi Shutika is a Folklorist, writer and ethnographer studying immigration, communities and change.
The Local Cult
A collection of stories, photos, videos and audio. Anthropology Blogs in New Zealand.
Mammals Suck… Milk! – by Dr. Katie Hind
This blog showcases and synthesizes (pun intended!) the MANY awesome advances currently occurring in milk research from the molecule to the organism to the population to the taxon, with implications for nutrition, medicine, psychology, and evolutionary biology.
Material World – A Global Hub for Thinking About Things
Material World is an interactive, online hub for contemporary debates, discussion, thinking and research centred on material and visual culture. It is the brainchild of scholars working in the anthropology departments of University College London and New York University, but aims to create a new international community of academics, students, curators, artists and anyone else with particular interests in material and visual culture.
media/anthropology
The aim of this blog is to put out in the public domain materials already part of research activity under the broad theme of media anthropology. John Postill is an anthropologist specialising in the study of digital media.
Medizinethnologie – Körper, Gesundheit und Heilung in einer globalisierten Welt
The blog is run by the Work Group Medical Anthropology in the German Anthropological Association. It publishes texts (in German) on the anthropology of transnational health interventions; migration, mobility and health; and the encounters between different medical ideas and practices in an interconnected world.
The Memory Bank – A New Commonwealth Ver 5.0
The two great memory banks are language and money. Exchange of meanings through language and of objects through money are now converging in a single network of communication, the internet. We must learn how to use this digital revolution to advance the human conversation about a better world. Our political task is to make a world society fit for all humanity.
The Mermaid’s Tale
A conversation about the nature of genetic causation in evolution, development and ecology. Includes discussions of the public perception of science and evolution and covers other subfields of biological anthropology, particularly paleoanthropology. Authored by three biological anthropologists, Ken Weiss, Anne Buchanan, and Holly Dunsworth, and co-authors of the book, The Mermaid’s Tale: Four Billion Years of Cooperation in the Making of Living Things.
Middle Savagery – Colleen Morgan
Middle Savagery is an accumulation of over thirteen years of thinking about archaeology, art, and digital media.
Mocking the Apocalypse – A Commentary on Culture
A blog featuring cultural commentaries, media reviews, and short essays aimed at starting discussions about the everyday social issues that continue to plague us.
Most Holy Death
Exploring the fastest growing popular faith in the Americas: La Santa Muerte. Dr. R. Andrew Chesnut, Bishop Walter Sullivan Chair in Catholic Studies at Virginia Commonwealth University, in collaboration with David Metcalfe, and Liminal Analytics, presents a multi-faceted exploration of the sanctification of death in the popular faith traditions of the Americas.
MSU Campus Archaeology Program Blog
MSU Campus Archaeology is a program that works to mitigate and protect the archaeological resources on Michigan State University’s beautiful and historic campus.
Museum Fatigue – in a Society of the Spectacle
I’m hoping this blog might be part of the cure for museum fatigue. David Davies is associate professor of anthropology and director of East Asian Studies at Hamline University.
N=1 | Opening black boxes, one at a time…
An anthropology blog by Matthew Wolf-Meyer, associate professor of anthropology at Binghamton University and author of The Slumbering Masses: Sleep, Medicine, and Modern American Life.
The Naked Anthropologist
Dr. Laura Agustín on Migration, Trafficking and the Rescue Industry. Author of Sex at the Margins: Migration, Labour Markets and the Rescue Industry.
The Narcissistic Anthropologist – Someone has to notice
We are all observers of our world to some degree or another. We all have an inner anthropologist looking around and learning and reacting to the curious bits of human culture.
Northwest Coast Archaeology – Quentin Mackie
To encourage public knowledge about, and appreciation of, Northwest Coast Archaeology through examples of interesting finds and sites, or through commentaries on archaeology in the news or otherwise in the public domain.
Notes from the Ethnoground – Glenn H. Shepard
As an ethnobotanist and field anthropologist living in the Brazilian Amazon, I often travel in what Wade Davis calls “the ethnosphere.” I use this log for reflecting on journeys and explorations both outward and inward, recent and past.
NPR 13.7: Cosmos and Culture
Group blog set at the intersection of science and culture, where Barbara J. King blogged from 2011-2018 (NPR closed this blog in April 2018). Barbara J. King is an anthropology professor emerita at the College of William and Mary. She writes about the cognition, emotion and welfare of animals and about biological anthropology, human evolution and gender issues.
Old Bones – Rebecca Dean
I’m a zooarchaeologist at the University of Minnesota Morris, with an interest in the historical ecology of early agricultural societies of the US Southwest and the Mediterranean region. This blog chronicles my successes and failures in research and teaching, and my constant search for family/work balance.
On the Brink – Andi Simon
Andi Simon is a Corporate Anthropologist & the author of the leadership book On The Brink: A Fresh Lens to Take Your Business to New Heights.
Open Anthropology Cooperative
The Open Anthropology Cooperative (OAC) was an initiative open to all with an interest in anthropology. Forum archives are still available and there is some discussion, but phased out in 2018.
Pablo Gustavo Rodriguez – Antropología del desarrollo y las políticas sociales
Modelos de desarrollo, economía social, desarrollo emprendedor, metodología de investigación social, análisis cualitativo asistido por computadora y análisis crítico del discurso.
Paul Stoller on the Huffington Post
Paul Stoller is Professor of Anthropology at West Chester University. He is the author of 14 books (memoirs, novels and ethnographies) and has conducted research among the Songhay people in West Africa (Niger) and among West African immigrants in New York City. In 2013 King Karl XVI Gustav of Sweden awarded him the Anders Retzius Gold Medal in recognition of his scientific contributions to Anthropology.
Pedal Powered Anthropology
Pedal Powered Anthropology is a multimedia-based educational project dedicated to making science and academia more accessible while bringing profound travel experiences to a local level.
Pedes in terra ad sidera visus (Los pies en la tierra y la mirada en el cielo)
Pedro Maya Álvarez: Antropólogo, empresario y observador del impacto de las nuevas tecnologías en la vida y las relaciones sociales.
Peregrination: The Ethnography of Shaligram Shila
This blog is comprised of thoughts and commentary regarding the interpretive and ritual practices of the sacred stones called Shaligram.
[Per]Suit of Anthropology
Dedicated to the exploration of modern business trends and perspectives from the view of the anthropologist. Business and Anthropology have more in common and more to learn from one another than readily acknowledged. Topics include Western business practices and the impact of those decisions on socio-cultural institutions worldwide.
Perspectives in Anthropology – Open-Access Anthropological Publications
Perspectives in Anthropology is an online publication series that launched in 2014. The series specializes in articles on Social, Cultural, Medical, Urban and Visual Anthropology which are available online as open-access and free-to-read.
Philbu’s Blog – Philipp Budka, Social & cultural anthropologist from Vienna
Anthropology blogs on media and technology, Indigenous internet practices and media, technology enhanced learning and ethnographic fieldwork.
The Pleistocene Scene – Human Evolution, Biological Anthropology, & Everyday Life
Adam Van Arsdale is a biological anthropologist with a specialization in paleoanthropology. Research focuses on the pattern of evolutionary change in humans over the past two million years, with an emphasis on the early evolution and dispersal of our genus, Homo. Work spans comparative anatomy, genetics and demography.
PopAnth – Hot Buttered Humanity – Popular Anthropology
Popular anthropology for everyone. Exploring the familiar and the strange, demystifying and myth busting human culture, biology and behaviour in all times and places. Myths, music, art, archaeology, language, food, festivals, fun. Welcome to the Anthropocene!
Powered by Osteons
Kristina Kilgrove is a bioarchaeologist at the University of West Florida. This is her personal blog about archaeology, bioanthropology, and the classical world. See also Kristina Kilgrove at Forbes.
Practicing Anthropology
Blog of NAPA, the National Association for the Practice of Anthropology.
Processing Culture – Notes on fieldwork & other sundries
A cultural anthropologist who researches feminist, LGBT, and leftist activism in contemporary Russia, with a strong side interest in US gender politics. This blog contains musings, riffs, and impromptu essays from a vaguely anthropological perspective.
Publishing Archaeology
Information and opinions on professional publishing issues in archaeology. Especially concerned with quality control, Open Access, and communication with other disciplines. Michael E. Smith is an archaeologist who works on Aztec sites, with an interest in comparative research on cities, households, empires, and city-states. See also Wide Urban World.
Puella Ludens – Linda Huber
Puella Ludens means “playing girl” in Latin, and is derived from Huizinga’s theory of the “homo ludens,” or playing man. The spirit of play is essential to humanity–this “purposeless” activity is actually the heart of human “progress,” and the heart of what is great about being human. An anthropological exploration of homo ludens and his progress.
Raving Anthropology
Stories and highlights from ethnographic field work and interviews on the subject of drug use, drug policy, harm reduction and dance music culture in Toronto and Vancouver.
Reading Notes in the Anthropology of Christianity
Ingie Hovland is a social/cultural anthropologist who writes on Christianity. She is the author of Mission Station Christianity: Norwegian Missionaries in Colonial Natal and Zululand, Southern Africa 1850-1890.
relevANTH – Seeing the relevance of anthropology in everyday life
Dr. Carie Little Hersh is an American cultural anthropologist, former attorney, and teaching professor in Anthropology at Northeastern University. This is her personal blog about anthropology and its relevance to everyday life.
The Rockstar Anthropologist – Where anthropology comes to chat
Myeashea Alexander is a physical anthropology grad student and science and art enthusiast. This blog is to de-mystify the WORLD of ANTHROPOLOGY! This all-inclusive discipline needs better PR (and anthropology blogs).
Rust Belt Anthro
Contemporary Archaeology and Anthropology in the Postindustrial United States. Kaeleigh Herstad is a PhD candidate in the department of anthropology at Indiana University and technical editor of the Journal of Community Archaeology and Heritage.
Sam Grace – talks to imaginary anthropologists
A blog by Samantha L. Grace, a PhD in sociocultural anthropology from the University of Arizona.
SAPIENS – Anthropology / Everything Human
SAPIENS aims to transform how the public understands anthropology. Every piece of content is grounded in anthropological research, theories, or thinking. We present stories and perspectives that are authoritative, accessible, and relevant–but still lively and entertaining.
Sara Perry – The Archaeological Eye
Dr Sara Perry is the Director of Studies of Digital Heritage, Director of Studies of Archaeological Information Systems, and Lecturer in Cultural Heritage Management in the Department of Archaeology at the University of York (UK).
Sarah Kendzior – Digital Media and Politics
I am a writer. I am best known for my critical take on the “prestige economy”, my reporting on St. Louis, my coverage of the 2016 election and the Trump administration, and my academic research on authoritarian states in Central Asia. My best-selling essay collection, The View From Flyover Country, is newly updated for 2018 and available as a paperback.
Shreds and Patches – Jason Baird Jackson
I am an ethnographer and ethnologist whose work is centered in the fields of folklore studies and cultural anthropology. I have collaborated with Native American communities in Oklahoma since 1993, when I began a lifelong personal and research relationship with the Euchee/Yuchi people. Since 2013, I have served as Director of the Mathers Museum of World Cultures at Indiana University, where I am also a Professor of Folklore and Anthropology.
Sindre Bangstad – A Social Anthropologist In Search of Parrhesia
Sindre Bangstad is a social anthropologist currently affiliated with the Faculty of Theology at the University of Oslo in Norway. This site features posts related to areas of research such as secularism, Islam and Islamophobia, hate speech as well as religion and the public sphere.
The Smell of Evolution
Kara C. Hoover is a bioanthropologist interested in human adaptation. The blog particularly focuses on the human sense of smell–its evolutionary biology and genetics within the ecological and cultural context.
Society for Visual Anthropology (SVA)
We promote study of visual representation and media. Works in film, video, photography, and computer-based multimedia explore signification, perception, and communication-in-context, as well as a multitude of other anthropological and ethnographic themes.
Somatosphere – Science, Medicine, & Anthropology
A collaborative website covering the intersections of medical anthropology, science and technology studies, cultural psychiatry, psychology and bioethics. Founded in 2008 by a small group of medical anthropologists, Somatosphere has grown to become a key online forum for debate and discussion in medical anthropology, as well as in the humanities and social sciences of health and medicine more broadly.
Sound Ethnography Project
The Sound Ethnography Project is an experiment in engaging with sound to produce novel ethnographic methods and forms. The project began out of the University of California, Irvine through the collaborative initiative of graduate students in anthropology.
Space + Anthropology
tech | culture | space | anthropology | sci-fi | art
Spider Monkey Tales – Michelle Rodrigues
Michelle Rodrigues is a primatologist/biological anthropologist who studies comparative social behavior and endocrinology.
stadtgeselle – Urban Anthropology & New Identities Meet Politics of Culture
Michael Anranter, Political scientist and cultural-social anthropologist in Vienna. Stadtgeselle may best translate as “urban apprentice.” Connects personal experiences, anthropological and political knowledge with the objective of exploring relations of identity and space. Weekly in German or English.
Standplaats Wereld – Nederland en de Wereld in Antropologisch Perspectief
A platform for informative, provocative, or surprising opinions about topical issues in the Netherlands and the rest of the world, viewed from an anthropological perspective. Contributions come from students and staff of the department of Social and Cultural Anthropology at VU University Amsterdam.
Struggle Forever! A Guide to Utopia – Jeremy Trombley
This blog is an intervention. It’s intention is to make a difference in the way we engage with the myriad entities with whom we are intertwined. It takes the view that existence is a perpetual process of “becoming with”–a process of building relationships and allowing oneself to be altered and affected as much as one alters and affects others.
The Superorganic – Barry R. Bainton
Dedicated to Applied Anthropology and the anthropological exploration of the human species and its environment. Our goal is to describe and understand the evolution and dynamics of humanity and its superorganic manifestations through the anthropological lens and how this understanding can be used to improve the quality of human life.
Tabsir – Insight on Islam & the Middle East
Scholars concerned about stereotypes, misinformation and propaganda spread in the media and academic forums on Islam and the Middle East.
Teaching Anthropology Blog
Teaching Anthropology is a peer-reviewed, open-access journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute dedicated to the teaching of anthropology. The Teaching Anthropology blog has information about projects, research, and other issues relevant to the teaching of anthropology.
Teaching Culture
The purpose of this blog is to build a community of anthropologists interested in pedagogy and to provide them with a reputable source of information and a way to share news on teaching anthropology, publishing in the field, new innovations, new books, and anthropology blogs.
This Anthro Life – Podcasting Complex Worlds through Public Conversations
We use our training to show how complex our world truly is and how that’s a beautiful thing. We expose injustices by revealing often hidden assumptions in everyday language, technology use, or body gestures. We are driven by the values of increasing social consciousness, acceptance and promotion of diversity, honest inquiry, and promote these in an inclusive, entertaining way.
trinketization: things that don’t fit in the attic
Things that don’t fit in the attic, collected bits, some new writing (John Hutnyk) and some snips from others. Answers to all questions about trinkets, and Capital.
UK Visual Anthropology: Audio-Visual Interventions
Staff, students and friends of the School of Anthropology and Conservation at the University of Kent. This blog develops our social media abilities and shows some of our work. Enthusiastic about a public and engaged anthropology and passionate of the importance of feedback in creating a genuine shared anthropology.
Una antropóloga en la luna: blog de antropología
Noemí. Educadora social y antropóloga social y cultural.
Urban Fieldnotes
Urban Fieldnotes was a street style blog documenting fashion, style, and dress on the streets of Philadelphia and beyond, from 2012-2017. Brent Luvaas’s current project, Street Anthropology is on Instagram.
Violent Metaphors – Thoughts from the intersection of science, pseudoscience, & conflict
Jennifer Raff is assistant professor at the University of Kansas, in the department of Anthropology. Studies the genomes of contemporary and ancient peoples in order to uncover details of human prehistory.
Visual Anthropology of Japan
In the spirit of open-text, collaboration, communication and good anthropology… Visual Anthropology of Japan explores Japanese culture through photography, film and other visual methods.
The Wenner Gren Blog
The Wenner-Gren Foundation for Anthropological Research, Inc. is a private operating foundation dedicated to the advancement of anthropology throughout the world.
Wide Urban World
Cities as viewed from a broad historical and comparative perspective. As Winston Churchill said, “The farther back we look, the farther ahead we can see.” A blog by Michael E. Smith (see also Publishing Archaeology).
The Wilds of Wyoming
A Little Bit of Culture, A Little Bit of Dirt. An anthropology blogs outlet for mad dashes across state lines and around the world, writing and posting pictures about culture, geology, and anything else interesting.
Youth Circulations
Youth Circulations is a nexus for research, art and activism around youth mobility and the politics of representation. Born of a shared frustration over media portrayals of young migrants and their families, we offer here a curated collection of these images and, in response, a meaningful and necessarily global critique.
Zachary Blair
Urban Development, Violence, Political Economy, Multiculturalism
Zero Anthropology
Zero Anthropology in its most basic sense is a project of anti-imperialism, growing out of a discipline with a long history and a deep epistemological connection to colonialism. The aim is to transform anthropology into something that is neither Eurocentric nor elitist.
For the latest, see Anthropology Blogs 2018!Introduction
Highly relevant today, World War II has much to teach us, not only about the profession of arms, but also about military preparedness, global strategy, and combined operations in the coalition war against fascism. During the next several years, the U.S. Army will participate in the nation's 50th anniversary commemoration of World War II. The commemoration will include the publication of various materials to help educate Americans about that war. The works produced will provide great opportunities to learn about and renew pride in an Army that fought so magnificently in what has been called "the mighty endeavor."
World War II was waged on land, on sea, and in the air over several diverse theaters of operation for approximately six years. The following essay on the critical support role of the Army Nurse Corps supplements a series of studies on the Army's campaigns of that war.
This brochure was prepared in the U.S. Army Center of Military History by Judith A. Bellafaire. I hope this absorbing account of that period will enhance your appreciation of American achievements during World War II.
GORDON R. SULLIVAN
General, United States Army
Chief of Staff
The Army Nurse Corps in World War II
The tremendous manpower needs faced by the United States during World War II created numerous new social and economic opportunities for American women. Both society as a whole and the United States military found an increasing number of roles for women. As large numbers of women entered industry and many of the professions for the first time, the need for nurses clarified the status of the nursing profession. The Army reflected this changing attitude in June 1944 when it granted its nurses officers' commissions and full retirement privileges, dependents' allowances, and equal pay. Moreover, the government provided free education to nursing students between 1943 and 1948.
Military service took men and women from small towns and large cities across America and transported them around the world. Their wartime experiences broadened their lives as well as their expectations. After the war, many veterans, including nurses, took advantage of the increased educational opportunities provided for them by the government. World War II changed American society irrevocably and redefined the status and opportunities of the professional nurse.
Early Operations in the Pacific
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hallways where wounded men lay on the floor awaiting surgery. Army and Navy nurses and medics (enlisted men trained as orderlies) worked side by side with civilian nurses and doctors. As a steady stream of seriously wounded servicemen continued to arrive through the early afternoon, appalling shortages of medical supplies became apparent. Army doctrine kept medical supplies under lock and key, and bureaucratic delays prevented the immediate replacement of quickly used up stocks. Working under tremendous pressure, medical personnel faced shortages of instruments, suture material, and sterile supplies. Doctors performing major surgery passed scissors back and forth from one table to another. Doctors and nurses used cleaning rags as face masks and operated without gloves.
Nurses at Schofield Hospital and Hickam Field faced similar difficult circumstances. The chief nurse at Hickam Field, 1st Lt. Annie G. Fox, was the first of many Army nurses to receive the Purple Heart. Established by General George Washington during the Revolutionary War, this decoration originally was for "outstanding performance of duty and meritorious acts of extraordinary fidelity." After 1932, however, the medal was usually restricted to those wounded or injured by enemy action. Although unwounded, Lieutenant Fox received her medal for "her fine example of calmness, courage, and leadership, which was of great benefit to the morale of all she came in contact with." The citation foreshadowed the nurses' contribution to World War II.
Throughout 1941 the United States had responded to the increasing tensions in the Far East by deploying more troops in the Philippines. The number of Army nurses stationed on the islands grew proportionately to more than one hundred. Most nurses worked at Sternberg General Hospital in Manila and at Fort McKinley, 7 miles outside the city. However, a few nurses were at Fort Stotsenberg, 75 miles north of Manila, and two worked at Camp John Hay, located 200 miles to the north in the mountains. Several nurses worked on the island of Corregidor.
The Japanese attacked the Philippines on 8 December, Philippine time. Clark Field, adjacent to the Army hospital at Fort Stotsenberg, suffered a three-hour air raid during which planes, barracks, and field shops were bombed. The hospital escaped damage, but the large number of casualties from the air attack overwhelmed the small staff. The chief nurse at Sternberg sent several of her nurses to Stotsenberg to help cope with the emergency. They remained at Stotsenberg until 27 December when they received orders to evacuate to Manila. By that time Japanese forces had landed on the main island of Luzon and were approaching the city of Manila from the north. All of the nurses sta-
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tioned outside of Manila reached the city except for two nurses stranded at Camp John Hay, who were taken prisoner by the Japanese.
General Douglas MacArthur, commander of U.S. Army Forces in the Far East, declared Manila an open city and ordered the nurses to the island of Corregidor. MacArthur planned to hold Corregidor and the Bataan Peninsula and await supplies and reinforcement from the United States. He sent forty-five nurses from Corregidor to the Bataan Peninsula to prepare two emergency hospitals for U.S. and Filipino forces fighting on Bataan. General Hospital 1, near Limay, received casualties directly from the front lines. The hospital consisted of sixteen wooden buildings and was originally well supplied. More than 1,200 battle casualties requiring major surgery (traumatic amputations and head |
uv, which literally means a mixture, or an integration of many properties, establishes a boundary that’s in the public sphere but creates a sort of quasi-private domain. It’s a rabbinic loophole that allows individuals to carry objects outside of the house on the Sabbath. Usually, it manifests as a string attached to telephone poles.
But what this basically invisible boundary does is liberate women from being housebound. Young children who cannot walk are considered ‘objects’ according to Jewish law, in this regard. They can’t be carried or even pushed in strollers outside of an eruv-conscribed territory.
So that means that in any community without an eruv, a mother of young children is trapped in the house, unless she can afford to shell out cash for childcare, or unless her husband is willing to stay home. (The same goes for anyone taking care of a disabled person — with caretakers often being female.) Fathers, on the other hand, are expected to pray in a quorum — so they get out, at least, to synagogue, to visit a friend, to go to a kiddush someone is hosting. What is meant to be a joyous day of festivity and rest turns into an airless, lonely time-warp for mothers.
This past week, controversy erupted when town officials of Mahwah NJ ruled that the local Jewish community must remove its eruv on the grounds that it “violates zoning laws” that bans signs on utility poles. The eruv, installed by the South Monsey Eruv Fund, consisted of white PVC piping on numerous telephone poles in the township.
On Monday night, 200 locals showed up at a township park to support the order. According to NorthJersey.com, a Facebook group protesting the eruv, called “Mahwah Strong” has about 3,000 members, and an online petition to “Protect the Quality of Our Community in Mahwah” received over 1,200 signatures before it was shut down for its inappropriate comments (with sentiments like: “This group of people are known for entering a community and taking it over for their own advantage. They are known for taking a lovely community and turning it into a run down, dirty, unwanted place to live. Just drive through Monsey New York. The town is disgusting and run down. Every other house is considered religious, so they don`t pay taxes.”)
These ugly comments led some to believe that the anti-eruv sentiment was really disguised anti-Semitism. And yet, the eruv ban was supported by a Reform rabbi, causing others to see it as anti-religious sentiment.
Yet what these takes and the protesters themselves may not realize is that by fighting against an eruv — in this case, utility piping on the sides of a telephone poles — they are essentially trapping Orthodox Jewish women in the house.
And sure, we’re not their responsibility. We freely choose to abide by these laws. But surely people who oppose religious groups do so at least somewhat on the grounds of secular values, like women’s rights and freedom of movement.
They should keep this in mind when opposing a bit of piping on their telephone poles.
This story "When You Protest An Eruv, You Protest Women’s Rights" was written by Avital Chizhik-Goldschmidt.Oscar-winning character actor and five-time Star Trek guest star James Crowell turns 77 years young today. Actually, he made even more Trek appearances if you break down things a certain way. He played Prime Minister Nayrok in The Next Generation episode "The Hunted," Jaglom Shrek in the TNG two-parter "Birthright," Minister Hanok in the Deep Space Nine hour "Starship Down" and Zefram Cochrane in Star Trek: First Contact. He also appeared as Cochrane in "Broken Bow," making an uncredited cameo in the Enterprise pilot, and via archive footage, in "In a Mirror, Darkly." To celebrate the occasion of his birthday, StarTrek.com is pleased to share 8 Things You Should Know About James Cromwell.
Cromwell is a Los Angeles native who grew up in New York City. And we're not kidding when we say grew up; Cromwell stands a towering 6-foot-7.
The actor's credits span more than 50 years. They range from The Fugitive (the TV show), Murder by Death, Barney Miller, Revenge of the Nerds and China Beach, Babe, The People vs. Larry Flynt, L.A. Confidential, The Green Mile, I, Robot and The Longest Yard to Six Feet Under, The Queen, 24, The Artist, American Horror Story: Asylum, Boardwalk Empire, Big Hero 6, and Murder in the First.
"It was nice to come back to Trek," Cromwell said of First Contact in a 1997 interview with Ian Spelling for the New York Times Syndicate. "Fortunately, Tom Hanks (a major Star Trek fan whom then-Paramount Pictures head Sherry Lansing hoped would play Cochrane) was too busy. That was a lucky thing, because I know the writers wrote Cochrane with me in mind. I thought he was an interesting character, and he plays such a pivotal role in Trek history. I have to be honest and say it's just another role for me. I enjoyed making the film and working with everyone again, and I gave it my all, but I'm not a Trekkie. I didn't watch (Glenn) Corbett's work in his episode."
Cromwell earned his Oscar for Babe, winning in the Best Supporting Actor category. A four-time Emmy Award nominee, he won in the Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Miniseries or a Movie for his work in American Horror Story: Asylum.
Cromwell's ex-wife, Julie Cobb, played Yeoman Thompson in the TOS episode "By Any Other Name," and their daughter, Rosemary Morgan, guest starred as Piri in "The Chute" episode of Voyager. "It's all in the family," Cromwell said in 1997. "It's nice to know we're part of something that's so big and has been around so long. It means so much to so many people."
An ethical vegan and a longtime advocate for the environment and related causes, Cromwell -- along with Star Trek's J. G. Hertzler -- was one of 19 people arrested in Watkins Glen, New York, on June 6, 2016, during a protest opposing underground gas storage in salt caverns near Seneca Lake.
Cromwell's current projects include The Young Pope, in which he plays Cardinal Michael Spencer, advisor to the first American Pope, portrayed by Jude Law. He's also completed the films The Promise, with Christian Bale, Oscar Isaac and Star Trek Beyond's Shohreh Aghdashloo, and Marshall, with Chadwick Boseman, Josh Gad, Kate Hudson, Dan Stevens and Sterling K. Brown.
And, for the record, Cromwell remains the only actor to date to actually say the words "star trek" in a Star Trek production. Cochrane, in First Contact, wondered/asked Riker and Troi, "And you people, you're all astronauts... on some kind of star trek?"
Please join us in wishing Cromwell a happy birthday.Share Brussels bombings - Let's not give succour to the cowards
Brussels bombings - Let's not give succour to the cowards Terrorism makes for good headlines but they lionise and give succour to losers
Terrorism makes for good headlines but they lionise and give succour to losers When atrocities like this happen, we should focus our attention on the victims
Commuters woke up this morning to news that Brussels was under attack. Two explosions were reported at the departure hall at Brussels Zaventem airport at 8am (CET) and a further blast was recorded at the Maalbeek metro station, close to the EU Parliament, shortly after 9am (CET). The attack comes four days after Salah Abdelslam, the last surviving participant in last year’s Paris attacks, was captured.
There have been scores of casualties, including at least 28 confirmed fatalities. The Belgian government has rather belatedly raised the threat level to maximum, as ISIS claimed responsibility for the attacks hours later.
When it comes to how we report tragic events like this, we have to remember that media and exposure are oxygen for terrorists. Terrorists are after the three Rs: revenge, renown and reaction, according to terrorism expert Louise Richardson, who was recently appointed Vice Chancellor at the University of Oxford. In 2006, she published a highly recommended book, What Terrorists Want, based on her experience growing up among IRA sympathisers in the 1970s.
The two most important aspects of the three Rs are renown and reaction, in which the media can sometimes play an unhelpfully supporting role. When atrocities like this happen, we should focus our attention on the victims – and report and showcase their achievements and humanity. The attackers, who have lost any claim on humanity, should remain anonymous. The police and courts should do their work, and we should forget about them. Manhunts like that for Salah Abdelslam make for good headlines and sell papers, but intense publicity lionises and gives succour to losers. It is tempting to speculate that this attack is revenge for the arrest of Abdelslam last week, or the work of an undetected cell pressed into action, but this needlessly raises the profile of these people.
Murder is not the primary objective of terrorist organisations. They seek, with their random and sudden attacks, to thrust themselves on the collective consciousness. They want to undermine the societies they attack, and roll back all the freedoms that have taken centuries to establish. They want to undermine the Hobbesian contract that Western electorates make with their governments to keep them safe, and produce a state of disorder along religious lines. They want to demonstrate the weakness of the state by producing scenes which resemble the guerrilla wars of foreign lands. They want advertisements to their power, and they largely get that through the blanket media coverage, legions of armed personnel and ubiquitous public warnings. But we win when we understand that much of terrorism is theatre, and it is through our responses that we give power to these assailants.
If we are to stop this kind of thing, we have to lose our obsession with the process of terrorism and leave it with the experts in the security services.
We are learning how important these security services are. On the BBC this morning, Frank Gardner made an extraordinary admission. Not only do Belgian security services not share information with each other, but they rely on M15 and British police for their intelligence. In a country from which one of the highest number of foreign fighters per capita have travelled to Syria, this is incredible. The Belgian authorities need to get a grip. They have taken four months to capture a key suspect who looks likely to have been living under their nose undetected, and they rely on the intelligence of a foreign country to keep their own people safe.
Terrorists – even suicide bombers – act to promote a reaction. And with this generation of Salafist radicals, it’s hard to know exactly what they want. Is ISIS a millenarian organisation which genuinely seeks to establish a global Islamic caliphate, or is it simply an eschatological cult obsessed with death? Either way, it is not sustainable. Terrorism of this sort does not work. Political scientist Max Abrahms studied 28 terrorist groups that have operated since 2001, including Al-Qaida, the Kurdistan Workers’ Party, the IRA and the Tamil Tigers, and found that they accomplished only 7% of their policy objectives.
Any organisation that prides itself on blowing up innocent commuters and tourists will not endure, and the Islamic State surely knows this as it continues to lose territory in its strongholds in Syria and Iraq. They have incurred the disdain of the overwhelming majority of the world, and according to expert Patrick Cockburn are rapidly losing support in the places under their administration.
#ISIS lost 24% of its territory since Jan 2015 says @IHS: 16% in 2015, further 8% in just last 3 months #Syria #Iraq pic.twitter.com/LRn7Og4be5 — Jon Williams (@WilliamsJon) March 16, 2016
For death cults like ISIS, the aim is to provoke a response along the lines suggested by Carl von Clausewitz: “If the enemy is to be coerced, you must put him in a situation that is even more unpleasant than the sacrifice you call on him to make.” The problem for ISIS and all before them is that they are fundamentally weak, and rely on the weapons of the weak. The more they attack, the more they will unite the international community against them.
However, we should refrain from using phrases like ‘War on Terror’ as Recep Erdoğan declared last week in response to the Ankara bombings. We can’t win a war against an emotion or a tactic, and our attempts to do therefore serve the interests of the terrorists who can claim that they always have the upper hand and the ability to inflict damage.
And if the reaction the Belgian attackers are after is fear and panic, they’re also supporting a losing cause and betray a poor understanding of psychology. A few months ago the French Prime Minister Manuel Valls declared that “we have entered – we all feel it – a new era characterised by the lasting presence of hyper-terrorism.” This is a deeply unsettling statement but it is also a normalising one. It removes the ability of terrorists to terrify. Terrorism is simply added to the contingent risks of life. We start remembering that we’re just as likely – if not more – to be involved in a car crash, crushed by furniture or drown in our bathtubs than succumb to the coward carrying a bomb.
Yet by normalising terrorism we should not accept it. There is obviously no moral equivalence between mass murder and accidental death. Whether it happens in Brussels, Paris, Ankara, Jerusalem or Grand Bassam, it is everywhere a human tragedy, and we need to continue to tackle the ideology which is driving these people to commit mass murder in this awful way.
Zac Tate is Deputy Editor of CapX
ShareFair warning: this post isn’t about anything in the news, or even anything particularly liberty related. This is just some economic musings about the motorcycle I just bought. I feel pretty darn free when I ride it, but ultimately this post is just (“just”) economics and just (again with that “just”) for fun.
When I got my bike, the mechanic I bought it from suggested that I get the oil changed every 3000 miles. The owner’s manual suggests 8000 miles. The first number feels a bit like when you leave the dentist’s office (“We’ll see you in two months for your next check up!”). It’s obviously in my mechanic’s interest to have a steady income, and an oil change is an easy job. On a machine that can be replaced for $4000, it’s a much more certain income than if I trash the engine and just buy a new bike. So is he just profit maximizing?
What about Honda’s number? What do they want? If they wanted my bike to last forever, they might say something like 3000 miles, but they also want me to buy a new bike at some point. But that isn’t all they want. They want me to enjoy my bike enough that I buy another Honda. And they want a reputation for selling reliable machines. And they want a healthy used bike market to bring in new riders (like myself… I bought a used Honda Shadow). On the one hand they want my bike to eventually die, but they want it to go in such a way that I’ll go back to them for my next bike. On the other hand, they want their bikes to last longer than their competitors. So it’s some form of oligopolistic competition on a non-price margin.
If it’s a Cournot-Nash equilibrium (and all manufacturers have about equivalent quality), then by suggesting 7000 miles their bikes would last longer, bringing new riders to the Honda fold, but reducing demand for new Hondas. If they suggest 9000 miles, riders will need new bikes sooner, but reduced longevity would reduce demand by a greater amount. The implication: I should change my oil more frequently than 8000 miles.
If it’s a Bertrand equilibrium, then they’ll give it all away to the consumer implying that 8000 maximizes my experience. But then competition among mechanics must be Cournot (unless the conditions in Lubbock are really awful)! When I took my industrial organization class, as a young libertarian economist-in-training, Bertrand was appealing (“companies always have our best interests at heart! See, they strive for the lowest price by assumption!”), but not terribly compelling. There are two lessons here: 1) Bertrand is taking the easy way out of our critics’ questions and will hurt us in the long run (take note fellow econolibertarians!). And 2) static/neoclassical economics, useful though it often is, doesn’t get us far enough: study your Austrian economics!Jeff Sessions has defended his decision to recuse himself from the investigation of Russia’s interference in the 2016 election, calling his choice “consistent for the rule of law”.
“An attorney general who doesn’t follow the law is not very effective in leading the department of justice,” Sessions told Fox News’ Tucker Carlson in a taped interview on Thursday.
Since last week, Trump has continually criticized Sessions, one of his earliest supporters, for deciding to recuse himself from overseeing the politically fraught investigation of whether Trump’s campaign had any connections to Russia’s attempt to meddle in America’s presidential election.
Anthony Scaramucci in furious, foul-mouthed attack on White House rivals Read more
Sessions announced he would recuse himself in March, shortly after it became public that he had met twice with the Russian ambassador during the campaign, despite telling senators during his confirmation hearing that he had not.
He reiterated on Thursday that his recusal was consistent with expert advice within the justice department and “the integrity that’s required of the attorney general”.
Last week, Trump lashed out at this decision in an interview with the New York Times, calling Sessions’ choice to recuse himself “very unfair to the president”. That interview kicked off a week of public speculation about whether Sessions would be fired or forced to resign. The president fueled the speculation with one angry tweet and interview about Sessions after another.
Being labeled “very weak” and “beleaguered” by a president who publicly speculated about firing him has been “kind of hurtful,” Sessions conceded in his Fox News interview on Thursday, but he said he is still determined to do his job.
“I understand [Trump’s] feelings about it, because this has been a big distraction for him,” Sessions said of the Russia investigation, which the president has raged against for months, calling it a “witch hunt.”
But, Sessions told Carlson, “I’m confident I made the right decisions.”
He went on to praise the President as “a strong leader” who is “determined to get his job done.”
Sessions told both Fox and the Associated Press on Thursday that he acknowledged the president could fire him at any time.
“I serve at the pleasure of the president. I’ve understood that from the day I took the job,” Sessions said.
He told the Associated Press he was aware that he had not had the “best week” in his relationship with Trump, who told the Wall Street Journal on Tuesday that he did not believe that Sessions deserved special credit for his loyalty. Sessions, a hardline conservative senator from Alabama, was the first senator to endorse Trump, at a time when he was still largely rejected by most Republicans.
“If he wants to make a change he can certainly do so and I would be glad to yield in that circumstance; no doubt about it,” Sessions told Tucker Carlson. “But I do believe that we’re making tremendous progress. I can feel the movement that we’re doing. We had a 25% increase in prosecution of criminals with guns just this last quarter; the first real quarter that I’ve been in office.... prosecutions are going to be up.”
Trump is slated to visit Long Island on Friday to focus on the scourge of murders allegedly committed by MS-13 gang member there, which includes the fatal beatings of two high school girls.
In San Salvador on Thursday, local prosecutors greeted Sessions with the news that they had charged hundreds of alleged MS-13 gang members, a development the justice department trumpeted in a press release.
The president tweeted enthusiastically about this issue on Thursday afternoon, noting: “Big progress being made in ridding our country of MS-13 gang members and gang members in general. MAKE AMERICA SAFE AGAIN!”It seems like every day we hear stories about refugees fleeing from the terror of ISIS. Most commentary on these stories has focused on the need for the governments of the United States and its allies to act quickly to provide a safe haven for refugees and to develop and implement an effective strategy for defeating the Islamic State. These are critically important steps that must be taken and more advocacy is undoubtedly needed to move government to act.
But is it enough?
According to the Open Doors 2015 World Watch List, last year had the highest level of global persecution of Christians in the modern era. More than 100 million Christians were persecuted worldwide, making them one of the most persecuted religious groups in the world. Unfortunately, it is looking as if this year will be even worse.
While freedom-loving governments must act on behalf of the persecuted, they are not the only ones who have a critical role to play.
Christians who enjoy the freedom to practice their faith must take action to support our brothers and sisters around the world who are being persecuted for their Christian faith. Here are five steps we can all take to care for those being tortured, discriminated against, kidnapped, raped, and even killed as a result of their faith.
1. Spread the word.
Even Christian-majority nations are experiencing unprecedented levels of exclusion, discrimination, and violence. Christianity in the Middle East is almost extinct, as most Christians in the area have either fled or been killed in the rampage of Islamic State extremists.
Here are some startling facts to ponder and share with others:
Christians in more than 60 countries face persecution from their government or neighbors simply because of their belief in Jesus.
More than 75 percent of the Christian community in Iraq has been forced to flee.
Some 700,000 Christians have fled Syria over the past four and a half years.
While the situation in the Middle East is dire for Christians, it is important to note that North Korea has been named to most dangerous place in the world to be a Christian for the past 12 years.
Share these facts with your friends, neighbors, and family either online or in conversation. I would bet most don’t know the true scope of Christian persecution in the world today.
2. Pray with the persecuted.
Prayer enables us to support suffering Christians in far-away, persecuted countries. During my tenure at Open Doors USA, I have been fortunate to meet many Christians who have been persecuted. I always ask them how we can help, and the responses are invariably the same: “Please pray for us! Don’t forget us.” It is prayer they crave more than anything else — even more than material goods.
Recently, an Egyptian pastor who helped organize large prayer gatherings had a different take on the direction of our prayers. He said: “Don’t pray for us. Please pray with us. If you pray for us, you will pray for the wrong things.”
Then he told us how Christians can pray with them: for the salvation of the country, that God would draw millions to Jesus Christ, for Christians to be bold in sharing their faith, and, finally, to not run away, but be faithful in persecution, even if it costs Christians their lives.
Prayer takes but a moment, and it is felt across the ocean and around the world. Most importantly, it is heard in heaven. I would encourage you to pray daily.
3. Engage your church community.
In the book, Persecuted: The Global Assault on Christians, my friends Paul Marshall, Lela Gilbert, and Nina Shea include several aids to intercession. I encourage you to do at least one of the following:
Start a persecuted church prayer group and hold a prayer vigil
Remember persecuted Christians during prayers at church
Provide bulletin inserts with prayer points
Read testimonies from persecuted believers
Use a world map in family prayer time
There are so many ways to engage your own church in supporting persecuted Christians. Be creative and think about how you would want to be supported if you were in their shoes.
4. Participate in the International Day of Prayer for the Persecuted Church.
The annual International Day of Prayer for the Persecuted Church is an excellent way to learn more about worldwide Christian persecution and pray for persecuted believers. This year’s event will be held Sunday, Nov. 1.
To prepare your church to participate in the event, Open Doors will hold a special webcast on Friday, Oct. 30, from 8-10 p.m. EST that will include inspirational stories from Christians who live in some of the most dangerous countries in the world. Churches and individuals can tune in to get informed and learn more about why persecution still exists, and how Western Christians can help.
5. Advocate.
Open Doors has launched an opportunity for Americans to sign a petition demanding action to (1) ensure aid is reaching the most vulnerable, (2) strengthen efforts to defeat ISIS and (3) commit to a long-term investment in the region.
The petition, addressed to Secretary of State John Jerry and Ambassador Alfonso Lenhardt, acting administrator of the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), will be delivered to Sec. Kerry and Amb. Lenhardt on International Human Rights Day — Dec. 10, 2015. It can be found here.
It is time to act.
Let persecuted Christians around the world know they are not alone and they are not forgotten. Spread the word, pray, engage your church community, participate in the International Day of Prayer for the Persecuted Church, and advocate on their behalf.
Lead image of congregants having church under a tree in South Sudan, courtesy of John Wollwerth / Shutterstock.com.The subject of this article is from the Pathfinder update.
The information from this article is up-to-date as of 10 August, 2017.
The information from this article is up-to-date as of 10 August, 2017.
HUB-K-133 BF176 Cold Oceans Region Bisticabi Boundary Galaxy Euclid Spectral class K6pf (Red) Distance to center 166,624.5 Light-years light-years Planet(s) 1 Moon(s) 0 Discovered by BotFodder2 Release Pathfinder
HUB-K-133 BF176 Cold Oceans Region Bisticabi Boundary Galaxy Euclid Spectral class K6pf (Red) Distance to center 166,624.5 Light-years light-years Planet(s) 1 Moon(s) 0 Release Pathfinder
BF176 Cold Oceans is a star system in the universe of No Man's Sky. It has only one planet, a cold water-world that contains trace amounts of Rigogen.
Planets & Moons [ edit | edit source ]
This star system contains one planet:
Korvax
Other Alias [ edit | edit source ]
The PS4 name is BF176 Cold Oceans.
The PC name is unknown.
0469 : 0081 : 0D6E : 0133
Galactic Hub Project subreddit
PilgrimStarPath
Galactic Hub Interloper HandbookComplete Inning By Inning Breakdown of Royals Wildcard Win
My wife was mourning NO HUD? That cracks me up.
Top of First:Shields had some trouble finding the strike zone against Crisp who hit the sixth pitch to left for a single. Fuld got under a pitch and flied to Gordon. The third pitch in his sequence looked like a missed call by the ump. Against Donaldson it seemed that the A’s know which pitch is the change. But then the third in a sequence he swung at and missed. But then Moss got all of an 87mph changeup… It would seem that the change up is moving a bit too quickly? Then Shields closes the door. But still 2-0.
Bottom of First:
The exact same location that Fuld got for a ball was called a strike on Escobar to open the bottom of the first. Quickly, Escobar was 0 -2. Then on pitch six we saw an E-6 by Jed Lowrie. Then Aoki showed sac bunt, down 2 in the first? That seemed stupid. Then on pitch 2 Aoki wasn’t bunting. Aoki grounded into a fielder’s choice. Cain sky balled a fly to right field. With Hosmer batting Aoki stole second. Then Hosmer did what all hitters should do when they don’t see any strikes… he walked. Two on, two out for Billy Butler. Billy complained about a 2-0 pitch that was called a strike that was CLEARLY inside… the next pitch was in the same place and was called a ball for 3-1. Then 3-1, Butler hit a single scoring Aoki and moving Hosmer to third base. Fuld did a great job keeping Hosmer from scoring. Alex fell behind 0-2, then Butler WANDERED OFF FIRST and ended the inning.
2-1 A’s Lowrie – seven pitches then groundball to Hosmer.
Vogt – six pitch walk
Sogard – struck out… on Shields’s 45th pitch of the game…Pitch count isn’t a huge concern but 45 in two innings is a lot.Bottom of the second: Soto – Shields gets a strikeout on what was clearly a pitch that was low.Sogard – struck out… on Shields’s 45th pitch of the game…Pitch count isn’t a huge concern but 45 in two innings is a lot.Bottom of the second: Gordon (at bat again after previous inning ended while he was at the plate and Butler got caught napping) – skied one to Sam Fuld Perez – skied to Lowrie Infante – swung at a horrible pitch for the second pitch; Royals are starting to swing too much… and went down to strikeout for a horrible strikeout.Lester’s second inning: 9 pitches. That’s not good for the Royals. A’s 2-1 Looks like Soto will come out. Crisp – 1-2 groundball to Hosmer. Found out Soto injured his thumb on the tag at home on Hosmer in the first.Fuld – 2-2 soft liner to RF
Donaldson – first pitch rip ground ball to LF. Moss – HARD line drive on first pitch results in Hosmer catching the ball and doubling Fuld off second. Folks, I’m thinking that Shields doesn’t really have his A game tonight.Bottom of Third: I’m hoping the Moustakas has a really nice plate appearance, the Royals really need it. The batters in the second against Lester looked awful.Moustakas – Rips a single to opposite field right after the TBS gang showed the shift! Escobar – first pitch bunt. Seems like a waste of a plate appearance. Moose to second.
Aoki – controversy about timeouts… If Lester doesn’t like timeouts he could try delivering the pitch? Ground ball to Lowrie, Moustakas to third base. Cain – first pitch double to score Moose!! 2-2 Hosmer – horrible swing on first pitch, flare to LF – scores Cain 3-2.
Butler – ground ball to second ending inning.Thoughts: Moustakas starting looks like a great call right now. Royals 3-2 Wonder if third inning has anything to do with switching to Norris from Soto? Reddick – ground ball to Infante after falling behind 3-0. Six more pitches. Lowrie – Long fly but only 385 to a 400 foot section of park Cain catches it. Vogt – strikeout…. sometimes A’s don’t swing at strikes, too!First one-two-three inning for Shields. 67 pitches for four innings, but WHO CARES? If he can get through six that’s all we ask, right? Bottom half Gordon – strikeout on an offspeed ball in dirt. Gordon doesn’t look like he’s seeing the pitches at all well from Lester’s hand.
Perez – strikes out on a way low and outside pitch. If Perez is ever going to be a truly good hitter, he’s going to have to lay off that pitch.
Infante – first pitch ground ball to Lowrie.Same three batters who did nothing in the second and looked awful doing it did the same in the fourth. Royals 3-2 Norris – (batting in Soto’s place) – beautiful strikeout – looking. Sogard – ground ball to Infante… Crisp – Shields is now getting some strikes he wasn’t earlier…..and Crisp is very unhappy about it. Then the third base ump gave him it back – saying he checked when he did not. And called strike three on what Crisp thought was ball four.This was another 1-2-3 inning from Shields and he now looks good.Moustakas – They’re shifting again… Fly ball to Fuld.
Escobar – chopper to Lowrie. Aoki – weak liner to third base. Lester has retired his last seven batters and looks masterful now. Royals 3, Athletics 2 Follow @RoyalsBlue_com Shields 80 pitches. Fuld – blooper on a broken bat to right field. Donaldson – walks on six pitches. And that will probably do it for James Shields. Yordano Ventura is coming in… Moss batting against Yordano Ventura – HR dead center field and the change to Ventura immediately looks awful. 5-3 Athletics Reddick – why didn’t Yost go to Finnegan? All those lefties in the lineup? Single to Right Field. Lowrie – wild pitch. Fly to Aoki. Reddick advances to third.Now Herrera is in for Ventura. Vogt – popped up, 2 down. Norris – ground ball up the middle – 6-3 scoring Josh Reddick Sogard – and infield single first and second. Crisp – single to center field scoring Norris, moving Sogard to second 7-3. Fuld – strikeout. Five run seventh. Ned outsmarted himself, AGAIN. Bottom half: Cain – groundball to Lowrie. Hosmer – groundball to Sogard Butler – strikeout and looked AWFUL doing it. This game is over. Athletics 7, Royals 3 Donaldson (still versus Herrera) – strikeout Moss – strikeout. Reddick – ground ball – infield single. Lowrie – liner knocked down by Moose… out.Guess we couldn’t have gone to Herrera in the sixth? Oh wait, we have. Bottom half Gordon – swinging at everything now…. looking awful doing it. THEN manages to strike out looking. I think we can dispense with the idea that he deserves any MVP votes. Perez – ground ball to Donaldson. Infante – shows bunt on the first two pitches… hmmm. Then he bunts and Lester throws a bad throw to Vogt and Infante gets on. Moustakas – fly ball to Fuld. Infante broke a string of 12 straight mowed down by Lester. But this game still looks over. Athletics 7, Royals 3 In this increasingly bleak game I am now looking for positives without saying, “Hey at least we got here.” But sadly, that’s all I have right now. Now pitching: Wade Davis Vogt – Fly to Cain Norris – groundball to Escobar. Sogard – strikeout on a nasty pitch. Davis being Davis. There’s a positive in there. We can keep him by doing a team option. I say you take that. bottom half – Escobar – single up the middle! Aoki – my wife just said Aoki might hit a homerun… there’s much mirth here! Escobar steals. Ground ball to Sogard – Escobar to third base. Cain – single scoring Escobar – 7-4 ground ball up the middle Hosmer – Ball hit Vogt – that’s a FAIR BALL! No? Stolen base Cain! 109 pitches by Lester….walk TYING RUN is BILLY BUTLER Butler – Lester is going to leave the game. Now pitching Gregerson. Butler – single to right – 7-5 Hosmer to third! Terrance Gore to pinch run for Billy Butler Gordon – Gore steals second base… a single ties the game if Gordon can hit….Gore is the tying run and he is in scoring position. WILD PITCH HOSMER SCORES GORE TO THIRD!!!! 7-6. WALK Perez – lead run is on first base….strikeout… Gordon steals second.. An awful strikeout.. Infante – another strikeout on a pitch way out of the zone. Chances are better but still not good. 7-6. Athletics 7, Royals 6 Royals will have Moustakas, Escobar and Aoki in the bottom half. If anyone can get on, Lorenzo Cain. It seems that there is a chance, just not a good one. Doolittle is terribly good. Holland on to pitch for Royals Crisp – strikeout on the splider – swinging at a pitch down and in. Fuld – walk Donaldson – flied out to Gordon Moss – passed ball – Fuld to second – intentionally walked after 3-0 Reddick – walk… and the A’s are doing exactly what I would always do against Holland: never swing. Lowrie – line out Aoki… Bottom of the 9th Sean Doolittle pitching Moustakas has a.500 average against Doolittle. Of course, that’s 2 plate appearances. Willingham PH for Moustakas – single to RF. PR – Dyson Escobar – sac bunt – Dyson to second base… Aoki – Dyson steals THIRD BASE. That was close, but he was safe…SAC FLY DYSON SCOREs 7-7Six stolen bases. Cain – lineout to Lowrie. 7-7 Unbelievable. No way did I see that. My wife is gloating that I gave up and she is saying that Amy is always right… well, this time, she is! So, Blown Save: Sean Doolittle It was 2-0, then 2-1, then 3-2, then 7-3 now 7-7. Nix at 3rd, Finnegan pitching, Dyson in CF, Cain in RF Vogt – popped to Dyson. Norris – ground ball to Infante Finnegan who pitched in the college world series THIS JUNE is pitching in the same year’s playoffs? WOW. Punto PH for Sogard – STRIKEOUT. Will Finnegan be the winning pitcher? Bottom of tenth will be Hosmer, Gore, Gordon. Nate Freiman at first, Nick Punto at second. Hosmer – infield single after Lowrie has to spin and doesn’t get him when Hosmer dives. Colon |
BuzzFeed For Publishing Unsubstantiated Claims About Trump’s Ties To Russia)
“We didn’t pass judgment on the allegations. We reported we had not been able to corroborate them. But the news was that the two most powerful people in the world had been briefed on the existence of these allegations.”
“It’s just unfortunate that the most powerful person in the world is trying to delegitimize journalism and an organization that plays such a vital role in our democracy,” Zucker added.
“[The Trump administration’s] willingness and inclination to cherry-pick facts, conflate and inflate things, will make covering this administration very challenging. That means our role is more important than ever. We think that CNN has a job to do, which is to hold their feet to the fire. They may not like it, but they should respect it.”
“I think the era of access journalism as we’ve known it is over. It doesn’t worry me that Donald Trump hasn’t done an interview with CNN in eight months. I think our credibility is higher than ever, and our viewership is higher than ever, and our reporting is as strong as ever.” (RELATED: Rudy Giuliani Blasts CNN For Reporting On Fake Trump Dossier)
WATCH:
Follow Kaitlan on TwitterCLOSE They're called electors. But who the hell are they? Video provided by Newsy Newslook
Even without counting Michigan, whose 16 electoral votes probably will be awarded to Donald Trump, the GOP nominee has more than a majority of Electoral College votes. (Photo: USA TODAY)
Corrections & Clarifications: An earlier version of this report had fewer states with laws governing electors.
To supporters of Hillary Clinton, the number looks intoxicating: 155 electors in states where the popular vote went for Donald Trump — some by slim margins — who apparently aren't legally bound to vote for the GOP presidential nominee when the Electoral College meets Dec. 19.
Solicit them like lobbyists schmooze members of Congress, right? Persuade just a portion, and you've got the first woman president, winner of the popular vote, certified by a constitutional authority.
She's got 232 in the bag. She would need 38 "faithless electors" to win this game.
That's the problem with this particular political fantasy. Though electors in several states report that they're getting thousands of emails, letters and even telephone calls to ask them to switch their votes, they're among the Republican Party's most loyal members.
"I fully intend to vote for Donald Trump," said Jim Skaggs of Bowling Green, Ky., one of that state's eight electors, who added that he really doesn't like Trump. "It's not a law, I don't think.... But I think it’s a duty."
“I fully intend to vote for Donald Trump. It's not a law, I don't think.... But I think it’s a duty.” Jim Skaggs, Bowling Green, Ky.
He's right. Kentucky is one of 22 states, according to the Congressional Research Service and additional USA TODAY research, that don't mandate their electors to vote for the winner of their state's popular vote. The Constitution and federal law are silent on the matter.
More than 4.5 million supporters have signed a Change.org petition advocating electors' change of heart, but the desire is little more than a pipe dream, election experts said. Two Democratic electors in Colorado and Washington state, where Clinton won the electoral votes and electors are obligated under state law to vote for her, have launched their own movement that they've dubbed "Moral Electors" to achieve the same result — or more likely throw the decision to the House of Representatives as happened in 1824.
“This is a long shot. It’s a Hail Mary,” P. Bret Chiafalo of Everett, Wash., told Politico. “However, I do see situations where — when we’ve already had two or three (Republican) electors state publicly they didn’t want to vote for Trump. How many of them have real issues with Donald Trump in private?”
Where Chiafalo sees a Hail Mary play, some Trump electors consider the drama more as harassment.
"Hillary's got a great campaign going," said Sharon Geise, an elector from Mesa, Ariz., who estimates 8,000 emails have flooded her inbox. "It's the same thing, pretty much. Basically: Vote for Hillary Clinton. It's bizarre. I don't dare answer my phone."
A dozen letters urging her to back anybody but Trump arrived at her home Thursday.
"She has to stop all of this," Geise said of Clinton. "This is ridiculous."
It's not clear whether Clinton supports this movement. She conceded to Trump on the day after the election, and President Obama, a Democrat who endorsed his former secretary of State, committed to a smooth transition of power.
Even delegations from states such as Florida that can inflict penalties for voting by conscience instead of popular vote haven't escaped activists' barrage.
In Florida, a faithless elector would be charged with a misdemeanor, prohibited from casting an Electoral College vote and replaced, presumably with an alternate more faithful to the popular-vote results in the state, said Franita Tolson, a voting rights law professor at Florida State University. That elector's political future within the GOP would be toast.
Historically, fewer than two electors per presidential election have changed their votes because they didn't want the candidate on whose slate they ran, according to FairVote.org, a District of Columbia-based non-partisan, non-profit group. The most recent was in 2004 and might have been a mistake.
"It sounds like sour grapes to me," the incoming president of Florida's Senate and an elector, Joe Negron of Stuart, said about the movement to change electors' stripes. "We had an election in Florida, and Donald Trump received the majority of votes and therefore gets 29 electoral votes."
Elector Susan Moore of Pensacola, Fla., has been a Republican Party loyalist since she started volunteering in Tennessee when she was 12. She has more than 800 emails, many of them part of the same form letter, in her inbox.
"When it comes down to it, I think these people mean well," she said of the anti-Trump sector. "But they’re asking us to do something that’s really not going to work out the way they want."
Contributing: Isadora Rangel, The (Stuart, Fla.) News. Joseph Gerth reports for The (Louisville) Courier-Journal, Yvonne Wingett Sanchez reports for The Arizona Republic and Joseph Baucum reports for the Pensacola (Fla.) News Journal. Follow them on Twitter: @Joe_Gerth, @yvonnewingett and @josephbaucumPNJ
Read or Share this story: http://usat.ly/2ggtaJxAditya Mehta, two-time para-cycling silver medallist at the Asian Paralympics 2013, was strip-searched twice within the span of days at the Delhi and Bangalore International airports. The humiliation did not go down well with the para-cyclist, who slammed the authorities for their insensitivity.
Security personnel demanded that Mehta remove his clothes and prosthetic leg at the Delhi International Airport, just days after officials at the Bengaluru airport had asked him to put his belongings, including his prosthetic leg, through the airport scanner.
In a post on social media, Aditya vented his angst at the CISF officers who were in charge of security checks at the Indira Gandhi International Airport and the Kempegowda International airport.
Writing on his Facebook page, Aditya described the humiliating experience at the Bengaluru airport. He wrote, "There cannot be a worse treatment than this for an amputee. On one hand we are trying out best to make lives better for the amputees at Central Armed Forces and on other side there are these uncivil officers who try to put us down. It was really humiliating for me to receive such immoral treatment. I was asked to take off my prosthetic limb and was almost stripped off."
"Dignity of people with disabilities is at stake! After I expressed my distress regarding the harrowing incident at KIA, I realised that I am not alone in this. This has been an issue for many years. Despite many victims' trials to reach out to various departments to have a sensitized system, nothing has changed yet," he added.
His ire was especially directed towards the CISF officials, who he named and shamed in his Facebook rant: "Mr. Thakur, S.C Meena, Pupender Pratap Singh, were those impudent Central Industrial Security Force (CISF) officers. The assistant commandant who was the in charge at that time of security also behaved very disrespectfully. Do the differently challenged not have the right to live a normal life?"
Four days later, Aditya went through another harrowing experience, this time at the Indira Gandhi International Airport in Delhi. And Yet another Facebook post followed: "This is ridiculous! Another bad day! But this time I didn't give them a chance to put me down. Despite all the campaigning since four days, I was again asked to remove my prosthetic leg during security check at the Delhi Airport. A rude Sub-Inspector didn't have the courtesy to talk politely. He was adamant that he is not going to let me go until I take off my prosthetic limb for security check."
He then added, "However, Assistant Commandant Rajeev, who was present at the site was kind enough to tell that they were just following the guidelines given by Bureau of Civil Aviation. He also mentioned that BCAS doesn't have enough funds to have body scanner which could be a sensitised way of checking. How pathetic is that!"
According to the Times of India, officials said that the measures to check Mehta and any disabled person with prosthetic limbs was followed as per the guidelines of the Bureau of Civil Aviation Security of India
"The rules do not exempt the screening of prosthesis, so we have no choice but to check them," said a Directorate General of Civil Aviation official.
Firstpost is now on WhatsApp. For the latest analysis, commentary and news updates, sign up for our WhatsApp services. Just go to Firstpost.com/Whatsapp and hit the Subscribe button.Two weeks later I had a decent little app coded from "scratch" that satisfied all of my requirements. Vendors were able to apply for positions, the web copy looked good, and the site loaded very quickly to boot. Heck, I even did it all with Docker, which made code changes and deployments that much easier.
But then a few funny things happened on the way to the festival:
We determined that the app development requirements were much larger than expected, and that it would be much cheaper and easier to use third-party services. My wife stopped using Facebook for marketing the festival for complex and unexpected reasons.
So now, the Django-based web application that I developed to solve non-trivial problems needed to be reborn as a marketing tool, after I had spent a month developing it and during a time when I really didn't have time to start over with Wordpress.
We therefore had a "publishing" process that looked like this:
My wife would spend her very precious and limited free time writing copy. She would send it to me and request that I post it on the site. When I had free time later I would then spend between 15-60 minutes taking her copy and formatting it to work within one of our Django templates. I would test the "new version" of the site on my laptop. I would push the "code" to the public-facing server.
Why didn't my wife just perform steps 2-5? Because "copy" on my site was treated like "code", which is ok if your site have very little copy and doesn't change often but is really a pain if you're managing mostly press releases. And my wife, who's incredibly smart and talented and hard-working doesn't happen to be a developer for a living and was far too busy at the time to learn how to do something very, very new.
And so it went for 3 months. Copy changes were slow, cumbersome, and way too expensive from a person-hours perspective. Every week I promised her that things would be much better for the next festival.Well, it’s good to be back! As relaxing as the Thanksgiving break was, it’s good to return to battle… planning. During the break we welcomed an influx of new players into the ranks of the Battleborn, so if this is your first Battleplan, welcome! With that in mind (and since we’re looking at another slow week as we get the Battleborn news machine warmed up again), we thought it would be fun to revisit the past a little bit by featuring a couple videos from around launch time. Think of it as a nostalgic refresher if you were around then. If you’re new blood, then maybe this is first time viewing for you, so enjoy!
Find out how high the stakes are in the Battleborn story trailer
More of a PVP player? We can help you out there, too.
Maybe you’re looking for a more “high level” overview of Battleborn? Then try our “Bootcamp” trailer:
Like what you see here? There’s plenty more where that came from on the Battleborn YouTube channel!
While we didn’t have a full Battleplan last week, we did end up making a few last-minute changes before the break. We detailed these in a “mini-Battleplan” of sorts. The changes included some Kid Ultra adjustments as well as a change to PVP queues on PS4. You can get caught up on last week’s mini-Battleplan HERE if you missed it.As you may remember, a couple weeks ago, we were thrilled to be able to support “Battleborn Day”, the community created event to celebrate Battleborn! A big part of Battleborn Day was centered on seasoned players welcoming in new players and showing them the ropes. The whole day was a huge success and we’re looking forward to bringing you more info on how it was put together from the creators themselves soon. In the meantime, we thought we’d share a few stats with you that we think show what a success Battleborn Day was.
For reference, these numbers stretch from November 11th to November 13th:
Enemies:
Minions killed: 6,016,923
Thrall killed: 8,499,166
Shards:
Shards collected: 1,375,727,720
Gear:
Legendaries awarded: 22,206
Most common legendary: Arcship Raider’s Wrench (3,018)
Incursion:
Sentries destroyed: 10,357
Toby’s Friendship Raid:
Ships destroyed: 39,102
XP:
Total player XP earned: 18,790,158,360
Next week, we’ll be firing up the ol’ Gearbox stream machine again and bringing you something we think you’ll be very excited about. We have another update coming to _Battleborn_ very soon and we’ll be looking to share the details with you next Thursday (12/8). This is a _major_ update and there’s going to be a lot to talk about, so this will be a special extended two-hour stream! Starting at 2pm PT (5pm ET -- an hour earlier than usual), New Media Manager Elisa Meléndez will be joined by Designer Grant Kao and Creative Director Randy Varnell to fill you in on all the info you’ll need to know. Make sure to[ follow the Twitch channel](https://www.twitch.tv/gearboxsoftware) if you haven’t so you’re eligible to win a MEGA code, and have your questions ready. This is going to be one stream you won’t want to miss.Why is a Pro-Gun Senator Pushing Gun Control So Hard?
Please click on the Take Action button to urge your Senators to oppose the “Traffic Ticket Gun Ban” and to support bringing concealed carry reciprocity bill to the floor for a vote. If you live in Texas, please take action here.
Not a GOA member yet? You can join Gun Owners of America today for only $20 — and this will double your contribution because of our matching fund!
Urge Your Senators to Push Concealed Carry Reciprocity!
Dear Friend:
There’s an old adage that says: “When you’ve dug yourself into a hole, stop digging.”
Texas Senator John Cornyn — the second most powerful Senator in Washington — is a traditionally pro-gun friend who made a big mistake by sponsoring a bad gun control bill.
But, rather than admitting that he made a mistake, he is digging in — and, in the process, becoming a vocal advocate for gun control.
That’s why I need you to contact your two Senators right away. Urge them to do everything they can to stop Cornyn in his tracks.
It should tell you something that Cornyn’s “Fix NICS” cosponsors include these gun control crazies: Dianne Feinstein (D-CA), Richard Blumenthal (D-CT), Chris Murphy (D-CT) and Chuck Schumer (D-NY).
You may remember that Sen. Murphy is the guy who put the infamous item on social media arguing that God doesn’t listen to gun owners’ prayers.
Well, now Murphy is publicly arguing that the Cornyn “Fix NICS” bill is the most important gun control in a long time, stating: “The Fix NICS Act is the most important piece of bipartisan guns legislation since Manchin-Toomey…. Reforms aren’t window dressing. Big deal.”
The goal of the Cornyn-Feinstein-Murphy-Schumer bill is to force every single potential NICS name to be sent to the FBI’s NICS system.
It was prompted by reports that the Air Force did not send the name of the Sutherland Springs shooter to NICS — even though he certainly could have gotten a firearm in a wide variety of ways, even if he had been in NICS, and even though his carnage was stopped by the real solution to violence … a good guy with a gun.
The problem is that, because of this isolated horror story, the Cornyn bill could add the names of millions of additional law-abiding Americans to NICS.
You already know of the 257,000 veterans who have lost their rights because of a bad experience in Iraq.
You already know that 95% of NICS denials are “false positives.”
And you probably also know that “Fix NICS” would require that the rolls of Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, CHIP, and ObamaCare be trolled for recipients with PTSD, ADHD, or Alzheimer’s — that is, people who have had guardians appointed.
What you may not know is that the SECOND LARGEST CATEGORY of prohibited persons is “fugitives from justice” — and that a good portion of these are Americans who have UNPAID TRAFFIC TICKETS.
The Department of Justice reported in 2012 that 19.1% of denials (13,862) were as a result of being a “fugitive from Justice.” That category sounds ominous until you consider that unresolved traffic issues are one of the most common forms of bench warrants that can result in your becoming a “fugitive from justice.”
At Gun Owners of America, we frequently see gun owners who are denied for no apparent reason — or for the slightest reasons (like traffic offenses).
Take Ryan, who was denied a gun purchase by NICS. Upon appealing his denial, he said, “the only thing [my attorney] can find is that i have a bench warrent [sic] from Ohio for failure to appear for a traffic ticket.”
Or take this gun buyer who, in posting to a “General Firearms Forum,” said he was denied and, upon appeal, “got a letter in the mail saying I had an outstanding warrant for a traffic ticket out of state from 6 years ago.”
So don’t be fooled by lying legislators who say they want to expand NICS to reach hard-core criminals, when they’re really going after speeders.
The dirty little secret of NICS is that hundreds of thousands of people in the database are law-abiding Americans who did nothing wrong, unless you count “service to your country” and/or “speeding.”
And many of the names which the “Traffic Ticket Gun Ban” would add would largely fall into these categories.
There is no reason why the second most powerful senator in the country — Texas Senator John Cornyn — should be leading a gun control charge.
Instead, the Senate should be taking up concealed carry reciprocity instead!
Sadly, Senator Cornyn is saying that he wants to push gun control first, and then get to concealed carry later.
But what the Senator is ignoring is this: If gun control passes into law, he will have lost any leverage he had to score a pro-gun victory with his seminal reciprocity bill.
So please contact your Senators and urge them to OPPOSE the Traffic Ticket Gun Ban (S. 2135) and to support an immediate vote on concealed carry reciprocity (S. 446).
Thanks so much for your help.
In Liberty,
Erich Pratt
Executive Director
P.S. Please contact your Senators and urge them to say YES to concealed carry reciprocity (S. 446) and to say NO to S. 2135, the “Traffic Ticket Gun Ban.” And don’t forget that you can join Gun Owners of America today for only $20 — and this will double your contribution because of our matching fund!A privately run federal prison in Kansas recorded video of hundreds of meetings between inmates and their attorneys, a court-led investigation has found after defense lawyers first raised concerns months ago about possible violations of client privilege.
The detention center in Leavenworth, operated by Corrections Corporation of America, possessed video recordings of all attorney-inmate meetings reviewed by the court investigator, who examined 30 randomly chosen visits that took place in spring 2016 and concluded hundreds were recorded. The extent of the recordings hasn’t been previously disclosed.
Leavenworth CCA and the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Kansas have been at the heart of a monthslong drama in the region’s legal community over recordings of attorney-inmate meetings at the prison, as well as recordings of attorney-inmate phone calls. The ability of lawyers to meet with clients privately is a bedrock principle of the American legal system, and this fall, a federal judge named a special master to investigate.
Defense attorneys first raised concerns last summer over video recording of meetings with their clients. The U.S. Attorney’s Office is prosecuting a handful of inmates, accusing them of engaging in an elaborate smuggling ring within the prison.
The inmates’ attorneys put forward evidence that meetings had been recorded and have since provided evidence that inmate phone calls with attorneys also were recorded, even when attorneys had requested their numbers be blocked from recordings.
The special master, David Cohen, told Judge Julie Robinson last month that while reviewing all of the video from all rooms where attorney meetings took place would prove prohibitive, he reviewed a smaller sample of meetings to determine that every meeting that took place in a room with a camera was recorded.
The attorney visitor logs for the 12-week period last year where recordings occurred showed more than 700 attorney visits to rooms equipped with cameras, Cohen wrote in a filing.
"It appears all of these attorney-inmate meetings were recorded," Cohen said. "Of course, this analysis does not address whether any person ever viewed these recordings."
The U.S. Attorney’s Office obtained the video and, while acknowledging missteps, has denied suggestions of impropriety. The U.S. Attorney’s Office has said "no employee of the United States Attorney’s Office or law enforcement officer" has viewed any recording provided by CCA.
"I made a very serious mistake … but I want the court to know I did not intend to gain that footage," Assistant U.S. Attorney Erin Tomasic said in September.
Parallel to the video recordings, Cohen also has been investigating the extent of attorney-inmate phone recordings at the Leavenworth facility. In December, Cohen reported he had analyzed 48,333 telephone audio files from the facility and that a little more than 200 of those calls were made to a known attorney number.
In a follow-up report, Cohen said the more than 48,000 recorded phone calls came from about 1,400 numbers involving 58 inmates.
CCA uses the prison technology company Securus to operate its phone system. Securus has said Leavenworth CCA was responsible for designating attorney numbers as private, nonrecorded numbers. The company acknowledged allegations have been made in other places in the past regarding recording but said it rechecks its system each time and has always found it works properly.
Melody Brannon, the federal public defender for Kansas, said Cohen’s findings exposed unanswered questions. She urges Robinson to expand the special master’s authority.
"Specifically, the defense asks the special master to determine the policy and practice of the Kansas (U.S. Attorney’s Office) in obtaining, reviewing and disseminating attorney-client communications, regardless of whether the USAO classified the communication as privileged or not," Brannon said in a January court filing.
She added the special master should also identify cases where the material was used and "mark the possible constitutional, statutory and ethical implications."
The U.S. Attorney’s Office is fighting the public defender’s request for additional power for the special master. Assistant U.S. Attorney Debra Barnett argues Brannon hasn’t offered any evidence warranting an expanded investigation.
Barnett has said prosecutors didn’t anticipate receiving recorded attorney-client calls from the facility during their investigations. Prosecutors had "no intent or desire" to obtain attorney-client calls, she has said, adding they weren’t used by prosecutors.
"When discoveries of these calls occurred, appropriate steps were taken by the United States," Barnett said in a January filing. "Despite everything that has occurred in this case, the United States has not sought to hide the discovery of these calls, and would not do so."
Prosecutors also argue the phone recordings aren’t privileged because the facility warned inmates their calls may be recorded. By continuing their calls and not taking steps to have calls with attorneys exempt from surveillance, the inmates waived their right to keep the conversations from being monitored, they argue.
Depending on how far Robinson allows Cohen to go, the outcome of his investigation holds potentially significant consequences in ongoing cases. Only a handful of people have been charged in the Leavenworth smuggling investigation, but prosecutors indicate they believe upwards of 90 inmates may be involved, as well as a number of workers.
The current controversy is also drawing attention to Securus, which has faced scrutiny in other places over attorney-client recordings.
A Kansas and Missouri attorney filed a federal lawsuit against CCA and Securus in January. They argue Securus and CCA record confidential attorney-client communications, despite no legitimate reason to record.
Attorneys have sued Securus before. The company settled a 2014 lawsuit in Texas, agreeing to provide additional safeguards.
The settlement required implementation of a system to allow attorneys to register their phone numbers on a "do not record" list for calls with clients.Start 'Em & Sit 'Em is the ultimate weekly look at NFL matchups and how they'll affect your fantasy football team. Fantasy superstars such as Le'Veon Bell and Antonio Brown will not be featured. NFL researcher Careen Falcone and former #2 FF World Player Rank and NFFC Platinum and Ultimate Champion Derek Pierson have contributed to the column. For your final lineup decisions, check our lineup rankings.
Select An Option... Quarterbacks Running Backs Wide Receivers Tight Ends Defense Kickers
Byes: Arizona, Green Bay, Jacksonville, Los Angeles Rams, New York Giants, Tennessee
Start 'Em vs. Start of the Week - Carson Wentz vs. San Francisco 49ers Wentz has emerged into one of the best quarterbacks in fantasy football, and a matchup against the 49ers makes him a virtual must start. Their defense has surrendered 18-plus fantasy points to four of the last five quarterbacks to face them, including a trio of 23-plus point performances. Wentz will be flying high once again this week. vs. Cam Newton vs. Tampa Bay Buccaneers Newton has been up and down over the last two weeks, and his recent proneness to turnovers (six in his last two games) is worrisome. Still, the versatile quarterback should remain active based on a matchup against the Buccaneers. In their last five games, their defense has allowed four quarterbacks to record 20-plus points. vs. Kirk Cousins vs. Dallas Cowboys Cousins has become one of the more reliable quarterbacks in fantasy football, and his success in the stat sheets should continue in an NFC East battle with the Cowboys. Their defense has allowed an average of 19.6 fantasy points per game to quarterbacks on the road, and Cousins torched them for 813 combined passing yards last season. vs. Russell Wilson vs. Houston Texans Wilson had a slow start to the season, but he's caught fire with 26-plus fantasy points in three of his last four games. He'll be in position to put up another 20-point performance against the Texans, who have allowed five touchdown passes and an average of 301 passing yards and 22.3 fantasy points per game to quarterbacks on the road. vs. Philip Rivers vs. New England Patriots Rivers has been up and down in the stat sheets all season long, but he's worth a roll of the dice ahead of a matchup against the Patriots. Their defense has allowed 300-plus passing yards to all but one of their seven opposing quarterbacks, and no team has allowed more touchdowns (15) or fantasy points (23.2 PPG) to the position. Start 'Em: Dak Prescott at Redskins, Tyrod Taylor vs. Raiders
Sleepers: Andy Dalton vs. Colts, Case Keenum at Browns (London)
Sit 'Em vs. Sit of the Week - Matthew Stafford vs. Pittsburgh Steelers Stafford has been hit or miss all season for fantasy fans, and this week could be the latter. The Steelers have allowed the second-fewest fantasy points to quarterbacks (9.91 PPG), and no player at the position (including Alex Smith) has scored more than 16 fantasy points against them in their last six games. Beware Stafford this week. vs. Ben Roethlisberger vs. Detroit Lions Roethlisberger scored 16.6 fantasy points in last week's win over the Bengals, and he's now failed to produce 18 or more points in a game this season. We also know about his woes on the road (averaging fewer than 14 fantasy points since 2014), and the Lions have surrendered 13.4 points per contests to the position this season. vs. Trevor Siemian vs. Kansas City Chiefs This week's matchup against the Chiefs is favorable on paper for Siemian, but it's tough to trust the Denver quarterback now that he's scored fewer than 16 fantasy points in four consecutive games. What's more, he's averaged fewer than seven fantasy points a game in two road starts this season. Keep this Bronco in the stable. vs. Josh McCown vs. Atlanta Falcons Believe it or not, but McCown has scored more fantasy points than all but two quarterbacks (Wentz, Cousins) over the last two weeks. Crazy, right? But it's true. Still, he'll be hard to trust against a Falcons defense that has allowed an average of 233.7 passing yards and 15.1 fantasy points a game to signal-callers after seven weeks. vs. Jacoby Brissett vs. Cincinnati Bengals The bloom is off the rose with Brissett, who was once a popular streamer but has now scored fewer than 14 fantasy points in three of his last four games. His chances to reverse those fortunes this week aren't good either, as the Bengals have allowed an average of 11.2 fantasy points a game to opposing quarterbacks at home this season. Sit 'Em: C.J. Beathard at Eagles, DeShone Kizer vs. Vikings (London)
Busts: Matt Ryan at Jets, Derek Carr at Bills
Michael Fabiano is an award-winning fantasy football analyst on NFL.com and NFL Network and a member of the Fantasy Sports Writers Association (FSWA) Hall of Fame. Do you want the most up-to-date fantasy football news, updates and analysis? You can follow Michael on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram!Organisers of the annual Celtic Connections music festival have warned that the event may have to become less international in future due to the impact of Brexit.
Artistic director Donald Shaw said the UK’s withdrawal from the EU was likely to put artists off appearing at the event, which will be staged for the 25th time in Glasgow next month.
He expressed concerns that new entry visa requirements would create a financial and logistical “nightmare” for the event.
Shaw, who has been at the helm of Celtic Connections for more than a decade, said around a dozen shows in the festival’s recent line-ups would not have happened without European funding.
The musician and composer, who has travelled the world with his band Capercaillie, said he was worried about a perception from overseas musicians that they would face extra barriers if they try to enter the UK.
Celtic Connections has already had to scale back the number of overseas acts in its line-up by around 20 per cent in the wake of the Brexit vote due to the impact of the weak pound on the festival’s buying power.
The cost of bringing in a high-profile act, with their own band, has leapt by almost a third in the space of 12 months, according to Shaw.
However, he said his biggest concern was that the prospect of Brexit would send out a message to international artists that “we’re not really interested in what you’ve got to say for yourself”.
“It’s the exact opposite message of the one we’re been trying to give out musically from the festival,” Shaw said.
“Artists are less likely to engage with a country that is less internationalist in its outlook.
“People are already concerned that the UK is not doing itself any favours at the moment. The general feeling is that the UK has not put itself in a good place. Brexit is not a particularly welcoming kind of message.
“It’s also one thing getting permission to come to the UK from the immigration service here, but a lot of the artists we work with have to get visas to be allowed to leave their own countries.
“Brexit is just a negative message whichever way you look at it.
“Without even thinking about it, artists would have added the UK to their touring schedule in the past. I think they will be more reluctant to do that because they envisage border issues.”
Among the European acts performing at the forthcoming Celtic Connections are Swedish trio Väsen, Finnish outfit Frigg, Galician stars Luar na Lubre and Basque maestro Xabi Aburruzaga.
“Some of our more ambitious projects have started in Europe,” Shaw added. “But in the same way that Dundee has just been told it won’t be a European Capital of Culture, the UK will just not be eligible for those projects anymore.
“Maybe a dozen shows a year in our programme would be affected. It’s a fair old chunk. That will have an effect.
“For an international festival to suddenly have to deal with another 30 per cent worth of work permits and working visas would be a big logistical nightmare and financial headache.
“Musicians like to get on with what they are doing. They don’t like to feel like there are any barriers. It’s our job to ensure that musicians know that we’re doing everything we can to work around Brexit and what it’s going to bring.
“It’s very hard to lobby for something if you don’t really know where Brexit is going to end up. But what Celtic Connections needs now, more than anything, is politicians who are aware of the value of the arts on a wider scale.”1:33pm: The Cubs announced that Sveum will be their next manager. The sides agreed to a three-year deal that includes an option for 2015, according to Paul Sullivan of the Chicago Tribune (on Twitter).
12:12pm: The Cubs will hire Brewers hitting coach Dale Sveum to be their next manager, according to Joel Sherman of the New York Post (on Twitter). Gordon Wittenmyer of the Chicago Sun Times hears that the Cubs may announce their next manager as soon as tomorrow (Twitter link) and suggests it will be Sveum. The Cubs offered the managerial job to Sveum yesterday.
Cubs president of baseball operations Theo Epstein would not confirm that the team offered Sveum the position, according to MLB.com's Carrie Muskat. However, Epstein said the process is in its final inning. “We’ve got to get the 27th out,” he said.Pamela Anderson attends Dallas SuperBash held at the Fashion Industry Gallery on Feb. 4, 2011 in Dallas, Texas. Getty Images
(CBS) Pamela Anderson and the Virgin Mary are two names you probably never thought you'd see in the same sentence.
The former "Baywatch" actress has been tapped to star as the Virgin Mary in a comedic version of the Nativity story, set to air next month on the Canadian network CTV.
Pictures: Pamela Anderson
According to the Hollywood Reporter, the one-hour Canadian TV special will feature a mix of stand-up and sketch comedy, animation and musical performances, as well as appearances by singer Michael Buble and former "Saturday Night Live" star Jon Lovitz.
Anderson, a native Canadian famous for her nude Playboy photos, will appear in a sketch comedy scene set in a Christmas manger with comedian Russell Peters.
"A Russell Peters Christmas" special will air in Canada on Dec. 1.Tarantino Speaks Out: Police Brutality vs. Cinematic Violence
Due to the spike in police brutality in 2015, many voices were raised in protest against what has become a scourge to embattled African-American communities all over the nation. One must wonder, on the whole, whether there has really been an increase in the violence perpetrated against young men of color, or if it is that the nation can now actively see the reality that these communities face everyday. With the ease of access to video recording technology on cellular devices, individuals have been able to capture these crucial moments of confrontation between citizens and police officers, posting them to social media for all to see. Death has become a visceral reality, the videos produced from these events are shaping a new visual regime wherein individuals attempt to gain justice in places where justice is a meek and meager force.
At these moments, the part of the citizenry with the biggest burden of responsibility to speak out in protest, are those with a very public presence and a voice that will be heard and understood by many. This is where writer-director-producer, Quentin Tarantino enters as a vociferous voice against the really existing threat of police brutality in the nation. Speaking at protests and for popular media, Tarantino has condemned the actions of officers across the nation, actions that have resulted in the deaths of individuals like Eric Garner and Tamir Rice. Virulent backlash from officers’ unions came in the form of personal attacks on Tarantino’s own artistic practice, a career of movie making that deals heavily in on-screen violence of every kind. So the question then becomes, does a high-profile cultural producer like Tarantino have the moral grounds to speak out against issues of social justice, especially when they circulate around issues of violence?
Several major media sources |
THE ONE!!!! I think this might be my all time favorite show and this remaster is a true masterpiece!! The cds that I had before had a good amount of hiss and the later part of the electric set sounded very degraded. This fixes all of that (except for some volume fluxuation durin the later part of Caution - which is not nearly as distracting as it was before) and makes it as it should be. The acoustic set is the all time best ever and the electric set just smokes.
Throw away your old copies of this show and dowload this now!! I cannot say enough good things about the show and the improvement this remaster represents. If you've been waiting for this show to be released (I had been since I first heard just the acoustic set years ago), wait no longer!!
Thank you so much for those who undertook this labor of love. VIVA THE ARCHIVE!!! - July 1, 2005THIS IS THE ONE!!!!The government has tightened its monitoring of Lincoln University's finances because of the problems facing the institution.
Photo: Wiki Commons
The university was struggling to make ends meet even before the 2011 Canterbury quakes dented its enrolments and damaged its buildings.
Now it is reporting monthly to the Tertiary Education Commission (TEC) and has agreed to the appointment of an independent financial advisor and to financial support from consultancy firms.
The TEC said in a statement that it and Lincoln agreed in September to appoint a financial advisor at the university.
"This appointment was designed to provide independent advice on the finances of the university to the TEC, and to support the university to strengthen its financial management and reporting. The TEC is also helping Lincoln by funding specialist financial support from PWC and Deloitte."
The commission said the measures had been taken because of the financial challenges facing the university.
Tertiary Education Minister Steven Joyce said the closer monitoring was prompted by two main factors.
"Their enrolment numbers are not growing as fast as they'd liked or planned for at this point and so the ministry and TEC are working with Lincoln to look at their models to see if they're realistic.
"The second thing is of course they're about to make some significant decisions over the next year or so in the investment in the Lincoln Hub and the redevelopment of their science facilities and so it's an appropriate time to make sure that the business plan reflects what's likely to happen over the next five to ten years because of course they've got to meet the costs of those assets."
Mr Joyce said the government was making sure the scale of the investment Lincoln was planning was appropriate for its likely future enrolments.
Lincoln deputy vice-chancellor Jeremy Baker said tighter monitoring was appropriate given the government was getting close to providing some of the $100 million promised for a joint venture between the university, three Crown research institutes and DairyNZ
"There's quite a significant amount of Crown investment being made and I think it's reasonable for the Crown to want to have some good monitoring around that."
Mr Baker said the university would make an operating deficit this year - according to annual reports its eighth in as many years - even though the government was funding it for more students than it actually had.
But he said the situation was improving.
"Our financial situation hasn't been fantastic for the last five years. I actually think it is turning around and certainly the overall story for Lincoln is a great one - we had a 9 percent increase in domestic student numbers and a 30 percent increase in international student numbers this year."
Mr Baker said the university had reduced spending and cut some jobs, and now it needed to increase its income.
Photo: SUPPLIED
President of the Tertiary Education Union Sandra Grey said its members at Lincoln were nervous about the university's future.
"Certainly the staff there have been noticing the increased monitoring of their own institution. They're really worried about it's long-term financial viability."
Dr Grey said staff worry that the government's model for funding universities did not work for an institution as small as Lincoln, and it was not viable in the long term.
"It's a very specialised university, it's a very small university, it's quite difficult to operate in the current funding model," she said.
Dr Grey said staff wanted some assurance from the government that Lincoln had a long-term future.David Scharf/Corbis
When immunologist Michel Sadelain launched his first trial of genetically engineered, cancer-fighting T cells in 2007, he struggled to find patients willing to participate. Studies in mice suggested that the approach — isolating and engineering some of a patient’s T cells to recognize cancer and then injecting them back — could work. But Sadelain did not blame colleagues for refusing to refer patients. “It does sound like science fiction,” he says. “I’ve been thinking about this for 25 years, and I still say to myself, ‘What a crazy idea’.”
Since then, early results from Sadelain’s and other groups have shown that his ‘crazy idea’ can wipe out all signs of leukaemia in some patients for whom conventional treatment has failed. And today, his group at the Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center in New York City struggles to accommodate the many people who ask to be included in trials of the therapy, known as adoptive T-cell transfer.
At the American Society of Hematology (ASH) meeting held in San Francisco, California, on 6–9 December, attendees heard dozens of talks and poster presentations on the promise of engineered T cells — commonly called CAR (chimaeric antigen receptor) T cells — for treating leukaemias and lymphomas. The field has been marred by concerns over safety, the difficulties of manufacturing personalized T-cell therapies on a large scale, and how regulators will view the unusual and complicated treatment. But those fears have been quelled for some former sceptics by data showing years of survival in patients who once had just months to live.
“The numbers are pretty stunning,” says Joseph Hedden, an analyst for the London-based market-research firm Datamonitor Healthcare. “Companies have clearly decided that it’s worth the pitfalls of how much this therapy is going to cost to develop.”
At least five major pharmaceutical companies have invested in developing CAR-T-cell therapy over the past three years. Such interest from industry is a dramatic turn for a field that once consisted of a handful of academic medical centres. Small biotechnology firms have also sprung up to develop CAR T cells, including Kite Pharmaceuticals of Santa Monica, California, which raised US$127.5 million when it went public in June. And investors pumped $310 million into another CAR-T-cell company, Juno Therapeutics of Seattle, Washington, this year. “There is no doubt there has been a shift,” says Juno chief executive Hans Bishop.
Most of these efforts focus on killing the cancerous, antibody-producing B cells behind some leukaemias and lymphomas. Researchers do this by engineering T cells to recognize a protein on the surface of most B cells — CD19 — and attacking cells that display it (see ‘Call to arms’). Finding proteins that are expressed only on cancer cells can be difficult, and CD19 represents a compromise: the treatment sometimes wipes out all B cells, cancerous and healthy alike, but patients can survive without them.
At the ASH meeting, Sadelain and his colleagues reported that this approach left no signs of cancer in all six patients with lymphoma who were enrolled in one trial. In another presentation, immunologist Carl June of the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia showed that targeting CD19 reduced cancer burden in 9 of 23 patients with chronic lymphocytic leukaemia. In a more aggressive disease called acute lymphoblastic leukaemia, 27 of 30 patients had no signs of cancer after therapy and the CAR T cells remained in their blood two years later.
But studies also highlight the risks of revving up immune responses. In April, at least five CAR-T-cell trials were halted after a series of patient deaths linked to unusually high levels of a protein called interleukin-6, which promotes inflammation, as well as other inflammatory molecules. Interleukin-6 is part of the body’s normal response to infection. But the intense immune onslaught launched by CAR T cells can send interleukin-6 levels soaring. The trials resumed after investigators adjusted their protocols to better monitor and treat the problem.
These safety risks, as well as the difficulty of manufacturing CAR T cells, are still putting many drug companies off, says Andrew Baum, the London-based head of global health-care research for Citi, an investment bank headquartered in New York City. “The bulk of the multinationals are standing back and watching, rather than getting engaged here,” he says.
When CAR T cells do reach the market, they will not be cheap. Baum says that some sponsors are tentatively planning to price their therapies higher than bone-marrow transplants, which can exceed $500,000. The cost may be so high, he says, that companies are forced to set up a reimbursement scheme in which they are paid only when a patient benefits from the treatment. Baum estimates that peak sales of CAR-T-cell therapies will reach $10 billion annually, although that amount will depend on what competing therapies emerge and whether the treatment can be extended to other cancers.
For now, Sadelain, a scientific founder of Juno Therapeutics, hopes that the attention from industry will spur the field. He remembers his postdoc days, when he struggled to insert genes into T cells and colleagues asked him why he was bothering. “We’ve never had this kind of investment in the field before,” he says. “It’s hard to believe — sometimes I still pinch myself.”Les Waters will never forget his reaction after he ate a hamburger at a restaurant in January 2015.
"It's like your throat swells up, you can't breathe, your blood pressure drops, and you black out," said the 63-year-old man from Harcourt, a small community in eastern Ontario.
Waters, an avid hunter and meat lover, learned he had developed a rare allergy to everything made from beef, pork and lamb.
A bite from a tiny tick, recently spotted in Canada, is to blame.
The culprit, the lone star tick, is named for the white dot or lone star on the back of the female. Native to the southeastern United States, it has slowly migrated north, hitching a ride on birds, deer, and domestic animals.
Waters is not sure where the tick found him, but he suspects it might have been on a hunting trip in northern Quebec. The lone star tick has been found in neighbouring New Brunswick.
"The two we have which were contributed to us by people in New Brunswick, one fed from a human and one fed from a dog," said Prof. Vett Lloyd, a biologist at Mount Allison University in Sackville, N.B.
Dr. Lloyd says the lone star tick, unlike other ticks, is aggressive. "It is one of the few that will actually chase their prey. Once they know that you're there, they will trundle towards you," she said.
The lone star tick, which is moving from the southeastern United States into Canada, is named for the white dot on the back of the female. (James Gathany/Centers for Disease Control/Associated Press)
How these ticks cause the allergy that affects Waters, which was first identified in the 1990s, is complicated.
When the tick bites a person, it spits alpha gal into the blood.
That's a compound present in beef, pork and lamb, and humans usually digest it harmlessly. But when it appears elsewhere in a person's body, for example in the bloodstream, it causes a strong reaction.
The body develops antibodies to fight back, and the battle causes symptoms that range from a general rash to a severe anaphylactic reaction. There is no treatment yet.
It took almost two years for Waters to get a diagnosis from an allergist, and much of the work was through his internet sleuthing.
Part of the problem is that the effects of this allergy, unlike food allergies, don't appear immediately. "It comes hours after I eat something. They [the doctors] had no clue, basically. Now they know about it. Not all of them, but they're getting better at it," he said.
'A novel allergy'
Dr. Gordon Sussman, an allergist in Toronto, says, "It's a novel allergy that sort of changes our concept because you can see reactions occurring several hours later. It's going to change the way we investigate allergies."
Lloyd says that while sightings of the lone star tick are rare in Canada, that might soon change.
"There's going to be more of them simply with climate change, with the environment warming. Ticks that were comfortable in the south are going to be more comfortable in the north," she said.
The Public Health Agency of Canada is aware that the lone star tick is expanding its range and is identifying Canadian locations that may soon fall within it.
A boring diet
As for Waters, who loves to hunt, there's an irony in developing this allergy. "I have all sorts of wild game in my freezer and I just have to give it away now. I'm just going to have to give this up," he says.
He carries an EpiPen now and avoids red meat, although the temptation is always there.
Waters calls the allergy "an annoyance."
Still for the diehard carnivore, it's a tough transition. "The taste of a good burger, a nice moose steak or some venison loin chops. You get very bored with the fish or the chicken over and over," he said.A man threw ink at Sahara chief Subrata Roy on Tuesday as he was brought to the Supreme Court days after he was arrested for failing to appear in connection with a case in which his company was directed to return Rs 20,000 crore to investors.
Reports said that the protester was detained and taken away by the police. Roy's face with ink was visible as he was being taken inside the court.
Watch video: Subrata Roy gets ink thrown at him
"Yeh gareebon ka chor hai," said the man outside the Supreme Court.
He said his name is Manoj Sharma and claimed that he is a lawyer from Gwalior, reports said.
Roy was arrested on Friday after failing to appear at a Supreme Court hearing which he says he missed to attend to his ailing mother.
Roy and unlisted Sahara have long been subjects of mystery. Roy is prone to public shows of patriotism and full-page newspaper ads defending Sahara against the authorities, and is often photographed with Bollywood stars and cricketers.
Sahara itself is best known as the former main sponsor of the national cricket team, as well as owner of New York's Plaza Hotel and London's Grosvenor House. It has a net worth of $11 billion and more than 36,000 acres of real estate, according to its website.
The Securities and Exchange Board of India (Sebi) says Sahara failed to comply with a 2012 court order to repay billions of dollars to investors. Sahara says it repaid most investors and that its remaining liability was less than the Rs. 51.2 billion it deposited with Sebi.
"The question is money. Where is the money and when will it be paid," said Dushyant Dave, a Supreme Court lawyer who has represented Sahara in the past.
The Supreme Court, which has expressed frustration at Sahara's conduct, had ordered Sahara to disclose the details and source of funds from which it said it repaid investors, but a lawyer for the regulator told the court in late January that Sahara had not given the details.
Sahara had offered to give Sebi title deeds of properties it said were worth Rs. 200 billion as security, but the regulator said the properties were far over-valued. The court also ordered that Sahara not sell any of its property.
Read:Sahara likely to suffer if Roy remains out of action for long
Sebi declined to comment on the case on Monday and a Sahara spokesman did not reply to calls and emails seeking comment.
Sahara's core business includes selling financial products, largely to small investors in towns and rural areas. It was two such products, later ruled illegal, that drew SEBI's attention.
Critics, including activist groups, argue Sahara's investment products are designed to evade regulatory oversight and that the company lacks transparency on the source and use of funds.
Police went looking for Roy on Thursday at his sprawling Sahara Shaher estate in Lucknow.
Roy turned himself in on Friday and denied he had been "absconding," saying he was meeting doctors over the condition of his 92-year-old mother, as well as a lawyer, and was taken to a government guest house in a forested area on the outskirts of Lucknow.
Man of Mystery
Roy started out from Gorakhpur in the hardscrabble east of Uttar Pradesh and styles himself a man of the people, though he also makes a show of opulent living and is often photographed with celebrities.
Like many Indian business leaders, he is perceived to be close to politicians.
He is often described in the media as a billionaire, but last year said his assets were less than $1 million.
Read:Sahara chief taken by road for SC appearance
His titles at Sahara are chairman and managing worker, and he refers to himself as "guardian of the world's largest family" of more than one million employees and agents.
In interview with Reuters last May, he seemed relaxed, asking a visitor about his family and whether he's had lunch.
"I'm a very happy person. I am never in tension," he said.
Roy, who often wears a white shirt, black waistcoat and black tie bearing a Sahara logo, last May dismissed the suggestion that he was relishing his headline-making dispute with Sebi.
"Nobody relishes battle," he said in May.
"But I have learned one thing from my father right from childhood: that if somebody's good this much to you, be good double to him. If somebody's bad this much, be bad to them double. And he has very clearly taught us, don't accept injustice."
(With Reuters inputs)
First Published: Mar 04, 2014 11:42 ISTWhen and how did you meet Rammstein? How did you come up with the idea of making a documentary on this band from East Germany?
Every story has a back story. So does the film “LOOK OUT! WE’RE COMING TO GET YOU.”
And it starts with: Once upon a time…
In the summer of 1987 an East German documentary was being filmed. It dealt with: “Young People and Music.” I was the producer of this movie. My team was using large equipment – a crane, rails, a sound trolley and an array of 35 mm cameras – to shoot the “Bathtub Boat Regatta” during a folk festival at Lake Schwerin. Anything purported to float was bustling happy-as-can-be, with absurd gear, on the water. Several thousand people were bathing in high spirits. On the brink of this thoroughly splashy event, a shabby garage band called “Feeling B” was playing. All you could hear was colossal sound on overdrive – a deafening noise – at least that’s how I perceived it, at the time. I was ticked off by this, because I couldn’t communicate on the walkie-talkies with my film crew of almost 40 people. It began to get chaotic. Drenched in sweat, I panted back and forth across the huge area to try to somehow
coordinate the shooting.
The highlight of the funfair, a concert with famous East Berlin rock bands, was scheduled for late afternoon. Since the musicians still weren’t there, but the stage was already good to go with the all the instruments in place, we definitely wanted to do a sound check to avoid further chaos. All of a sudden, as if heaven-sent, a local teenager stood before me, and asked shyly: “Excuse me, could I try out a song with my band?” “Up on stage with you, of course you can!” I answered, sincerely grateful. A few minutes later a musical hurricane broke loose. An absolutely hard sound, a tremendous force rocked the stage! In the meantime we tested and recorded everything to our satisfaction.
Of course, after the song I had to report to the police, who had their commando tent hidden behind a small wooded area. There I was told that I had let a band called “PVC” perform that the “Socialist Law Enforcement Organs” had explicitly prohibited. Due to this, the entire event was now banned. After me, the “person in charge of the Bathtub Regatta” was called in by the police and ordered to make sure the premises were vacated immediately. This did indeed happen. Angrily and with their heads down, the audience trudged home. A half an hour later, the formerly cheerful site was almost devoid of people, and the police had disappeared. While we dismantled our equipment and grumbled about the “Socialist Law Enforcement Organs”, the “Feeling B” musicians had set up a campfire nearby. Soon, we heard silly laughter coming from these totally weird creatures. Bratwurst and other meat was already sizzling. There were several crates of beer. Wine bottles were passed around. And so began a new, fun party at the lake in Schwerin. It lasted till the early hours of the morning—without further disturbance from any Organs of State Enforcement.
I got to know Aljoscha that evening. He was the lead singer of “Feeling B”. A week later, he invited himself to my house and explained, in a way that was both insistent and persuasive, that his band absolutely had to be in the movie. Due in great part to the presence of “Feeling B” on ORWO COLOR (35 mm) the film “whisper & SHOUT,” (DEFA 1988) became a national, as well as an international, success, showered with prizes. Aljoscha and I became friends.
And then the Berlin Wall came down. If you wanted to make movies conscientiously and with a purpose, after the fall of the Berlin Wall and the collapse of a world order you would have to
be both stupid and ignorant not to keep on filming musicians like the “Feeling B” ones, that is – Aljoscha, Paul and Flake. That’s what I said to myself, back then. It would certainly be exciting for moviegoers to experience how musicians from “whisper & SHOUT” came to terms with the next, radically different political system, how their musical careers developed from there. The idea that “Feeling B” would become internationally successful was beyond our wildest imagination in 1989. But to give you a quick answer, Mr. Valtot: No, there was no so-called “idea” to make that film. We just kept on shooting!
Please tell us about your first day of filming Rammstein! I’m extremely interested in that, and so are the fans.
Can we stick to first names, Robin, it’ll make it easier to talk about this.
Sure, Carl!
It might be fun to tell you the story of why, at one of the first concerts of the band in Rostock, a good-looking young woman hopped around on stage and sang along. By the way, you can now see her in the film. Looking like a “Hausfrau,” it’s as if someone pushed her on stage directly from some cafeteria.
But back to the very first day of filming: It was on the 4th of August 1994. I had talked over everything with Paul and Flake. Both boasted: “There’s this old cottage, this cool property out in the open, on the outskirts of town, it has a built-in studio. That’s where we’re gonna make our first tape!” I envisioned something along the lines of “Abbey Road Studios” and was thrilled to finally bring some color to the movie; so far we had always been shooting in and outside occupied houses, back courtyards or cellars. I thought Paul and Flake were also geniuses when it came to organization, and was really looking forward to filming their new band.
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Arriving at the appointed location, my cameraman and I found a small cabin in a wildly overgrown garden. The crumbling fence was actually superfluous. We were under the impression that
the former owner – “the cottage” was too small for a family – had, head over heels, abandoned the ruins a long time ago. The only hint that there was something not quite right with Paul and Flake’s “feudal estate” was the loud music bursting through every crack of the house.
As we set foot, with great reservations, on the not so attractive property, a full-grown, furiously barking dog came racing around the corner, headed straight for us. Terrified, I shoved my cameraman in front of me. But I was actually the one the dog jumped all over. Alerted by the angry barking, the musicians appeared and called back the high-strung animal. Six good-looking men stood before us, bare-chested, suntanned, their bare feet sunk deep into the knee-high grass.
Helplessly and still a little dazed by the dog’s stormy greeting, my cameraman and I stood there in front of the musicians – with our camera and a huge ripe melon in our hands. I had absolutely no idea how I was supposed to deal with this wacky and totally unattractive location.
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Meanwhile, the dog was having a great time licking my leg, growling in the process, and sniffing my entire body. With no idea how to film at this location, and with my calves fully slobbered, I grew uneasy and just as edgy as the dog. While we shared the melon in the garden, I constantly kept a wary eye out for the excitable dog, who was barking and running in and out of the house. You never know: better safe than sorry. The sun was scorching, there was no breeze. A garden hose was on full blast, the musicians
sprayed each other with it.
My relationship to dogs is primarily wrought with anxiety. I haven’t the least desire to spend time petting a four-legged creature. And then it happened! The dog calmed down, the upper half of his body was in the house, the back half outside. I was stunned to see the animal wagging his hairy tail rhythmically against the open door. It was the idea I had been waiting for, the dog’s gift to me! I immediately asked who could handle the dog best, and Paul raised his hand and said: “Me!”
So Paul held the German Shepherd’s head, and kept him steady, while we filmed his tail beating. People watching the movie today are amused to see the dog knock politely at the musicians’ door, wagging his tail, curious to peek into the cabin. Then the camera shifts to the “dog-eyed view” and in place of the German Shepherd, my cameraman runs through the house. During the dog’s “tour of the place” the musicians are introduced individually from the animal’s perspective. I still consider this a successful
approach to the band in our film.
Afterwards, we all drove our “clunkers” to a nearby lake, and plunged our bodies, in our birthday suits, into the lukewarm water, screaming and eager to cool off, elated over our first successful day of shooting.
My thanks goes to the kind dog, who was actually a bitch named “Lady” for being smart enough to think for me, bewildered as I was, and on behalf of the film!
Nice story. Could you now tell me about the conflict you had with the former manager of Rammstein? Ultimately, the release of the film was, in fact, held back by almost 20 years.
Well, it’s always a question of a person’s basic attitude, how they deal with the problems life deals them, isn’t it? To me these, often, seem to be imaginary problems. Of course, the former manager’s attacks affected the completion of the film, with all its numerous cut versions, featuring the band, and then not featuring it, and then finally including it again in the film. But overall, I have to say that the actual final version is in complete accordance with my vision and that of my colleagues. In a way, this can also be credited to the former manager. One of the many reasons for preventing the film was the harmless stipulation by the ex-manager to insert the year of each shot. I couldn’t allow that, however, because
it would have disturbed the narration. The greatest challenge for me was bringing together all the footage of past decades, including the extensive archive material, to form one structure, so that the story unravels harmoniously for the viewer. That is: without a sense of abrupt chronological leaps. In the end, we produced a timeless film that documents the story of musicians, and allows contemporary movie-goers to catch a glimpse and experience moments in time. The next aspect: The ex-manger can also be credited, and rightly so, to greatly contributing to the band’s continual rise in worldwide popularity. And it was clear to me, already from their first bout of success, that the film “to-be-completed-at-some-point”
would thus stand a better chance of gathering an audience without first having to find it, at a huge financial cost. And the first audience will be you, the fans, Robin!
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Taking a more complex look: Ingeniously, the former manager, not only managed the band, but in a way also our film. But no one in the world will ever tell me how to make my movie, be he a successful band manager, or a state appointed highly commissioned censor, or even an alien forced to make an emergency landing on earth! I’ve known enough regimentation from time spent in the “Socialist Fatherland, the German Democratic Republic” into which I was born. You can say, I’ve even developed a chronic allergy to it. It makes me break out in hives and feel like throwing up. Wherever we went, my friend Aljoscha preached these wise words: “There are no problems, just solutions!” In this sense, I also
believe, that the time the movie was held back should not necessarily be considered a fundamental problem. Especially because we made use of this time to diligently craft an optimally edited version – so that the film now, confident and teeming with energy, can be set loose on its audience. Something for you to look forward to!
Are you still in touch with the Rammstein musicians? If so, what do they think of your documentary film?
On 11 September 2015, the film “LOOK OUT! WE’RE COMING” in its present last-edited version had its first and, so far, last German screening in the UFO-Studios of the Berlin “Musikbrauerei” (Music Brewery) in Prenzlauer Berg. In the first row of the full house, sat Flake with his grown-up daughter. I was incredibly pleased, particularly because Flake, has continually been engaged, in a conciliatory way on behalf of the movie and me. The two of us always kept in loose touch, mostly by mail or mobile phone,
but if we thought it was necessary we also met up in person. If you work with people, in front of or behind the camera, there is no pressure or responsibility to hold hands for the rest of your life. I think it would be terrible to still have to stay personally in touch today with all the film protagonists I met along the way. Since the filming, I haven’t had any regular contact with the other musicians. You see each other, from across the room, at events, and nod a greeting, or you walk together, in a long procession across the
cemetery, to bid a last farewell to one of your mutual companions. That’s how life goes on in most parts of the world.
Did you personally attend the Rostock concert in your film? If so, can you tell us some stories about the shooting?
Of course I was present on the 27th of August 1994, as producer and director, at the M.A.U. Club concert in Rostock. My cameramen and I had already watched the concert in Potsdam, on the previous
day, so we could plan the shooting in Rostock. Since I only had three cameras at my disposal, we had to meticulously discuss and organize every detail beforehand.
Well, and now I’ll reveal an inside story: Shortly before the concert began, I arranged with Till and Paul to ONLY completely record five songs. The decision as to which five was theirs. All the other songs would only be filmed, so that we could have enough footage for the five songs. That meant my cameramen
were only passively filming the cross sections; they just had to record bold body movements and not deliver any footage that had to be synchronized later, i.e. guitar strumming, Till’s singing or Schneider’s drumming arias. I also wanted footage of the uneasy and astonished concert audience. The five songs were: »DU RIECHST SO GUT« (YOU SMELL SO GOOD), »WEIßES FLEISCH« (WHITE MEAT), »SCHWARZES GLAS« (BLACK GLASS), »RAMMSTEIN« and the first version of »WOLLT IHR DAS BETT IN FLAMMEN SEHN« (DO YOU WANT TO SEE THE BED IN FLAMES).
Today, we can say: What a pity that the concert was not filmed in its entirety. But at that time, the film project didn’t have a single source of financing. For, the country we originated from had gone down, and a new country had not yet emerged. Later, I was reproached for having started the project already, because in the new Germany there were no subsidies, in retrospect, for projects of this nature.
All the shooting had to be arranged so that, when the film was shown later, I wouldn’t have to apologize for a lack of quality due to insufficient funds. And when you see the film today and experience the high quality of the footage, you might even think we were rolling in money. This was certainly not the case! All my other projects had to hold out and be sold for a profit, for over two decades, in order to continue the work on LOOK OUT! WE’RE COMING! But then, doesn’t lack of money always call for ingenuity
and improvisation? And at that we East Germans were world experts, because, from childhood on, we faced the limitations of the “Socialist Economy of Scarcity” and learned to deal with this, successfully, no matter what.
A little anecdote about that. If, while shooting, we had our heart set on a luxurious, extravagant camera tracking along rails, for which we had no money, we improvised and politely asked a person passing in a wheelchair to step out of the vehicle and sit on a bench for a while. In return we treated them to some ice-cream. Meanwhile my cameraman sat in the wheelchair while I pushed him at a slow and steady pace, treading like a “Golem”. Even today, I can still see the shy faces of pedestrians, casting curious,
but mostly compassionate, gazes at our brilliant improvisations. We, however, were overjoyed and satisfied. For the owner of the wheelchair this was a highlight and we had our camera tracking.
The image composition and sound quality are really impressive. But how did you manage to shoot all these stories about Rammstein?
With the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989, content-wise the basic idea of the film, for me, was as rock-solid as the “Pillars of Hercules.” A film should never be started without an idea. But in order to draw a clear line for this project, after recognizing the direction the journey would take, I came up with a screenplay in 1993/94, after consulting the musicians and working it out with them. Then we slaved away at it diligently. At the same time, we were open to real stories; they often work better in film, than the made-up ones set down in the screenplay.
I was always interested in world history, and looking back you discover that countless cultures, giant empires and dynasties simply disappeared, barely leaving any traces. For, there were no cameras and films at that time to tell us about them today. Among them, I count the collapse of the political system in Eastern Europe, because with the political collapse of the Eastern system, the Western system also became superfluous. That means, a system of order spanning the globe imploded in 1989, and I found it highly exciting to pursue this phenomena with a microphone and camera, wherever the journey went with regard to the development of society. What kind of system will replace the old system? Today,
people call it “globalization” or “turbo capitalism.” The fact is, however, that currently in our world, everywhere we look, we see people’s existential loss of security – increasingly accompanied by crisis and wars.
Understandably enough, at first, the audience will take in the film as a music documentary. It would make me very happy if it were also seen, a little bit, as a philosophy of life, something which brings into more critical focus the political developments that surround us and influence our own lives – whether we like it
or not.
As to the quality of the cinematic work throughout the entire project, I’d like to add that all the cameramen who worked on the main footage, without exception, were graduates of the steeped-in-tradition Babelsberg Film University. When it comes to learning the craft of filmmaking, I consider this institution the best Germany has to offer. I was able to recruit some of the cameramen when they were in their last year of studies, the others were my cameramen from the former DEFA-Studio for Documentary
Films in Berlin, who already worked with me on the shooting of “whisper & SHOUT”. They are all enthusiasts and perfectionists, who cherish and master their profession. With them I have also explored other exciting subjects in other parts of the world. Making a movie means teamwork, so I deliberately use the terms US or ME, or else, MY or OUR. It’s a great privilege to know these “passionate maniacs” and make films with them.
Did you film other Rammstein concerts? If so, will we be able to view them one day?
To put it briefly: The Rostock concert in 1994 was the only one that my film crew and I recorded.
In the trailers there are excerpts from the Rostock concert in 1994. Will the concert be shown in its full length in the film?
No, of course you won’t see the whole concert. The concert was 90 minutes long and the entire film is 93 minutes. That would have left only 3 minutes for the rest of the story. As already mentioned, only five songs were recorded, the other songs exist as fragmented, but high quality, footage. I bet you want to know if it will be added as bonus material on a future DVD. The answer is: probably not. However, it would be possible to reconstruct the complete Rostock concert in an intelligent way. Because we recorded |
ogeneity among studies (Chi2 = 35.4, df = 10 (P = 0.0001), I2 = 72%). The pooled effect remained significant even when using a random effects model (SMD = 0.51, 95% CI: 0.13, 0.88, P = 0.008).
In summary, Bloch and Hannestad might have over-concluded that “nearly all of the treatment efficacy observed in the published literature may be attributable to publication bias.” Omega-3 fatty acids may have antidepressant effects in patients with MDD but not “mood-improving” effects in individuals with only non-clinical depressive symptoms. In addition, omega-3 fatty acids should be separately and rigorously assessed both as monotherapy and as augmentation of antidepressants. Meta-analyses, just like randomized clinical trials, may be affected by potential biases in terms of selection of trials (or patients) for analysis. Both need to be equally designed to be specific regarding their subjects’ diagnostic status.Senators Chris Coons and Bob Casey become the 32nd and 33rd Democrats in the Senate to announce support for Iran nuclear deal.
President Barack Obama is closer to being able to uphold a veto of a Republican resolution against the Iranian nuclear deal, after two more Democratic Senators announced Tuesday they would vote in favor of the deal.
The two Senators are Chris Coons (D-DE) and Bob Casey (D-PA), who become the 32nd and 33rd Democrats in the Senate to announce support for the deal. Obama now needs only one more Democrat to reach the 34 votes needed to uphold a veto of the Republican-drafted resolution against the deal.
Coons's decision, disclosed in an exclusive interview with The Washington Post, delivered a powerful blow to opponents of the plan because the Delaware Democrat had previously voiced some of the deepest skepticism about the controversial deal.
The interview came as Casey announced support for the deal as well, the newspaper reported.
Coons reached his decision after many weeks of deliberation that included long talks with top administration officials, including Vice President Biden, and an exchange of letters with President Obama that codified the assurances he received about the pact's implementation.
"We are better off trying diplomacy first," Coons told The Washington Post. He will formally announce his position Tuesday afternoon at the University of Delaware, during which he is expected to explain the administration's position that this deal would give the United States a stronger long-term position over Iran because of the international backing it has.
"They are saying what I need to hear," he said of Biden and other Obama officials.
Casey voiced similar sentiment, saying, according to The Post, "This agreement will substantially constrain the Iranian nuclear program or its duration, and compared with all realistic alternatives, it is the best option available to us at this time.”
With Coons joining their ranks Tuesday, Obama's allies in the Senate have shifted their game plan from winning the 34 Democrats needed to uphold the presidential veto, to also pushing for the support of 41 Senate Democrats so that the resolution would die in a filibuster.
In his interview with The Washington Post, Coons said that this was one of the most difficult votes of his five-year tenure in the Senate, but not because of the AIPAC-led media campaign. Instead, Coons said, he has made calls and held face-to-face conversations with many friends and longtime political supporters who have strongly held beliefs against the deal.
Ultimately, Coons told the newspaper was convinced that this deal offered the best chance of keeping a strong international hand on Iran.
Casey voiced similar views that, if the deal is implemented well, it will leave the U.S. military in a stronger place to take action if the Tehran regime violates its tenets. "I believe this agreement must be undergirded by a clear and unequivocal statement from both the Administration and the Congress: we are prepared to take military action if Iran attempts to develop a nuclear weapon," said Casey, who like Coons, is a member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.
So far, only two Senate Democrats — New York's Chuck Schumer and New Jersey's Bob Menendez — have announced that they will vote against the deal, which Congress has until September 17 to approve or reject.
Menendez, who chairs the Foreign Relations Committee and is a leading voice against the deal, acknowledged last week that the White House lobbying campaign for the Iran nuclear deal has generated results, and said he doesn't know if opponents of the deal can prevail.
Earlier on Tuesday, Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif expressed his hope that Congress will not be swayed by what he termed the "propaganda" of "warmongers".
"We believe it's a mutually beneficial agreement," Zarif said of the July 14 accord on reining in Iran's controversial nuclear program in exchange for a lifting of international sanctions.
"And if people are not too much concerned with the propaganda being raged by warmongers in our region and outside our region, there's no reason for the deal to face any impediments in the United States," he added.SALTILLO, Coahuila — Authorities in this border state set their sights on a group of police officers believed to have executed two U.S. tourists and then covered up the crime by claiming the victims were armed drug smugglers.
Initially, members of a metropolitan special response unit known as “GROM” claimed that two men riding in a maroon pickup ran a checkpoint along the highway that connects this state with Zacatecas. As Breitbart Texas initially reported, Coahuila state authorities falsely claimed that the two men ran a checkpoint and then opened fire on police officers, who chased them. In response, police officers opened fire and killed the two alleged gunmen. The two men have since been identified as U.S. tourists. According to Mexico’s Reforma, the victims were identified as Demetrius Atkins and Edgar Valdez Rodriguez, a Mexican national but legal resident in Missouri.
State officials revealed to Breitbart Texas that the theory presented by the cops has not held up to scrutiny and obtained arrest warrants against three members of the GROM. Two of those officers, Ivan Vladimir “El Hermano” Monsivais Martinez and Felix Enrique “La Piraña” Moreno Vasquez were arrested and are named in the ongoing investigation. The two cops remain in custody at a state prison facility in Coahuila.
According to Coahuila law enforcement officials, the tourists were not armed and did not elude the checkpoint. While authorities now believe the rogue police officers executed them in cold blood, a motive remains unclear.
Editor’s Note: Breitbart Texas traveled to the Mexican States of Tamaulipas, Coahuila, and Nuevo León to recruit citizen journalists willing to risk their lives and expose the cartels silencing their communities. The writers would face certain death at the hands of the various cartels that operate in those areas including the Gulf Cartel and Los Zetas if a pseudonym were not used. Breitbart Texas’ Cartel Chronicles are published in both English and in their original Spanish. This article was written by Coahuila’s “J.M. Martinez”.Tizen, the open source operating system that Samsung uses on a range of Internet-of-Things devices and positions as a sometime competitor to Android, is chock full of egregious security flaws, according to Israeli researcher Amihai Neiderman.
Samsung has been developing the operating system for many years. The project started as an Intel and Nokia project, and Samsung merged its Bada operating system into the code in 2013. Like Android, it's built on a Linux kernel, with a large chunk of open source software running on top. App development on Tizen uses C++ and HTML5.
Presenting at Kaspersky Lab's Security Analyst Summit and speaking to Motherboard, Neiderman had little positive to say about the state of Tizen's code. "It may be the worst code I've ever seen," Neiderman said. "Everything you can do wrong there, they do it."
While much of the code is inherited from Tizen's Intel and Samsung predecessor projects, Neiderman says that most of the flaws he found were in the newer code. Buffer overflows are widespread due to issues such as the improper use of the strcpy() function in C—a notoriously dangerous function with risks that are well known to experienced C and C++ programmers. These risks lead many developers to use alternative functions entirely, but not so the Tizen developers: Neiderman says that Samsung is "using it everywhere."
Samsung's code also failed to use SSL in a consistent way, transferring even sensitive data in the clear.
At the moment, Tizen is predominantly used in smart devices, though Samsung continues to dabble with using the operating system in smartphones. Hacked Smart TVs became a hot issue with the recent publication of CIA documents, which described an attack on Samsung Smart TVs using an exploit on a USB key. Another attack on Samsung Smart TVs was published last week that used malicious commands embedded in broadcast TV signals. Neiderman himself started looking at Tizen after buying a Samsung TV running the operating system, but he has found that the flaws also exist in the company's smartphones.
Unlike the CIA's exploit, Neiderman says that he found flaws that can be remotely exploited. One particular focus was TizenStore, Samsung's marketplace for Tizen apps. He found exploitable flaws within the store app, and since the store app runs as a highly privileged account, exploiting it compromises the entire device.
When he contacted Samsung about the flaws, Neiderman says that he received only automated replies. Since going public, the company has said that it's committed to cooperating with the researcher to mitigate the vulnerabilities.Photo: Brisbane Times
In an article entitled “Hutchison port workers win return to work” in their newspaper, The Guardian, the CPA is unequivocal in its praise for the MUA and its negotiated outcome. We are told that “the MUA achieved a fantastic agreement”, which is “a fantastic step forward” that “improves working conditions”. MUA Assistant National Secretary and leading Communist Party member Warren Smith is quoted as saying the outcome was a “major victory for the MUA and all Hutchison workers”.
The devil is in the detail
Given such high praise, readers would expect The Guardian to provide some detail about the final outcome of the dispute. But all we are told is: there was “no forced redundancy”; every HPA worker can return to work or “take an extremely generous voluntary redundancy package” which allows them to “come back as casuals and return as full-time employees as work volumes increased”; and the new agreement retains “the key components of the former agreement”.
It is now well known that the settlement sees no forced redundancies. This is no small achievement given the original sacking of 97 workers. But many questions still remain. How many workers volunteered to take the “extremely generous voluntary redundancy package”? What was this package worth in dollar terms? Has the 30-hour week been maintained in the new agreement? What is the new situation regarding casual employment?
An earlier Left Voice article has detailed the outcome of this dispute. In brief, 64 dock workers are said to have accepted an “Enhanced Voluntary Redundancy Arrangement” (EVRA) which includes a payment of up to $20,000 on top of standard redundancy entitlements. Workers accepting an EVRA are placed on a two year waiting list for the option to return as casual employees if shipping volumes increase. The new agreement also sees a move from a 30-hour to a 32-hour week and provides for casual employment at HPA for the first time.
Once these facts are taken into account, the claims by The Guardian of a “major victory” and the retention of “the key components of the former agreement” look very hollow. HPA originally tried to sack 97 workers – over 40 percent of its workforce. Negotiations have resulted in 64 redundancies – a 30 percent reduction. These significant job losses are hardly a “major victory”. Similarly, a new agreement that moves from a 30-hour to a 32-hour week and introduces casual employment for the first time is not an agreement that retains “the key components of the former agreement”.
The Guardian also fails to tell its readers that the MUA discontinued its Federal Court case against Hutchison Ports in early October. Similarly, the continuing investigation by the Fair Work Ombudsman into the MUA’s role in the first week of “community assembly” protests with its threat of multi-million dollar fines is not mentioned. Not such a “fantastic step forward” after all.
Critical turning point glossed over
Not only does The Guardian fail to mention these vital details, but it also glosses over the critical turning point in the dispute – the Federal Court rulings of August 13 and 14 and the subsequent decision by MUA leaders to direct all Hutchison employees to return to work.
The August 13 Federal Court order placed a temporary injunction on Hutchison’s sackings, restraining them from “terminating the employment of any employees on the ground of redundancy”. The Federal Court did not hand down an order to reinstate these workers. The August 14 judgment ruled that HPA was “required to continue to pay wages to those employees” but “not obliged to provide the relevant employees with work”. So while the sackings were brought to a temporary halt, the sacked workers were not required to go back to work. They were in effect suspended and paid their base minimum salary.
Despite this, MUA National Secretary Paddy Crumlin told the Sydney community assembly on August 13 that “the judge has made it clear that he is going to make an order that all Hutchinson workers will be reinstated until our court case is heard” and then directed all MUA members at Hutchison Ports to return to work the next day. On August 14, it became clear that the sacked dock workers had not been reinstated when three previously sacked maintenance workers were refused access to the Port Botany terminal (For further details, read here ).
Left Voice has previously described the confusion that Paddy Crumlin caused by directing MUA members to return to work, when the sacked workers had not in fact been reinstated. The important point here is that this changed the character of the community assemblies outside Hutchison terminals, with the vibrant, well-supported and effective protests that blocked all terminal traffic in the first week turning into smaller, symbolic protests that no longer obstructed traffic after August 14.
Let’s see how The Guardian describes these events. After commenting on the MUA’s Federal Court injunction, The Guardian writes, “While the workers who still had their jobs returned to work after the federal Court injunction, the pickets at the Brisbane and Sydney ports remained in place, pending the full hearing. This was a tactical position by the MUA which in the end was part of the key to its success in finalizing the dispute in a manner favorable to the workers.”
This paragraph hides more than it explains. Why did “the workers who still had their jobs” return to work? Because they were incorrectly told by MUA National Secretary Paddy Crumlin that the Federal Court had ordered the reinstatement of the sacked workers, and then directed by MUA leaders to return to work the next day. This so-called “tactical position” split the previously united workforce that had been out on strike and defying return to work orders.
The Guardian also tells us, “The pickets at the Brisbane and Sydney ports remained in place”. No mention here of how the character of the community assemblies fundamentally changed after August 14. As previously mentioned, the community assemblies went from large, effective blockades while the whole HPA workforce was on strike, to smaller, symbolic gatherings after HPA workers were directed to return back to work on August 14. The HPA workforce was now split between those sacked and still working, and the community assemblies wilted under a process of demoralization and demobilization.
Without a hint of irony, the description of these events by The Guardian appears under the sub-heading of “class leadership”. This is the kind of “class leadership” that MUA members can well and truly do without.
The red herring of the “ultra-left”
When a Stalinist organization like the CPA wants to divert attention from inconvenient truths, who better to point to than “ultra-left” and “anti-union” Trotskyists?
The Guardian warns its readers of the “anti-union mantra” of the Trotskyists that wrongly tells workers that “their union is betraying them because it has entered into deals” and promotes “misinformed notions of union sell-outs”. This is not just an attempt to portray Trotskyists as wild-eyed militants who simply cry “betrayal” at every opportunity. More to the point, it is an attempt to reduce the sophisticated Marxist analysis of the trade union bureaucracy to a matter of name-calling. Whether The Guardian likes it or not, the permanent apparatus of full-time union officials that control our unions forms a distinct social layer – the trade union bureaucracy. This layer is distinct from the union membership in a number of ways. While workers are paid by employers, union officials draw their wages from unions themselves, not bosses. Most union officials are paid wages far in excess of those of the workers they represent. The bargaining function of the union bureaucracy as the intermediary between bosses and workers subjects it to powerful pressures towards moderation. These and other factors place the trade union bureaucracy in a unique social position with interests that are different from, and sometimes in conflict with, the union members they represent.
The Guardian also warns its readers that the “lies and distortions” of the “ultra-left” (who only ever lurk “on the fringes of the labour movement”) would have “seen the dispute crash into a huge defeat”, led workers “into oblivion” and would have “destroyed the union”.
So what exactly were these dangerous “lies and distortions” that the “ultra-left” promoted during the Hutchison dispute? What disastrous tactics and strategy were the Trotskyists “screaming from the sidelines”? The Guardian does not say. Not one concrete reference is provided of anything the “ultra-left” did or said during the dispute.
The Guardian singles out two very different “ultra-left” organizations for attack: the SEP and Solidarity. The first, the Socialist Equality Party* (SEP, which The Guardian did not even name) is admittedly a soft target. The SEP holds that the traditional Marxist view of trade unions as defensive organizations of the working class is no longer valid and argues that unions are now simply the direct instruments of the corporations and the capitalist state. During the dispute, the SEP insisted that the “essential first step in defending jobs is a complete break with the MUA” which can only mean resigning from the union and becoming a non-unionist. The SEP also called for the establishment of “independent rank-and-file committees” which require “a new political perspective based on the fight for a workers government and socialist policies”. Limiting “independent rank-and-file committees” to those who already possess a “political perspective” based on “socialist policies” would of course exclude the vast majority of MUA members, who do not currently possess this “political perspective”. For an organization that describes itself as Trotskyist, the SEP’s calls to break from the unions and build rank and file committees based on socialist policies have more in common with Joseph Stalin’s ultra-left “Third Period” policies (1928-33) than they do with Trotskyism.
In an echo of “Third Period” Stalinist thuggery and violence against Trotskyists, the SEP claims that its members outside the Hutchison terminal in Sydney were abused, physically threatened and had their leaflets torn from their hands on various occasions. Those accused include Sydney MUA officials who are also members of the Communist Party of Australia. While the SEP has an atrocious, anti-Marxist position on the trade unions, the organization is still nominally a part of the working class movement. Any such thuggery and violence within the working class and labour movement must be strenuously opposed by everyone within that movement.
The other “ultra-left” organization singled out by The Guardian is Solidarity, part of the International Socialist Tendency based in the ‘state capitalist’ tradition of Tony Cliff. What has Solidarity done to so enrage The Guardian?
Solidarity’s August 16, 2015 article “Don’t let Hutchison’s divide and rule: restart the strike; fight for every job” says, “The court decision effectively meant that the workers wrongly sacked by Hutchison were left outside the gate. In this situation, it was a mistake to return to work [...] The only sensible approach is to keep the workforce united; restart the strike action [which] would mean defying the orders from Fair Work Australia [...] There is a risk of fines; but bad laws have to be broken [...] The union also needs to stop the sub-contracting that is allowing Hutchison to meet its contracts by diverting its ships to other companies. If that means solidarity action is needed from workers at DP World and Patrick, so be it [...] We need to defend every job. That means restarting the strike and the pickets now.”
The Guardian does not dare quote any of this, as it does not want to open up a discussion around tactics and strategy**. It is much easier to simply slander Solidarity as “ultra-left” and quickly move on.
The Guardian did not just attack these two “ultra-left” organizations at random. It has specifically targeted the one organization (we know of) that MUA officials and Communist Party members allegedly threatened and abused, and the one local organization that put forward a clear industrial alternative to that of the MUA leadership.
Trotskyists “have never delivered outcomes for workers”?
The Guardian throws a whole range of ridiculous claims at the “ultra-left”. Probably the most offensive is that Trotskyists “have never delivered outcomes for workers”, that is, have never led sections of our class in battles against the boss. This nonsense flies in the very face of history.
Trotskyists led one of the most important labour struggles in U.S. history, the Minneapolis Teamsters strike of 1934. This strike won union recognition and wage rises for the poorly-paid truck drivers and warehouse workers of Minneapolis, turned a notoriously open shop town into a union stronghold, and went on to establish organizing drives that unionized one quarter of a million workers across eleven states of the U.S. Midwest.
The Sri Lankan Trotskyists of the Lanka Sama Samaja Party (LSSP) led a successful two-day nationwide bus drivers’ strike in 1936 and played a leading role in the 1939-40 strike wave of exploited Tamil tea plantation workers. The party was central to the post-World War II labour upsurge, formed a number of important unions such as the Harbour and Dock Workers Union, and won over several Communist Party-led unions to the LSSP. By 1946 the Trotskyists had won the leadership of the Ceylon Federation of Labour.
Trotskyists have even made their mark in the International Longshore and Warehouse Union (ILWU), a union long associated with Harry Bridges and the Communist Party.
Shaun “Jack” Maloney, who was shot and wounded by police during the 1934 Minneapolis Teamster strikes, was elected President of ILWU Local 19 in Seattle for five successive terms before retiring in 1976. Maloney was a leading critic of Bridges’ controversial “Mechanization and Modernization” Agreement which led to the loss of thousands of jobs.
Trotskyists Howard Keylor and Jack Heyman spearheaded the work bans campaign that targeted South African cargo aboard the Nedlloyd Kimberley in 1984, when members of ILWU Local 10 in San Francisco refused to unload this cargo in the face of legal injunctions for eleven days. As an elected ILWU Local 10 board member, Jack Heyman later played a central role in stopping the scab loaded Neptune Jade from being unloaded anywhere in the US and Canada during the Liverpool dockers’ dispute; the US West Coast ports stoppage in 1999 that demanded freedom for death row prisoner Mumia Abu Jamal; a 2003 anti-Iraq war protest that saw him beaten and arrested by police; and the West Coast ports shut down on May Day 2008 organized to protest the ongoing wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.
These few examples demonstrate that the claim by The Guardian that Trotskyists “have never delivered outcomes for workers” is simply untrue. This outrageous allegation is a slap in the face to the thousands of Trotskyist militants around the world who take on the bosses and union bureaucrats every day, and a slur on the memory of hundreds of Trotskyists who have lost their lives at the hands of fascist thugs, military dictatorships and ‘democratic’ police forces, the hired goons of strike breaking industrialists, and murderous Stalinist special agents.
Tail-ending the “left-wing” union bureaucracy
Why does The Guardian speak of a “major victory” and “a fantastic agreement” while refusing to disclose crucial facts about the Hutchison dispute? Why does the paper gloss over the role of the MUA’s Paddy Crumlin in the crucial days of August 13 and 14, when he told sacked workers they had been reinstated and directed them to return to work? Why does it throw up the red herring of the “ultra-left” and falsely claim that Trotskyists have never led workers in battles against the boss?
It is because the essentially reformist politics of the Communist Party of Australia sees them rarely step beyond the industrial and political bounds set by their allies – the “left-wing” trade union bureaucracy. They instead consistently fall in behind and politically tail-end these forces. The Guardian provides left cover for its bureaucratic allies, whitewashes their actions whenever they sell our struggles short, and politically attacks the genuine left-wing opponents of the union bureaucracy that the bureaucracy cannot be seen to do itself. It is this political subservience to the “left-wing” trade union bureaucracy that ultimately explains the ‘analysis’ of the Hutchison dispute put forward by The Guardian and the Communist Party of Australia.
With an anti-worker Liberal government on the offensive, ship owners stepping up moves to replace MUA seafarers with poorly paid Third World crew, and the onslaught of job slashing automation in the stevedoring sector, there is a dire need for MUA militants to adopt a genuine class-struggle approach and a Marxist outlook. But they can well do without the ‘Marxism’ of The Guardian and the Communist Party of Australia (For more information on the historic and current role of the Communist Party of Australia in the maritime unions, read here ).
* The SEP has its origins in the British ‘Trotskyism’ of Gerry Healy and his Socialist Labour League / Workers Revolutionary Party. The WRP is best known for receiving over £1,000,000 from oil-rich Arab regimes such as Gaddafi’s Libya and Saddam Hussein’s Iraq during the 1970s and 80s, which financed the WRP’s daily newspaper. In 1985, Healy’s sexual abuse of two dozen female WRP members came to light and tore the WRP and its international organization apart. Out of the wreckage, US Healyite leader David North and supporters formed Socialist Equality Parties in the United States, Australia and elsewhere. It has been revealed that David North is the CEO of a multi-million dollar printing business (and union-free workplace) in Michigan, which may explain the SEP’s non-Marxist position that trade unions are the direct instruments of the corporations and the capitalist state.
** The MUA also had the option of legal, protected industrial action by workers at the other two stevedoring companies. Under Australian law, such action can only be taken after an Enterprise Agreement (EA) expires. The DP World EA expired on June 30, 2014 and had not been settled in August 2015. The Patrick Terminals EA expired on June 30, 2015 and negotiations are still ongoing.Share this
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Email You are free to share this article under the Attribution 4.0 International license. University University of Nottingham
A new method for culturing human stem cells could lead to quicker and cheaper large-scale production, researchers say.
Current methods for culturing cells are expensive and rely on substances that are not safe for clinical use in humans. The new method relies a protein derived from human blood to grow the cells.
The technique, which can deliver the billions of cells needed to treat individual patients, could be key to realizing the full potential of stem cells in medicine.
“The protein can make stem cells attach on unmodified tissue culture plastic, and improve survival of the stem cells in harsh conditions,” says Sara Pijuan-Galitó, a research fellow at the University of Nottingham, who first worked on the project at Uppsala University.
“It is the first stem cell culture method that does not require a pre-treated biological substrate for attachment, and therefore, is more cost and time-efficient and paves the way for easier and cheaper large-scale production,” adds Pijuan-Galitó, first author of the study published in Nature Communications.
Lead supervisor Cecilia Annerén, who has a joint position at Uppsala University and at GE Healthcare in Sweden, says: “As coating is a time-consuming step and adds cost to human stem cell culture, this new method has the potential to save time and money in large-scale and high-throughput cultures, and be highly valuable for both basic research and commercial applications.”
The technology described in the paper is undergoing patent protection by GE Healthcare, which co-funded the project at Uppsala University.
Source: University of NottinghamThe 2016 Bitcoin Survey Supports 11 Different Languages
One of the main questions people often wonder about is who is using Bitcoin these days. The 2016 Bitcoin Survey by the Bitcoins in Ireland team will bring us one step closer to find out the answer as a total of eleven different languages are now supported.
Also read: Bitcoinec Launches Bitcoin Relief Fund for Equador Earthquake Victims
The 2016 Bitcoin Survey Is Here
Even though the results of the 2016 Bitcoin Survey will not be able to tell the complete story as to who uses Bitcoin and why, it may certainly provide some valuable insights in the end. Last year’s version showed some impressive results as well, although the number of supported languages was relatively then.
Now that the Bitcoins in Ireland team is back with their 2016 Bitcoin Survey, the goal is to reach as many people as possible. It’s hard to comprehend every single individual within the Bitcoin ecosystem, but these brief surveys will be proper source material for further investigations into these matters over the coming years.
As is the case with any technology, consumer interest tends to shift around a bit. One survey per year could show the differences between people using Bitcoin in 2015 and those who are using it today. Some people may have lost interest, whereas others have gotten excited about Bitcoin. Moreover, the 2016 Bitcoin Survey could show the rest of the world how Bitcoin is being used by real people.
Among the questions asked in the 2016 Bitcoin Survey are topics such as the gender of the user, how they use Bitcoin, and whether or not they have gotten other people to use it as well. Word of mouth is the most powerful marketing tool in the world, and taking Bitcoin to mainstream adoption levels will require existing users to convince others throughout the years.
One important question the 2016 Bitcoin Survey asks is why people like Bitcoin, and what they are less happy about regarding this cryptocurrency. User feedback is invaluable to a decentralized ecosystem such as Bitcoin, as it will help developers understand the needs of Bitcoin users better, which may lead to future improvements and new features down the line.
The 2016 Bitcoin Survey also highlights the topic of Bitcoin wallets. People who take this survey might learn a thing or two as there are so many different solutions available beyond the desktop offerings. This also gives users a chance to determine what they value in a Bitcoin wallet, and what their opinion on this concept in general are.
What makes the 2016 edition of the Bitcoin Survey so important is the multi-language support. Eleven different languages are now supported, which should make it a lot easier for international Bitcoin users to take part in this short questionnaire. Moreover, all participants are eligible to win a reward later on.
We know that the survey takes a couple of minutes across the various topics, and for everyone’s effort, we are putting up 15 top rewards for survey participants across all of our international language surveys. Each month during April, May & June, we will draw five Bitcoin addresses from survey respondents, take 0.25 of the rewards fund and send each 0.05. In July, once the survey has been completed, we will draw a sixteenth address, which will be sent 0.5 bitcoin.
Interim reports will be released on the Bitcoins in Ireland website, so make sure to keep an eye out for future updates. Any feedback on this survey is more than welcome, and there are co-working opportunities available for particular countries and PR inquiries. Additionally, more localized language support is always a bonus as well.
Will you partake in the 2016 Bitcoin Survey? What are your thoughts on the 2015 statistics? Let us know in the comments below!
Source: News Tip Via Email
Images courtesy of ShutterstockBy Eric Thomas, 97.1 The Ticket
Let me begin this blog by saying I am not anti-marijuana. At all. I think it should be legalized in all forms across the board. I also agree with the late comedian Bill Hicks, who said that it should also be made mandatory for people who lay their shoulders into their car horns at busy intersections.
For me, the question of what has happened the to the Detroit Lions and Derrick Nix this week has nothing to do with marijuana. The attitudes have shifted on pot. Now when we hear a story about an athlete being pulled over the phrase “found with marijuana” literally chameleons into the wallpaper behind it. Dozens of states have passed medical marijuana laws so lax that people more or less have to raise their hand to get a card. Sixty percent of the population has tried it at one time or another (and that sounds low).
There are actual bags of snacks called ‘Munchies’ sold at supermarkets, Taco Bell is open until 4 a.m. and the Cartoon Network exists. It would be fair to call this a pot friendly nation. The last three presidents have all gotten baked and two were re-elected.
The NFL and other athletic organizations also seem a bit outdated. Marijuana would probably appeal to an athlete that is dealing with pain and needs to relax. The medical stuff is used in cancer treatments and has proven to be really effective. I would prefer that athletes use marijuana than Vicodin and Percocet. There are tons of athletes that wind up helplessly addicted to pain killers like Brett Favre and countless others. Considering what happened to Whitney Houston, Heath Ledger, Brittany Murphy, Anna Nicole Smith, Chris Penn, Margaux Hemmingway, Abbie Hoffman, Keith Moon, Old Dirty Bastard and Elvis (to name a few) I would much rather have them using a substance that has never killed anyone… EVER.
The trouble with Mikel Leshoure, Derrick Nix and Nick Fairley was showing a lack of judgement. Its not like these guys were puffing to calm a throbbing knee. Its not like they were about to watch a Bugs Bunny marathon. They were out riding around and smoking. Look, if you are a kid attempting to hide from your parents and you are riding dirty because you have nowhere else to go, I lower my condemnation. There by the grace of God. But if you are a millionaire athlete who can afford an Escalade and you are driving around carrying pot, you are an idiot who deserves suspension and we need to ask ourselves if you are a bust.
All three of these guys live under draconian authoritarian rule. Roger Goodell hands out punishment with more enthusiasm than a seven foot dominatrix. The guy rules with an iron fist wrapped in an iron glove. Leshoure needs to duck. He got popped twice in 12 days. That shows a stunning lack of not only judgement but respect for the rules. If Goodell lowers the boom on guys who don’t bow to his authority, Leshoure could be held out as an example that few would run to defend. Nick Fairley’s suspension could be exacerbated because Leshoure warmed up the spotlight on Detroit. Again.
As for Derrick Nix, what a moron. At least the other two guys have contracts already. Seems like NBA scouts have even more reason to be skeptical, especially when “Suspended indefinitely” is hanging on your resume. Don’t get me wrong, Nix was s great player for the Spartans this year, and he will of course play next year. No one is going to have a problem with his penchant for a finely packed bowl, except for the people who will actually give him money to play the game.
That’s the point. Its not about the pot. These guys knew the dress code before they got into the club. There are plenty of things that are perfectly legal for the general population but are not legal for pro athletes. You can go into any GNC and buy creatine. In the NFL you are gonna be popped for four games. The question is not how we feel about marijuana and yes those penalties should be adjusted. The question is why did these athletes so willingly risk their future careers?
They are either dumb or weak. No other excuses.by James A. Russell
It’s hard not to cringe watching the United States careen around the Middle East these days, dispensing bombs, money and political fealty in various doses depending on the crisis of the day to a series of supposed allies that take turns slapping us around while demanding our protection.
These unseemly and contradictory scenes are emblematic of the crumbled bookends of America’s foreign policy in the Middle East that lies scattered around the regional landscape. It’s the rubble of a broken foreign policy paradigm conceived in an earlier era that has ceased its usefulness in the 21st century.
America’s Cold-War era regional foreign policy, which has seen us construct a series of partnerships in Cairo, Tel Aviv, Riyadh, Doha, Abu Dhabi and Islamabad, is no longer relevant to US and regional interests. Moreover, it’s difficult to conceive of a more unattractive group of states to align ourselves with—all of whom engage in behaviors that do not serve American interests and that are inconsistent with our values. It’s time to recast the Sunni-state plus Israel alliance that characterizes American foreign policy in the Middle East.
The busted bookends of our policy are slapping us in the face on a nearly daily basis. On the one hand, we had Bibi Netanyahu on one of his usual forays to the White House, openly dissing President Obama and even suggesting at one point that criticisms of Israel’s ongoing and continuous annexation of Palestinian territory were “un-American.” Thanks for the lecture, Bibi.
Never mind that the United States has implemented what amounts to an expensive social and military corporate welfare program to prop up a state, Israel, which by World Bank standards is among the wealthiest countries in the world. Who’s fooling who, exactly?
Next, we were treated to Vice President Joe Biden bowing down to Gulf State familial sheiks and apologizing to them for openly stating the obvious—that these repressive and autocratic monarchies have to varying degrees supported Sunni extremist groups battling the Iranian-backed Assad regime in the Syrian Civil War.
It |
for World Net Daily, says racism doesn’t exist. His fellow African-Americans, he says, are just angry because their parents didn’t love them.
“Most blacks hate whites,” Peterson wrote. “But they are not ‘racist.’ Rather, they hate whites because they are hateful people. They received no real love from their parents, and they believed a lie (that whites are ‘racist’) to justify their own hatred.”
Peterson extended this theory to our first African-American president. “I believe Barack Obama’s mother hated her mother,” he contended. “His white grandmother had a negative experience with a black person. She would speak of blacks in a way that seemed ‘racist’ to young brainwashed Barack. In reality, she was traumatized.”
Obama did speak of his maternal grandmother, Madelyn Dunham, having a fear of black men because of an experience with an aggressive panhandler who happened to be black. But he has also said he had a wonderful, loving relationship with Dunham, who died just before he was elected president.
"She's the one who taught me about hard work," he said in accepting the presidential nomination in 2008. "She's the one who put off buying a new car or a new dress for herself so that I could have a better life. She poured everything she had into me."
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Demonizing immigrants is another favorite game of the far-right sites. Breitbart frequently carries stories of crimes committed by undocumented immigrants, such as one that ran Monday, headlined “Previously Deported Alien, Brother Busted With 200 Pounds of Meth.”
And over at Townhall, there’s a recent column by Katie Kieffer with this lead: “Deal with it, Democrats: illegal immigrants commit crime far more often than legal immigrants.” Stories defending immigrants as actually less likely to commit crimes than the native-born are conflating data on legal immigrants with undocumented ones, she wrote.
But wait — there’s a columnist on the same site who counters Kieffer. Jeff Jacoby is one of a few mainstream conservatives carried on Townhall; he’s syndicated from a home base at The Boston Globe, which the far right undoubtedly considers a source of fake news.
“Decades of research confirm that immigrants to the United States are significantly less likely than native-born citizens to commit serious crimes or be in prison,” Jacoby wrote. “It makes no difference whether immigrants enter the country with or without legal documents. … During the 1990s and 2000s, as the number of illegal immigrants in the United States tripled to nearly 12 million, crime rates nationwide plunged more than 40 percent.”
“Harping on a few atypical examples [of criminal immigrants] amounts to raw demagoguery — the scapegoating of a stigmatized group to incite fear and hatred,” Jacoby continued. He went on to give his own examples of immigrants, some undocumented, who have saved lives — for instance, chasing down the kidnapper of a young girl.
“There are a few shockingly bad apples, yes,” he wrote of the immigrant population. “Vastly more common are the heroes and hard workers who love this country and prove it daily. Diligent, peaceable, grateful, they enrich their communities in ways large and small, and, in so doing, continuously make America great again.”
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Most of the far-right sites are big supporters of Donald Trump’s efforts to keep immigrants and even visitors from certain countries out of the U.S. After running into legal trouble with his first travel ban, he issued another one that temporarily banned travel to the U.S. by residents of Iran, Libya, Syria, Sudan, Yemen, and Somalia, exempting those who already hold visas. That’s in legal trouble too. Meanwhile, some on the right have objected to media descriptions of those countries as “Muslim-majority” nations, which they say unfairly makes it look like the Trump administration is targeting Muslims.
Breitbart contributor John Hayward started out with this objection, then went on to reach a conclusion that it’s basically OK to target Muslims. “The fallback euphemism is to say that Trump is ‘banning’ immigration (they never say it is conditional and temporary) from several ‘Muslim-majority’ countries,” he wrote. “This is also misleading because those countries are not merely inhabited by a majority of Muslims. They are Muslim countries, period. They all have some form of Islamic law written into their legal codes. … The incorporation of Sharia law into the legal codes of these countries occurs to a degree that would revolt the American Left, if any religion except Islam was involved.”
Actually, many on both the left and the right, along with many Muslims, object to government based on strict Sharia law. And the oppressive nature of such government provides an argument for allowing immigration from these countries, not banning it.
“The governments of Libya, Syria, and Somalia punish homosexuality with prison, even up to 10 years,” OutRight International’s Jessica Stern wrote in The Advocate. “Sudan, Iran, and Yemen officially punish homosexuality with death. OutRight has documented more than 39 people killed by ISIS in Iraq and Syria for alleged homosexuality from 2014 to 2016 alone. By closing the doors to LGBTIQ asylum seekers and refugees, President Trump is effectively accepting the persecution and violence targeting this community and allowing some LGBTIQ people to die. He has joined the ranks of those who believe imprisoning and killing people for being LGBTIQ is permissible.”
We’ll be back next week with more nuggets from the far-right sites, as we read them so you don’t have to.One thing that governors and mayors absolutely love to do is win a prize in the national game called "Corporate Welfare Roulette." It's a simple casino-style game in which politicos put down a big stack of taxpayers' money on an out-of-state corporation as an "incentive," hoping that their bet outbids other states and cities trying to lure that same corporation to move to their area and hire some people.
There's always a celebration when politicos "win" one of these cash-for-jobs gambles. The media gather, politicos prance, the Chamber of Commerce chief grins from ear to ear and the corporate CEO mouths platitudes about free enterprise (while stuffing taxpayer cash in his pockets).
Only six years ago, Winston-Salem, N.C., had its lucky day, having won the spin of the roulette wheel to land a corporate gem. Dell, the computer giant, was headed to town, pledging to erect a state-of-the-art assembly plant and hire up to 1,500 folks.
"We won," crowed all the local poobahs. They had put down about $318 million in tax giveaways, cash and other freebies to land the prize, and in October 2005, they enjoyed the glorious grand opening of Dell's $7 million plant. The future was bright.
However, one thing that governors and mayors absolutely hate to do is to face up to the fact that their prize has reneged, failing to deliver the promised number of jobs. Real bad politics.
Last October, four years and two days after Dell's gala opening in Winston-Salem, the giant suddenly upped and left! It abruptly announced that it would soon cut out for the cheap-labor havens of Asia, shut down the still-sparkling assembly plant, discard the 900 people it had hired (600 short of its promise) and kiss off North Carolina. Thanks for the memories. Adios, chumps.
Formerly gleeful politicos were now howling, demanding "every red cent of incentive money" back. But they had put down their money and taken their chances, and corporate gods are notoriously fickle. While much of North Carolina's subsidy had not yet been doled out, taxpayers still took a hit of about $17 million for its fling with Dell.
Meanwhile, the roulette wheel continues to spin, and more and more taxpayers across the country are learning that they're getting stiffed, receiving only a fraction of the jobs they were taxed to bring to their area.
This is always embarrassing to the public officials who've so enthusiastically played the game, but leave it to a Texas politico to come up with a slick political fix. When Gov. Rick Perry's corporate job subsidies don't succeed, he simply — abracadabra! — redefines success.
Texas has a long history of governors who have a genetic resistance to ethics, but this guy can't even spell the word.
A watchdog group, Texans for Public Justice, recently exposed Perry's flimflam in a report documenting extensive job shortfalls in his corporate deals. TPJ revealed that Gov. Slick had quietly been "amending" the terms of the contractual agreements that corporations signed to get our tax dollars.
Without even informing the other state officials who supposedly oversee the corporate subsidy fund, Perry eased the job-creation requirements to make the deals look like they are succeeding. Such slackers as Lockheed Martin and Tyson Foods have had their job quotas slashed, been permitted to count part-time jobs as full-time and even been allowed to use foreign workers (and possibly illegal immigrants) rather than Texas citizens to meet their job-creation obligations.
When he learned last month that the TPJ was about to bust his little secret "fix," Perry rushed out a statement lamely insisting that nothing was amiss, that his redefinitions were merely meant to "refresh" the state's job contracts.
Refresh? Why do I feel an urgent need to shower when I hear such a clean word ooze out of the mouth of such an oily politician?
The whole game of Corporate Welfare Roulette is oily. For more information on the scams that come from it — and on what can be done to stop these giveaways — contact Good Jobs First: www.goodjobsfirst.org.
To find out more about Jim Hightower, and read features by other Creators Syndicate writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators Syndicate web page at www.creators.com.The new Ghostbusters film opening next month isn’t just a single movie. It’s potentially the start of a whole new era for the franchise. And we now know the next project in that world, as Sony has announced a brand new animated Ghostbusters TV show to begin airing in 2018.
The show will be called Ghostbusters: Echo Force and, well, here’s the info from the press release:
A brand new animated television series, GHOSTBUSTERS: ECTO FORCE, will further expand the Ghostbusters cinematic universe and focus on a new generation of Ghostbusters in the year 2050 who capture ghosts around the world with help from local teams—and some very cool gear! The younger-skewing Sony Pictures Animation project is being creatively spearheaded by Ivan Reitman and his production company Ghost Corps. GHOSTBUSTERS: ECTO FORCE is eyeing an early 2018 debut.
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That write up is a bit confusing. We get that this show will take place in the future with a new team of Ghostbusters. But saying it’ll “further expand the Ghostbusters cinematic universe” is odd. Because this isn’t a “cinematic” show. It’s a TV show. What it suggests is that this show will simply be in the same canon as the Paul Feig film. That’s pretty much why Ivan Reitman’s Ghost Corps production company exists now anyway: to create a unified series of projects in all mediums for the Ghostbusters.
And, of course, this isn’t the first time Ghostbusters was an animated series. The Real Ghostbusters aired in the late 1980s after the release of Ghostbusters 2.
[Deadline]Islamic lawmakers in Afghanistan have blocked a law that to protect women, arguing that parts of it violate Islamic principles.
Among the law’s provisions are measures to criminalize child marriage and ban the traditional practice of selling and buying women to settle disputes. It also criminalizes domestic violence and specifies that rape victims should not face charges for fornication.
The Islamists also opposed the law because they said that it would encourage women to have sex outside of marriage.
The failure to pass the law highlights how shaky women’s rights remain a dozen years after the overthrow of the Taliban. The “Law on Elimination of Violence Against Women” has been in effect since 2009 by presidential decree. However, it was brought to a parliamentary vote by Fawzia Koofi, lawmaker and women’s rights activist, to prevent the law’s reversal by any future president attempting to appease hard line religious parties.
"We want to change this decree to a law and get the vote of parliament for this law,” said Koofi, who is herself running for president in next year’s elections. "Unfortunately, there are some conservative elements who are opposing this law. What I am disappointed at is there are also women who are opposing this law."
The ban on child marriage and the idea of protecting female rape victims from prosecution has become a heated debate in parliament, said Nasirullah Sadiqizada Neli, a conservative lawmaker from Daykundi province. Neli suggested that removing the custom, which is very common in Afghanistan, of prosecuting raped women for adultery would lead to chaos, with women engaging in extramarital sex safe in the knowledge they could claim rape if caught.
Khalil Ahmad Shaheedzada, a hard-line conservative lawmaker for the Herat province, said the legislation was withdrawn shortly after being introduced in parliament because of fierce opposition from religious parties who said that parts of the law are un-Islamic. “Whatever is against Islamic law, we don’t even need to speak about it,” Shaheedzada said.
Shaheedzada also claimed that the law might encourage promiscuity among girls and women, saying it reflected Western values not applicable in Afghanistan. "Even now in Afghanistan, women are running from their husbands. Girls are running from home," he said. "Such laws give them these ideas."
Heather Barr, a researcher for Human Rights Watch said, "There's a real risk this has opened a Pandora's box, that this may have galvanized opposition to this decree by people who in principle oppose greater rights for women."
Many legislators feel that President Hamid Karzai should never have issued the decree and wants it changed, if not repealed. "We cannot have an Islamic country with basically Western laws," one of them said.
The freedoms the women now enjoy are one of the most visible and symbolic changes in Afghanistan since the 2001 campaign that toppled the Taliban. Aside from their support for al-Qaeda, the Taliban are probably most notorious for their harsh treatment of women under their severe interpretation of Islamic law.
For five years, the regime banned women from working and going to school, or even leaving home without a male relative. In public, all women were forced wear a head-to-toe burqa. Violators were publicly flogged or executed. Freeing women from such draconian laws lent a moral air to the Afghan war, but many are concerned that these freedoms could shrink once NATO-led forces leave the country at the end of next year.A Southern Baptist leader who is calling for Christians to avoid yoga and its spiritual attachments is getting plenty of pushback from enthusiasts who defend the ancient practice.
Southern Baptist Seminary President Albert Mohler says the stretching and meditative discipline derived from Eastern religions is not a Christian pathway to God.
Mohler said he objects to "the idea that the body is a vehicle for reaching consciousness with the divine."
"That's just not Christianity," Mohler told The Associated Press.
Mohler said feedback has come through e-mail and comments on blogs and other websites since he wrote an essay to address questions about yoga he has heard for years.
"I'm really surprised by the depth of the commitment to yoga found on the part of many who identify as Christians," Mohler said.
Yoga fans say their numbers have been growing in the U.S. A 2008 study by the Yoga Journal put the number at 15.8 million, or nearly 7 percent of adults. About 6.7 percent of American adults are Southern Baptists, according to a 2007 survey by the Pew Research Center Forum on Religion & Public Life.
Mohler argued in his online essay last month that Christians who practice yoga "must either deny the reality of what yoga represents or fail to see the contradictions between their Christian commitments and their embrace of yoga."
He said his view is "not an eccentric Christian position."
Other Christian leaders have said practicing yoga is incompatible with the teachings of Jesus. Pat Robertson has called the chanting and other spiritual components that go along with yoga "really spooky." California megachurch pastor John MacArthur called yoga a "false religion." Muslim clerics have banned Muslims from practicing yoga in Egypt, Malaysia and Indonesia, citing similar concerns.
Yoga proponents say the wide-ranging discipline, which originated in India, offers physical and mental healing through stretching poses and concentration.
"Lots of people come to yoga because they are often in chronic pain. Others come because they think it's a nice workout," said Allison Terracio, who runs the Infinite Bliss studio in Louisville.
And some yoga studios have made the techniques more palatable for Christians by removing the chanting and associations to eastern religions, namely Hinduism and its multiple deities.
Stephanie Dillon, who has injected Christian themes into her studio in Louisville, said yoga brought her closer to her Christian faith, which had faded after college and service in the Army.
"What I found is that it opened my spirit, it renewed my spirituality," Dillon said. "That happened first and then I went back to church." Dillon attends Southeast Christian Church in Louisville and says many evangelical Christians from the church attend her yoga classes.
She said she prayed on the question of whether to mix yoga and Christianity before opening her studio, PM Yoga, where she discusses her relationship with Jesus during classes.
"My objection (to Mohler's view) personally is that I feel that yoga enhances a person's spirituality," Dillon said. "I don't like to look at religion from a law standpoint but a relationship standpoint, a relationship with Jesus Christ specifically."
Mohler wrote the essay after reading "The Subtle Body," where author Stefanie Syman traces the history of yoga in America. Syman noted the growing popularity of yoga in the U.S. by pointing out that first lady Michelle Obama has added it to the festivities at the annual White House Easter Egg Roll on the front lawn.
Mohler said many people have written him to say they're simply doing exercises and forgoing yoga's eastern mysticism and meditation.
"My response to that would be simple and straightforward: You're just not doing yoga," Mohler said.We have never been great at forecasting energy supply and demand fundamentals very far into the future. The traditional models have all coalesced GDP figures with reserve estimates and power generation investments to deduce what our energy production levels and consumption mix might look like forty years in the future. As you might imagine, this yearly statistical skydive has always been fraught with peril.
The most notable of these reports is probably the Energy Information Administration's (EIA's) Annual Energy Outlook, released in May. In addition to the big EIA report, a slew of similar findings are also disgorged by various energy companies like Norway’s Statoil. But the grand-daddy of them all remains BP ’s Statistical Review of World Energy, released in January and updated in June.
As a former energy trader turned utility executive, I can attest to the relevance of these documents in boardrooms where massive investment decisions get made. Billions go on the line, backed by models that are powered by these studies.
Understanding the assumption-laden nature of their construction, that always gave me a little analytical vertigo. But now, I think the issue is a hundred times worse. My question is: “Has the pace of arrival of disruptive technology increased to the point where the standard error on these is so wide as to render them virtually meaningless?”
I fear so.
For evidence, let’s flash back to President George W. Bush’s 2006 State of the Union Address:
"Here we have a serious problem: America is addicted to oil, which is often imported from unstable parts of the world." "Tonight, I announce the Advanced Energy Initiative -- a 22 percent increase in clean energy research at the Department of Energy, to push for breakthroughs in two vital areas. To change how we power our homes and offices, we will invest more in zero-emission, coal-fired plants; revolutionary solar and wind technologies; and clean, safe nuclear energy.” "We will increase our research in better batteries for hybrid and electric cars, and in pollution-free cars that run on hydrogen. We will also fund additional research in cutting-edge methods of producing ethanol, not just from corn but from wood chips, stalks, or switch grass."
Now, all of these ideas were interesting, and some still are, having made great strides over the last eight years. But the really big one – the really, really big one – is just plain missing. Fracking.
The entire combined analytical capacity of the US government, all the major oil companies and every analytical shop with a three-letter name (EIA, IAE, etc) could not spot the elephant in the room; a live technology that was in the process of revolutionizing the global energy economy, and set the United States not only on the path to be energy independent, but to be the largest energy producer in the world.
The biggest thing to happen in the industry in a generation, if not three or four generations, and no one noticed.
2014 EIA Scenarios
Let’s take a look at just one example of how that happens. The EIA spends a great deal of time in its report trying to project what the energy mix of the United States could look like in the future. Here’s its base case scenario:
If this is to be believed then coal will continue to be the major source of electricity generation in the US for decades, and will only give up its top rank in 2034 to another fossil fuel, natural gas. Renewables, while growing, will only slightly increase from its 2014 levels while nuclear remains unchanged.
This could very well be true – but only if technological innovation pretty much stops. When you read through the explanation of the assumptions used in building this model you see the economists only concentrated on two things 1) price and 2) possible policy changes. While both are major factors in determining the fuel mix, it doesn't give the complete picture. Where is the “possible technology change”?
Let’s look at some more assumptions that were made regarding the energy mix, this time multiple scenarios were run considering nuclear and coal’s contributions.
Both charts explore four different scenarios in which coal and/or nuclear generation encounter troubles impacting their contribution to the future energy mix. The scenarios are both negative and revolve around accelerated retirements due to the pollution emitted by coal and the age and melt-down concerns associated with nuclear.
Potential Impact of Future Innovations
While the EIA’s views could very well turn out to be true, the report said nothing about possible technological changes that could make both fuels possibly grow in popularity such as carbon capture with coal or fourth generation nuclear reactors.
And these technologies are not the stuff of science fiction; indeed, both are being vigorously researched and pursued across the globe. For example, just last week NRG Energy broke ground on a $1 billion carbon capture project that would significantly reduce the amount of CO2 released from one of their coal-fired power plants near Houston by grabbing it and pushing it into the ground to force oil out. If all goes to plan, the technology could decelerate coal plant closures in oil-rich areas and provide a form of subsidy through enhanced oil revenues to offset the price of the additional equipment.
Further, in all the scenarios natural gas seems to be the only winner, with renewables hardly gaining traction despite a flurry of technological advancements in the sector. For example, advancements in grid-level (ie. gigantic) battery storage being pursued right now could revolutionize renewables and take a bite out of gas demand.
Sound like more science fiction? Well, I recently toured a company making what they call “liquid batteries” that promises to do just that – store power on a massive scale, and cheaply. And they are just one of at least five companies pursuing this potentially revolutionary technology.
Ambri, the brainchild of Professor Donald Sadoway at MIT, just raised $35 million from investors, including Microsoft founder Bill Gates among others, to build a liquid metal battery factory. They are also teaming up with several utilities, including ConEdison in New York, to test their invention in the real world.
If liquid batteries take off it won’t just impact the renewable space; it could have an impact on pretty much all fuels, especially natural gas. Due to the unpredictability of the electricity load, the US has to maintain a 40% overcapacity in natural gas-powered generation. But if power can be effectively stored then there would be no need to overbuild traditional capacity to make sure there is enough juice in the system on a cloudy, windless day. Great for wind and solar (which has really been breaking technological boundaries in the last few years); not so good for gas.
And these are just a few examples. I have written on this subject extensively in this column and elsewhere. I believe the energy markets are experiencing a Centennial Moment — a phenomenon that last occurred a century ago when the structure of the industry dramatically transformed based on a switch from steam coal to oil and gas. The catalyst for these moments is always the arrival of disruptive technology.
Fracking broadsided the analysts as a one-time event. Imagine the difficulty of long-range forecasting when wave after wave of transformation crash over the industry. Now imagine the danger of investing billions based on those forecasts. Beware the standard error. This is not your father’s energy economy.This blog pretty much exists to call the meat industry on its nonstop spewage of bullshit.
But every now and then I see something from our side that makes me cringe. And probably at the top of the list is the oft-repeated claim that you can’t be a meat eating environmentalist. That would be a beautiful piece of rhetoric to use, if only if it were true. But it ain’t.
This week, the Huffington Post published an article by Cheri Shankar titled, “Can You Be a Meat-Eating Environmentalist?” which answers the question with a decisive no. The first tip-off that this piece is going to suck is its length: six short paragraphs. Keep in mind what an enormously complex topic this is: you could easily write a book on meat and global warming, a second book on meat production and water pollution, and a third book on beef cattle grazing and rangeland degradation.
There are so many strong reasons to go vegan that it’s insane to advance claims that don’t withstand scrutiny. So let’s break down Shankar’s argument and see where it fails.
There are really two parts to this argument that are problematic. The first is it ignores the amount of meat a person could consume in favor of advancing a binary argument: a person’s either a meat eater or he’s not. Suppose you follow a vegan diet plus one cheeseburger a year: this clearly makes you a meat eater, but it would be absurd to claim that that one burger has any significant impact on the environment.
Perhaps you can make a case that climate change is such a dire and pressing issue that eating even one burger a year is irresponsible. But if you’re going to make that argument in a good-faith way, you’d better be similarly uncompromising in addressing other lifestyle issues. You better say that that person can’t own a car, buy imported tomatoes, and needs to keep her house heated below 55 degrees in the winter.
The second problem with Shankar’s argument is that it lumps all meat—beef, pork, and poultry—together. The truth is that there’s an enormous difference in both resource demands and pollution when you compare red meat to poultry. Now, no doubt, poultry is still much more resource intensive per calorie than is grain, but so are vegetables. And I’ve never seen anything credible to suggest that a thousand calories worth of poultry, produced using the most responsible and environmentally sensitive methods, gobbles up any greater resources than a thousand calories worth of vegetables.
See, whenever you make a claim, the burden of proof falls on your shoulders, and you’ve got to back up your claim with evidence. To make overly broad arguments like the one made in this Huffington Post piece is the essence of uninformed advocacy: it damages our movement’s credibility and plays right into the meat industry’s hands.
We need the meat industry to be the only people in this debate who are full of shit. Link.Critics, including our own Jason Bailey, are praising this weekend’s forthcoming release, Z for Zachariah, a creepy dystopian film starring Chiwetel Ejiofor, Chris Pine, Margot Robbie, and directed by Craig Zobel. I’m particularly excited to hear the title bandied about, as I may be part of a select group who hears it and immediately recalls a beloved YA book of the same name. It was reviewed with near-universal praise in 1975 — during an era when its fictional exploration of a planet nearly blotted out by nuclear fallout must have seemed all too relevant. Today, in our moment of global warming-wrought wildfires, drought, and flooding, the urgency of its themes persists.
When I was growing up in the 1990s, my family members and I passed around a bright blue paperback copy of the original novel by Robert C. O’Brien, who also wrote the beloved (and lovely) children’s series about the rats of NIMH. It was an early example of the kind of YA book that would become trendy in the 21st century — addictive, suspenseful, and full of ruminations about human nature, power, suspicion, and cooperation. I don’t remember who read it first, but I know my parents liked it as much as my brother and I did, in much the same way that today’s hip titles get passed between teens and their parents.
Unlike the film (and most current YA novels), Z for Zachariah has no love triangle. Instead, it consists of an uneasy seesawing of power between two characters. It reads like The Road was combined with a protagonist who prefigures Katniss from The Hunger Games and themes from Margaret Atwood. Ann, a teenage girl who thinks she’s the sole survivor of a nuclear apocalypse, remains sheltered in her valley with a freak weather system that has largely been bypassed by the destruction. Living alone, she is a peaceful gardener type, tending to her own plot and wondering what happened to the rest of humanity. Then, one day, an older scientist named Loomis in a “safe suit” comes into the valley, and the ensuing tension renders the book both unputdownable and unbearable.
Loomis bathes in a polluted river while Ann watches, too scared to warn him, but when he becomes sick, she tends to him through his delirium, fantasizing about the life they might have together — until he unwittingly reveals nasty facts about his past, setting the stage for their conflict.
As Loomis gains strength and consciousness, he reveals his potential to help Ann survive and even thrive, but also becomes an implicit threat to her autonomy and safety. She reads classic literature and plays piano for him, and they eye each other warily as potential mates (there’s even a fan site devoted to unpacking the literary references). Without the third character logically introduced by the film, the book remains even quieter, yet the menace lingers. How much of it exists only in Ann’s mind, and how much is endemic to the persona of Loomis? The book’s ending is by necessity different, too, mixing hope and bleakness in a way that only the bravest such novels do.
While Z for Zachariah contains plenty of violence, implied and actual, it’s nowhere near as extensive as what you find in series like The Hunger Games, Divergent or any of their many imitators. Instead, a single leg wound, and the constant threat of being poisoned in a world corroded by nuclear fallout, as well as the implied presence of sexual violence in a new world with only one man and one woman, make the book feel like a more believable dystopia than others might. Biblical symbolism threads throughout the narrative, but rather than being didactic, it’s a vehicle for tense interpersonal drama.
For fans of the genre, it’s worth digging up a copy (it looks like there’s now a movie tie-in) this weekend, as the movie arrives in theaters. The adaptation offers us a rare chance to re-explore one of those books that have timeless qualities, but somehow fail to rise to “classic” status.The US Federal Reserve held its key interest rate near zero on Thursday last week, with Fed chair Janet Yellen citing a weak global economy, low inflation and unsettled financial markets.
Analysts say the Fed's decision to keep benchmark interest rates near zero is concerning because it suggests that the headwinds facing the global economy are stronger than thought.
Chris Weston from IG Markets explains what is behind today’s sell off on the Australian sharemarket, along with his thoughts for the direction of the Australian dollar.
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Also, investors are still uncertain over whether or not the Fed will lift interest rates this year.
Note: the vertical axes of these charts have been truncated to draw attention to day-to-day changes.
OptionsXpress market analyst Ben Le Brun said all sectors on the local bourse fell heavily in the wake of the losses on Wall Street on Friday.
"We're really on the canvas at the moment, obviously cueing off a very weak lead from Wall Street - that was after they had 24 hours to digest Janet Yellen's comments," Mr Le Brun said.
On the positive side, Mr Le Brun said the lower market should attract bargain-hunters in the near term.
Among the major banks, Commonwealth Bank dropped $2.21 to $73.62, National Australia Bank dumped 59 cents at $30.47, Westpac reversed 90 cents to $30.85, and ANZ retreated 68 cents to $27.72. In the resources sector, global miner BHP Billiton descended 61 cents to $23.85, Rio Tinto weakened $1.48 to $49.78, and Fortescue Metals surrendered 8.5 cents to $1.975.
Rare earths miner Lynas was off 0.1 cents at 3.7 cents as it looks to bolster sales in a difficult market after sharply narrowing its full year loss.
Oil and gas producer Woodside Petroleum lost 86 cents to $28.83, and Santos firmed three cents to $4.78.
Key facts
* At 1615 AEST on Monday, the benchmark S&P/ASX200 index was down 104.3 points, or 2.02 per cent, at 5,066.2 points.
* The broader All Ordinaries index was down 98 points, or 1.89 per cent, at 5,096.3 points.
* The December share price index futures contract was 95 points lower at 5,053 points, with 37,055 contracts traded.
* National turnover was 1.36 billion securities worth $3.94 billion.Dean Potter wrote this essay on adventuring with his dog, Whisper, not long before he died in a BASE-jumping accident in Yosemite last spring. We’re publishing his words now, with the permission of his girlfriend, Jen Rapp, as a telling reflection of Potter’s values and love of the outdoors.
We stand on the edge of the North Face of the Eiger, in the Swiss Alps, and peer into swirling latte clouds. Rhythmic breathing of my mini cattle dog, Whisper, resonates behind me. Soft breaths change to faint snores; her body slightly relaxes and adjusts within the BASE-rig backpack that secures both our lives as one. My fingers run over our harness chest strap, then reach back and micro-adjust the position of our stowed pilot chute, then stretch farther to scratch Miss Whisp’s forehead.
My girlfriend, Jen, has also made the alpine scramble and sits on the edge taking in the immense beauty, while most likely calculating the safety of her loved ones. My feet confined in the wingsuit, I penguin-walk in tight circles around the Eiger Mushroom, our dog on my back, and hope the clouds will part and we’ll be able to safely fly to the grassy meadows below.
The weather doesn’t change, and our little family settles into an awkward meditative perch atop the Mushroom pillar. Neither Jen nor I speak. Internally, I recount putting Whisper in the BASE pack and securing her full-strength Ruffwear Doubleback Harness to me with three separate lanyards. Though my body is warm inside the nylon suit, I start to shiver and wonder if what we’re doing is right. Wingsuit BASE-jumping feels safe to me, but 25 wingsuit fliers have lost their lives this year alone. There must be some flaw in our system, a lethal secret beyond my comprehension.
Our family is all Whisper has. She hates to be separated, especially if we’re going hiking. This morning, I gave her the choice of staying at camp, but she saw us packing and, true to her Queensland heeler bloodlines, filed into position between our heels and yipped and nipped at our shoelaces.
We’ve been staying in the Swiss Alps most of the summer. Jen has been flying back and forth with Whisper from our home in California every few weeks to keep on top of work obligations while simultaneously holding our family together. Whisper sits at Jen’s feet for the international flights and guides her safely across the borders. Not bad for a 22-pound pup: half the time along the Pacific Coast and mountains of California, and the other half yodeling the Sound of Music in alpine pastures and peaks.
The three of us have been living in the Swiss village of Wengen. No cars are allowed in town. We walk or take the train everywhere. It rains a fair bit. We stay at our friends’ Hotel Falken when it’s stormy, but otherwise we live in our small yellow tent on the West Flank of the Eiger, where we easily access some of the best trekking, climbing, and flying in the world.
These peaks are rich in mountaineering, skiing, flying, and climbing history. No matter how deep into the hills we go, there are signs of the people who came centuries before. The Swiss are so healthy and vital. Looking around, it’s easy to see why with smiling cows eating lush greens. We shop at tiny markets for organic produce, meat, and cheese. I shake my head at the contrast between the norms in America with our superstores, hormones, pesticides, and patents on GMO seeds.
My wingsuit is wet. The rock is darkening with moisture. Plus, I can’t see the ground, and that’s one rule to never break with BASE. It seems obvious that you have to see where you’re flying, but often jumpers favor flying blind over painstakingly hiking down. They opt for a few seconds of unknown, leap into clouds, strike the wall, and die. The clouds blacken. We accept the sun’s descent and make our decision to down-climb several hours back to our tent.
Whisp perks with a snort, sensing what’s going on. I carefully take off our wingsuit and unclip |
, he is actually shaping up as a traditional GOP president. Trump’s supporters say he is still ironing out wrinkles as he adapts to being president. But others are losing patience with the Trump administration amid qualms about its approach to national security, the U.S.-Russian relationship and the risk to long-standing alliances the United States has cultivated with other nations.
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Trump has come under heavy criticism for spearheading a temporary immigration ban on refugees and foreign nationals from seven majority-Muslim nations, which has been temporarily halted by a federal court. He has also drawn fierce blowback for disparaging critical stories about him as “fake news” and responding to a Fox News interviewer telling him Russian President Vladimir Putin is a “killer” by saying, “Do you think our country is so innocent?”
McCain, who said there is concern that “America is laying down the mantle of global leadership,” mentioned several Trump administration officials attending the conference — Vice President Pence, Homeland Security Secretary John F. Kelly and Defense Secretary Jim Mattis — as examples of officials committed to maintaining the country’s global role.
Democrats are less subtle. Among their top concerns: Trump’s charge that NATO is “obsolete,” which they say has struck a nerve among U.S. partners in the West.
“I think our allies are legitimately terrified that our president is not devoted to NATO, that he is supportive of European disintegration, that the approach that he wants to take with Russia will come at their expense,” said Rep. Adam B. Schiff (D-Calif.), the top Democrat on the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence.
[German defense chief hits Trump attitudes on torture, Russia and Muslims]
Lawmakers in both parties were still reacting Friday and Saturday to Trump’s news conference Thursday, when he lashed out against the news media, the intelligence community and his critics — and defended advisers against claims of improper contacts with Russia.
Senate Minority Leader Charles E. Schumer (D-N.Y.) responded to a question about the news conference Friday by letting out a long sigh. A few minutes later, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) wasn’t eager to talk about it.
“I don’t have any observation about that,” he said when asked whether it hurt or helped Trump’s ability to lead.
“We thought he was erratic; we’re learning just how erratic he really is,” Rep. Joseph Crowley (D-N.Y.), the chairman of the House Democratic Caucus, said in a C-SPAN interview with a Washington Post reporter recorded Friday. “If this past week’s press conference is any indication of how he’s going to conduct himself, I actually think it’s not just about House Democrats, but my House Republican colleagues: When do they show any sign of resistance to this administration?”
McConnell explained at a news conference Friday that while Trump’s Twitter attacks on various people don’t appeal to him, “What I am a fan of is what he’s been actually doing.” In an interview with The Post the day before, the GOP leader also pointed out that Trump has not relaxed sanctions on Russia — a good move, in his view — even though he has publicly weighed doing so.
But Sen. Christopher A. Coons (D-Del.), a member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, said Trump’s rhetoric has made a tangible and troubling difference. He said it has created a deep fear that Putin will try advancing more deeply into Eastern Europe, based on conversations he has had with leaders of Baltic states and other European nations.
“They are alarmed by nearly all of what President Trump has said, as a candidate, as the Republican nominee, as a president-elect, and as president, that suggests a misguided embrace of Vladimir Putin and a refusal to directly confront Russia’s organized campaign to undermine democracy,” Coons said.
Others were more forbearing. Sen. Mike Rounds (R-S.D.), who sits on the Senate Armed Services Committee, said Trump is “still having a conversation over the coffee table with the American public” as he decides which policies to implement.
“The traditional folks that work in government on a day-to-day basis in other countries are looking at this and shaking their head. But I think they’ll get used to it,” Rounds said.
Sen. Bob Corker (R-Tenn.), the chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, said he takes comfort in a belief that Mattis and Secretary of State Rex Tillerson hold more orthodox Republican views on Russia and can influence Trump on that front.
“They’re not our friend, okay?” Corker said of Russia.
While Corker and other Republicans have lauded members of Trump’s national security team, there is uncertainty about how it will look and operate moving forward. Michael Flynn recently resigned as Trump’s national security adviser amid revelations that he misled administration officials about his interactions with Russia. Trump is still trying to fill that post.
In his weekly address, Trump touted some accomplishments and interactions with foreign leaders, including meetings with Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. “We are not here for the benefit of bureaucrats, consultants or pundits. We are here to work for you and only for you, the American people,” Trump said.
At the other end of Pennsylvania Avenue, Sen. Jeff Flake (R-Ariz.) declined to say anything when asked about Trump’s impact. “I don’t want to comment on daily statements by the president,” he said.
Paul Kane, Ashley Parker and John Wagner contributed to this report.
Read more at PowerPostPOLICE officers made a gun point arrest in the town centre last night.
At around 9pm as a helicopter flew overhead, at least five armed offices forced two men driving a blue car to stop in the middle of the roundabout at the bottom of Bridge Street.
As one man wearing a white t-shirt and black trousers was handcuffed, police commanded the other to exit the vehicle with hands raised and walk slowly towards them.
He was arrested, leading two officers to rush towards the car and check the back seat and boot.
"Thames Valley Police officers, including armed officers, carried out arrests near to the Oracle Centre in Reading last night in relation to a firearms offence which occurred in Luton on 8 June," said a spokesperson for Thames Valley Police.
"A 32-year-old man from Harrow and a 17-year-old boy from Caversham were arrested in connection with the incident.
"They have both been released with no further action. The incident was not related to terrorism."
A video of the arrest attracted more than 200,000 views overnight.
The Chronicle thanks Alex Walsh for permission to use the video.Jimmy Melvin Jr. has been found not guilty of the 2009 murder of Terry Marriott Jr. after a four-week trial in Nova Scotia Supreme Court.
There were quiet gasps in the courtroom and one woman stormed out before the jury was even dismissed as members of Marriott's family expressed anger that the man accused of killing him had just been acquitted. Both the Marriott and Melvin families left the courthouse without speaking to reporters.
The jury had deliberated for about a day and a half before returning with the not-guilty verdict. They were just over an hour away from being sent to a hotel for a second night before they reached their decision.
Marriott was shot and killed while he slept in a home in Harrietsfield, N.S., in February 2009. The key Crown witness, police informant and career criminal Derek MacPhee, was the only one who placed Melvin at the crime scene.
Pat MacEwen, the lawyer for Jimmy Melvin Jr., speaks to reporters Friday following the verdict. (CBC)
Both Crown and defence described MacPhee as an "unsavoury witness." The man is a long-time criminal who also admitted he's lied to police and the courts in the past. MacPhee said he and Marriott sold drugs together.
After the verdict, Melvin hugged his lawyer, Pat MacEwen. He was led away by sheriffs and remains in custody as he is also charged with attempting to murder Marriott in late 2008. He is set to appear in court in that case in September.
Case hinged on informant
Outside the the courtroom, MacEwen told reporters he was not surprised by the verdict.
"We were hopeful that the jury would come to this conclusion," he said. "Obviously it's been a long trial. The jury heard from a number of witnesses. Mr. MacPhee, in particular, I would characterize as an unsavoury witness. The court did so as well.
"At the end of the day I suspect they had a doubt with respect to his testimony and came to the proper decision."
Crown attorney Rick Woodburn said jury made its decision after a long, arduous trial.
"That's the way our system works. You have 12 people who wade through the evidence and come to a verdict," he said. "We only put the evidence before the jury and let them make their decisions."
Crown attorney Rick Woodburn acknowledged the prosecution's key witness, Derek MacPhee, was 'unsavoury.' (CBC)
Woodburn acknowledged the case was a difficult one because of MacPhee's credibility.
"We believed that he was telling the truth when he gave the statement to the police and throughout the trial, we thought the same thing," he said.
The Crown called several witnesses during Melvin's first-degree murder trial.
Only MacPhee — a paid police informant who admitted his involvement in the murder — tied Melvin to the killing. There was no physical evidence connecting Melvin to the crime.
Defence lawyer Pat MacEwen carries a box of files related to the first-degree murder trial. (CBC)
MacPhee told the court he drove Melvin to and from the murder scene. He said they both went there armed with handguns.
MacPhee testified he parked across from the home and heard five loud bangs after Melvin went inside. He said he later returned to the scene and the police were called.
Marriott's blood was found on MacPhee's jeans. Gunshot residue was also found on MacPhee's hands and face. The informant also told the court he washed his clothes after the murder.
MacPhee implicated Melvin in the murder in 2015 after being charged in a violent home invasion in which he faced more time in prison. He was given immunity from prosecution in that case as well as for the murder.
He is currently in witness protection.Networking isn't just about routers and switches anymore. In a series of announcements today made by Networking vendor Juniper Networks (NYSE:JNPR) made a series of announcements today that reflect a revamping of its business around new processing silicon, networking systems and software.
Juniper's new efforts are designed around speeding up networking with a combination of silicon enhanced systems and expanded software. The announcements come on the same day Juniper is being listed on the NYSE, which itself is a Juniper customer. In addition to detailing the new releases during a morning press conference, Juniper execs also took aim at rivals Alcatel-Lucent (NYSE:ALU) and Cisco (NASDAQ:CSCO) on the topic of who provides the best performance.
"We need to get past the thinking that's networking is about a box," Juniper CEO Kevin Johnson said during the morning press conference.
In Johnson's view the new networking equation is all about fostering an open ecosystem and not forcing single box point solutions on users. In order to power the vision of the new network, Johnson noted that it takes processing power in silicon.
To that end, Juniper today announced its new Junos Trio silicon which offers up to 604 Gbps of I/O capacity. Juniper's founder and CTO, Pradeep Sindhu said that with a Junos Trio you could download the entire Library of Congress in one minute.
Sindhu said there are four key chipsets that make up the Junos Trio.
The first chipset is the lookup engine, which has a new instruction set for packet processing. Sindhu said the new engine was 20 times more efficient than the current generation of silicon and that Juniper has 30 patents that chipset.
The second chip in Trio is the memory engine, which has bandwidth capacity of 120 Gbps.
The third chip does fine grain queuing, dividing up bandwidth in a granular way enabling operators to have full quality of service control. The fourth chip on the Trio silicon is the interface engine which provides Ethernet capabilities.
"This quantum jump increase in performance also increases the scale of the systems we can build," Sindhu said. "Packet forwarding is faster, power efficiency is better and latency is better."
Tripling platform capacity
The first Juniper systems that will benefit from the Trio silicon are Juniper's MX series routers. The MX 3D, is a new interface module powered by Junos Trio and triples the capacity of existing platforms. For example Juniper's MX 960 router on its own can deliver 960 Gbps of bandwidth but with the MX 3D it can now deliver 2.6 Terabits per second.
In addition to tripling the power of its existing MX routers, Juniper is also announcing a new smaller router called the MX 80 which provides 80 Gbps in a three and a half inch chassis.
Kim Perdikou, executive vice president at Juniper, said that the new platforms offered more performance capacity than rivals Cisco and Alcatel-Lucent. Just yesterday, Alcatel-Lucent launched its own smaller router platforms while Cisco has been busy this year updating its portfolio as well.
Project Falcon
Juniper is also ramping up its mobile networking effort through its Project Falcon initiative. Perdikou explained that Falcon is all about building a mobile packet core for Juniper's universal edge routers.
As part of it New Network initiative Juniper is also expanding its core Junos operating system. Junos is the core operating platform for nearly all of Juniper's routing and switching gear and is updated ever quarter. Junos Space is a new network application platform and Junos Pulse is a new integrated network client for provisioning and management.
"We're strongly confident that this next decade ahead, the industry must take a different approach," Juniper CEO Kevin Johnson said. "And we challenge everyone in the networking industry to be thoughtful of what value they can bring to the table to help solve problems."NOVEMBER might as well be called the literary month, if only for this year.
Living literary icons Mario Vargas Llosa and Haruki Murakami are reportedly visiting the Philippines this November for a series of lectures, book-signing and a fun-run event, sources told the Inquirer recently.
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Peruvian-Spanish Vargas Llosa, 2010 Nobel Prize for Literature recipient, will be guest of honor in several events to be organized by Instituto Cervantes de Manila, cultural arm of the Spanish Embassy in the Philippines.
“There are no complete details yet in his itinerary except for a lecture forum on Nov. 8 at Instituto Cervantes in Makati,” José Maria Fons, cultural officer of IC Manila, told the Inquirer.
Fons added the Peru-born writer would also have book-signing sessions. One of the venues being considered is a hall or auditorium at De La Salle University in Manila.
The 80-year-old Vargas Llosa will be accompanied by his partner, Filipino-Spanish socialite-model Isabel Preysler.
Vargas Llosa is the author of “Aunt Julia and the Scriptwriter,” “The Storyteller,” “In Praise of the Stepmother,” among other best-selling novels. He has also written stage plays and nonfiction books.
After taking a Spanish citizenship, he was awarded the prestigious Miguel de Cervantes prize in 1994.
Better start running now
Japanese novelist Murakami’s visit is still in the works, said a source from the Japan Foundation Manila.
The source said the 67-year-old writer would have book-signing events. Murakami’s novels “Norwegian Wood,” “A Wild Sheep Chase,” “The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle,” “Kafka On The Shore,” among others, have been translated into more than 50 languages.
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No exact date yet, but our source said Murakami’s visit could be within the last week of November.
“There are still negotiations being made by my Japanese bosses with Murakami’s representatives but if he agrees, the highlight of his visit will be a fun-run event with him,” the source said. Murakami is a well-known running enthusiast, having participated in major marathon events worldwide.
Our source said part of the plan is to give a complete collection of Murakami’s books, all signed by him, as a major prize for the sole winner in the fun run. “It’s not going to be a long-distance marathon, probably up to 5 kilometers or even less,” our source said.
For security reasons, the tentatively titled “Murakami Marathon” will be held in a well-guarded, gated venue. One of those being considered is the track-and-field oval of a Metro Manila university.
“So if you want to meet him and you’re not a runner, better get into running now,” the source said.
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MOST READPresident Donald Trump's willingness to sign executive orders have rattled some on Capitol Hill, who believe governing should be done via legislation not executive fiat. | Getty White House Trump team weighing orders on Guantanamo, cutting government President Donald Trump’s administration has slowed down on executive actions after a frenetic start, leaving GOP allies wonder which ones will move and which are doomed.
Dozens of draft executive actions are now stalled at the White House after President Donald Trump's administration slowed its initial use of unilateral power, leaving allies, think-tanks and lawmakers guessing about what the administration will do next.
One such draft executive order deals with Guantanamo Bay, the controversial prisoner facility on a U.S. military base in Cuba that former President Barack Obama attempted to close entirely. The order sitting with Trump’s White House would keep the base in use, suspend the release of current detainees and leave open the possibility of keeping new prisoners there, though officials familiar with the order say there is no specific prescription on what to do with future prisoners. The draft calls the camp "legal and humane," one senior government official said.
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A draft of a different executive order calls for federal government agencies to submit a plan within three months to merge functions, cut costs and try to improve the "effectiveness, efficiency, and accountability of their respective agencies," according to a senior government official. The plans would need to be approved within 180 days and are intended to drive a sharp reduction in government spending.
Another action dealing with cybersecurity stretches more than 2,200 words but has been idling at the White House for more than a week, puzzling allies and aides. POLITICO Pro reported Tuesday that the order is expected to finally get Trump's signature sometime this week.
Aides are also working on yet another executive order to "fight crime," according to a senior administration official, "particularly in the country's cities."
But the fate of the draft executive actions remains in doubt. Trump's team has made a willful move to slow down executive orders after facing criticism for a flurry of ones that were not vetted by Cabinet officials or lawyers, particularly the travel ban that sparked widespread protests across the United States and court losses for the administration.
Several people involved in the current process say the administration wants to be more careful and felt stung by the criticism, even if their signing was cheered by Trump’s supporters. Chief of Staff Reince Priebus has lately gotten far more involved in the process, one person familiar with it said. He has implemented a multi-step process to approving the orders, according to a White House official.
The White House official cautioned no order was finalized until the president signed it and declined to comment on the individual proposals.
And amid the stall, a shadowy Washington guessing game has broken out, with allies, think-tanks and Congressional members trying to figure out which actions are coming soon, which are on the horizons and which are no longer slated to move at all.
Officials say they at one point had 200 such drafts written, but it’s unclear how many are still in play.
The orders were written by outside groups, transition officials and landing teams at agencies. As some drafts have leaked out, including one to restore "black site prisons," administration officials have said the documents weren't final — and they’ve backed away from them, pleasing allies and critics alike.
"There's no way you could keep that pace up day in and day out, week in and week out, month in and month out," said Rep. Chris Collins, a New York Republican.
Trump's willingness to sign executive orders have rattled some on Capitol Hill, who believe governing should be done via legislation not executive fiat and railed against Obama’s use of executive authority. And lobbyists say they are frustrated with some of the executive orders because they are vague, and could be reversed by the next president, overturned by a judge, or contrast with existing federal law.
"They thought, maybe we should roll these out a little better, put these out in a better way," said Trent Lott, the former Senate Majority leader who keeps up with some of Trump's aides. "The first two weeks kind of took everyone's breath away."
Yet administration officials and allies say he will continue signing the orders, though there is no specific timetable. "We are going to be busy," one senior administration official said. "Trump doesn't really like to sit back and wait for anyone."
And as outsiders speculate, White House officials continue to weigh dozens of potential actions to further Trump’s agenda and roll back the work of the previous president.
There are drafts of an executive order to "stabilize the health insurance market," as several government officials described it, as they move to repeal and replace the Affordable Care Act. Collins and others said that was necessary amid the change in the law, with insurers begging for clarity amid uncertainty over the future of the Affordable Care Act. That order is expected to be signed once Tom Price is confirmed as the health and human services secretary, several people involved in the process said.
"I think you'll see action in the next 60 days," Collins said of the health insurance market.
There is an executive order to require more products to be "made in America," though it remains unclear exactly what that would entail. "They want to keep pushing the ‘America First’ platform," one person told about the order said.
Officials at the Environmental Protection Agency have told outside groups they plan to implement executive orders to roll back environmental regulations. "They've told us they really want to get rid of a lot of these regulations by order," one person who spoke to a senior Trump EPA official said. "There is going to be environmental action by executive order."
Officials at conservative think-tanks say they expect executive orders to roll back more financial regulations.
And while Trump has repeatedly vowed to investigate voter fraud, an executive order beginning that investigation has floundered, with some aides and advisers hoping he will move on from the topic entirely.
Conversations with people familiar with some of the executive orders show a new administration committed to reducing the size of government but not exactly sure on the details. In the executive order on reducing functions, agencies are asked to study whether it makes sense to move some functions to state or local governments, or close entire bureaus of the federal government. But the order does not specify exactly how much agencies should cut spending, or whether the president would be open to closing entire agencies.
Ultimately, many conservative groups are counting on Republicans’ complete control of Congress, as well as the White House, to usher in broader changes that are harder to undo — particularly as they watch first-hand how a president can roll back his predecessor’s work with the stroke of a pen.
"The executive orders are nice, and they can do some things with executive orders,” said Norbert Michel, who studies regulations at the conservative Heritage Foundation. “But you have to have something done in Congress."Lindy Lumsden/IUCN
The Christmas Island pipistrelle, a bat species found only on an Australian island, has been declared extinct. The final nail in the coffin was hammered in as part of the latest update to the Red List of Threatened Species, which is maintained by the International Union for Conservation of Nature.
“It’s very difficult to decide when a species definitely has gone extinct,” says Craig Hilton-Taylor, head of the IUCN’s Red List unit.
But the last Christmas Island pipistrelle was seen in 2009. “It’s not a cryptic species, it’s got a distinctive call,” says Hilton-Taylor. “We probably could have declared it extinct earlier, but we’ve been waiting for surveys.”
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The Thongaree’s disc-nosed bat, a newly-discovered species that lives in a small region of Thailand, entered the list as critically endangered – just one step from going extinct. “If we’d known about it earlier, it would have moved through the categories. That’s just what happened unseen until now,” says Hilton-Taylor.
The new list isn’t all bad news for bats. The Rodrigues flying fox moves from critically endangered to endangered. Hilton-Taylor says that’s due to coordinated actions by the government and local organisations, including legal protection and habitat restoration.
Anti-antelope actions
The outlook isn’t so bright for five species of African antelope. The world’s largest antelope, the giant eland, is considered vulnerable, with a global population of 14,000 at most. Meanwhile the southern lechwe and grey rhebok are near threatened, and the mountain reedbuck and Heuglin’s gazelle are in the endangered category.
Much of their decline is due to human expansion into their habitat, as well as illegal poaching for bushmeat. “There is a strong economic side to this,” says Hilton-Taylor. “A lot of people in Africa don’t have access to good reliable food sources and bushmeat is an easy path to income and food.”
Droughts associated with climate change may also be leading ranchers to graze their livestock further into antelope territory.
Deforestation has had a devastating effect on invertebrates in Madagascar. The Rumpelstiltskin pygmy grasshopper, a flightless species only known to inhabit one forest, is critically endangered. Almost 40 per cent of Madagascar’s pygmy grasshoppers are threatened with extinction. Habitat loss has also put the shiny giant pill millipede, which lives in a coastal rainforest in Saint Luce, in the critically endangered category.
“Habitat loss is one of the most invasive threats across all the species,” Hilton-Taylor says. “It doesn’t matter if you’re on continents or islands.”
For the North American ash tree, that’s not the issue. An invasive beetle called the emerald ash borer, introduced to the US and Canada in the late 1990s, has been foraging its way through forests across the continent and leaving death in its wake.
Five of the six most widespread ash tree species are now critically endangered.
“They could well go extinct in the next 100 years if the beetle has its way,” Hilton-Taylor says.
On the bright side the snow leopard, which was previously endangered, is now listed as vulnerable, thanks in part to efforts to reduce poaching.To go with our 2016 NFL predictions, FiveThirtyEight is previewing each division.
The NFL is back, and we’re booting up our Elo ratings again in preparation for the 2016 season. For those new to Elo, it’s a power rating that tries to estimate each team’s strength at any given moment, based on who it beats (or loses to) and by how much. The ratings can also be used to simulate the season thousands of times, which allows us to estimate how likely each team is to win its division or the Super Bowl and can give us a sense of which teams play the toughest schedules.
One drawback to Elo is that its preseason ratings are simply each team’s number from the end of last season reverted to the mean. So to flag teams whose Elo ratings might need some mental adjustments from last year, we’re also looking at a composite ranking of three well-regarded offseason grades.
Here, we take a look at the NFC South, home of the defending conference champion Carolina Panthers … and some other teams.
After losing the Super Bowl to the Denver Broncos, the Carolina Panthers dropped from first in Elo to third, directly behind the rival Seattle Seahawks (whom Carolina blew out 31-24 — in the most lopsided one-score game of the playoffs — en route to the big game). The Panthers had a mixed offseason, bringing back defensive end Charles Johnson but also losing All-Pro cornerback Josh Norman after rescinding his franchise tag. Even so, Elo considers Carolina to be far and away the most talented team in the NFC South, a mantle the team will likely carry throughout the season.
In a division that was once infamous for its turnover — no team repeated as champ in the division’s first 12 years of existence — the Panthers have a 66 percent chance of winning the South for a fourth consecutive season. The biggest question for Carolina will be whether a defense that ranked as the NFL’s second-best last season (trailing only the historically great Broncos) can continue to dominate without Norman. But last year’s breakout season from quarterback Cam Newton and the Panther offense makes Carolina a safer division choice than if the team were relying on its defense alone.
Behind the Panthers, Elo considers the Atlanta Falcons and New Orleans Saints to be near-equals, although both teams are long shots to wrest the division away from Carolina. The Falcons improved to 8-8 last season, but they’ll have to contend with one of the NFL’s toughest schedules this year, with trips to Denver and Seattle among their most daunting non-division matchups. Atlanta posted a below-average Defense-adjusted Value Over Average (DVOA) in each phase of the game last season; Matt Ryan will probably have to rediscover his Pro Bowl form if the Falcons hope to have their first winning season since 2012.
The Saints, meanwhile, have been trending in the wrong direction, with a point differential that has fallen from +110 in 2013 to -23 in 2014 and -68 last season. They still have legendary quarterback Drew Brees (despite our editor-in-chief’s suggestion that the two break up), but even he wasn’t able to overcome what was the NFL’s worst defense and seventh-worst special teams corps last season. The quarterbacks most similar to Brees (Brett Favre, Peyton Manning and Warren Moon) had a decent amount of production left in the tank at Brees’s age, but after the Saints spent an offseason shoring up cap space rather than getting better on defense, it’s doubtful things will be very different in the Big Easy this season.
Bringing up the rear of the South are the Tampa Bay Buccaneers. The Bucs were one of the youngest teams in the league last season (weighted by the Approximate Value of each player on the roster), and QB Jameis Winston had a solid rookie season from which the franchise may be able to build a foundation. The team’s offseason contained just enough positives to make for an intriguing worst-to-first sleeper pick. But Tampa Bay probably isn’t ready to contend for the division yet, particularly because the Bucs, under new coach Dirk Koetter, are facing the NFL’s fifth-most-difficult schedule.
That leaves the Panthers as commanding favorites in this division. They almost certainly won’t repeat last year’s 15-1 record, but Newton and company are at the top of the NFC South class and might use that perch as a springboard for another deep playoff run.
VIDEO: How one spurned Rams fan found a new teamThere are TWO promises I can count on from Oregon games these days. The first is Chip Kelly throwing one or two new strategies/plays into a game which makes our study of the evolving Oregon offense so satisfying. The second promise is that one of the Consultants I turn to for help will come up with astute observations every time. This time it was Josh Schlichter again who noted the ‘Tiny TE” strategy before I did, while the other components of Chip’s Game Plan will be covered in upcoming reports from the Grizzled Ole’ Coach, while Coach Goodbody in Colorado will offer some defensive expertise. The analysis team at FishDuck.com is growing and we hope our input continues to help Oregon fans enjoy these wonderful beloved Ducks of ours!
We line up in the Triple Option formation above with the “Beast in the Backfield,” Colt Lyerla, lined up on the left side. As you recall from prior reports we use him extensively for many purposes in this formation, even as a Running Back.
We have a “Cross-Buck” action taking place (above) as Barner is going left, and Lyerla is going right to smash #7 for Cal with his usual devastating block. For many coaches a “Buck” is a Tight End in the shotgun, or lined up as a H-Back. What about when we run the TE one direction and the RB another? It makes sense to call it the “Cross-Buck” action, as it gives our RBs more gaps to run to. It is the same as having a Fullback in the backfield as discussed before.
Kenjon (above) steps over the remains of the collision between Colt and the Bear Outside Linebacker and moves into the secondary! The Cross-Buck has been around at Oregon from as early as two years ago, but we’ve never had an explosion athlete like Lyerla lowering the boom like this. It is a good strategy for his skills and our needs in our running game.
We are near the goal line (above) when we line up and begin again the “Cross-Buck” action with Colt going right and Kenjon going left.
The Cal defender (above, #7 again) is bracing for another blasting block by Colt, when instead you see the white blur next to him racing past. Lyerla is taking off on a pass pattern and the OLB knows he can’t possibly catch up after being caught flat-footed and is having an “Oh Crap” moment! It is another example of how it is so hard to prepare for all the aspects of the Chip Kelly Offense.
Too late for Cal, as the defenders above cannot recover to stop the pass or make the tackle as Colt cruises into the end zone from a pass play variation of the “Cross-Buck” action in the backfield. If you don’t come up to take on the block as a defender…then Colt will create a lane for the RB with your carcass. Yet what if you come up hard to defeat the block and Lyerla runs past you? You are in trouble, either way. We love it!
Now what in the world is this? We see Josh Huff lined up at TE above? What is a little guy doing playing Tight End? (Huff is taller than me but little by TE standards) You see Colt over to the left of the formation as an H-Back, with a WR Stack formation at the top of the screen. Huff went out for a flare pass from that spot, and I assumed that it was to take advantage of a LB covering him to create a match-up in our favor?
Now we have flopped the formation with Lyerla as H-Back (above), the WR Stack (below), and the offensive linemen doing the kick-step classic Outside Zone Read blocking to the left. The Grizzled Ole’ Coach explained to me that when we don’t substitute players in, then neither can the defense — and what are they to do when the WR is flanked outside on one play and comes inside then next as a TE? The defense cannot adjust to our change! Who is that Tiny TE taking off?
We see (above) that we did a play action to the left with the OZR action, and Mariota is bootlegging to the right. Lyerla has gone into a short pattern from his H-Back position. Is that who Marcus is going to throw to?
The Tiny TE was Will Murphy (above), who is hauling in the pass from MM in this grainy screenshot. What was amazing is the great throw on the run by Mariota that just led our WR perfectly to keep it from the defenders and make a long third down play! Nice catch from our senior from Albany! He may be small for the TE position, but he has been big with blocks downfield, and now with catching the ball. He pulled in an acrobatic Touchdown later in the game.
I know it is getting routine to most of you, but I still marvel at the tweaks and the adjustments introduced in each game that make it impossible for the opposing team to prepare for. Every week when I study the changes and I say to myself, “I didn’t see that one coming!” It’s evident that our conference foes feel the same way!
“Oh how we love to learn about our beloved Ducks!”
Charles Fischer (FishDuck)
Oregon Football Analyst for FishDuck.com
Eugene, Oregon
Top Photo from VideoIf ordinary plastic bags would rot away like banana peels there’s no doubt a host of environmental problems would be solved, the fate of the turtle above included. And one 11th grader from Canada set out to make that dream come true as part of his school science project. A wildly successful endeavor he figures will make them decompose in just 3 months.
But how did this extraordinary young scientist named Daniel Burd pull it off?
Well, he decided the fact that they do, eventually, decompose after 1,000 years on their own meant there must be something out there causing it, and postulated that it might well be naturally occurring microorganisms behind it.
So he set about with the good old-fashioned scientific method as his guide, searching for the microorganisms, rarely found in nature, that actually do make plastic decompose.
Ultimately, he identified two strains of bacteria that work together to pull it off, with Sphingomonas serving as the primary decomposer with help from Pseudomonas.
And according to Burd, industrial application should be easy, "All you need is a fermenter... your growth medium, your microbes and your plastic bags."
As many folks know, the simplest solutions are usually the ones that work best. And this kid has clearly come up with a potentially world changing idea.
So congrats from all of us here at TreeHugger, where we are inspired by your creativity!
See also:
The TH Interview with America's Top Young Scientist of the Year!
via:The RecordWow. Wolf Blitzer had Ron Paul on for nearly 10 minutes yesterday and abstemiously juridically idiotically avoided the foreign policy issue/Israel/Iran. Meantime, Jonathan Tobin lays down the law at Commentary. The law of the lobby. Notice the emotional baseline at the end: Never again, the Holocaust. This is the neoconservative emotional baseline, and the ultraZionist baseline too, a sincere belief that we are threatened |
his visit to Islam's third-holiest site, the Al-Aqsa Mosque, as "personally moving".[92][93] The group met with Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and discussed the peace plan devised by the Saudis in 2002.[92] The delegation also met with Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas.[94]
The group's visit to Syria was criticized by the Bush administration, which restated its view that the United States should not have diplomatic relations with state sponsors of terrorism. While there the delegation conveyed a message from Olmert to Syrian President Bashar Assad that "Israel is interested in peace if Damascus stops supporting terrorism".[92] In Lebanon the group met with Prime Minister Fouad Siniora and Speaker Nabih Berri. They also visited the grave of Rafik Hariri and met with his son Saad Hariri.[95] In Saudi Arabia, the group spoke to King Abdullah and his Shura Council of advisers.[96] They praised his peace plan and advocated a greater role for women in his nation's political process. Ellison's inclusion in the delegation was praised by council member Abdul-Rahman al-Zamel.[95][96] Ellison called the king a "visionary leader" and that "Even being in the same country where Mecca and Medina are located was personally uplifting for me."[93] Ellison also said he hoped his presence as a Muslim among the delegation conveyed a message to the Israelis and Palestinians that "people can come together. Reconciliation is possible."[91]
Iraq [ edit ]
On July 28 and 29, 2007, Ellison was among an "all-freshman bipartisan congressional delegation" visiting Iraq, arranged by Defense Secretary Robert Gates and led by Rep. Jerry McNerney. Before the trip, Ellison told reporters that he would be stopping over in Germany to visit wounded U.S. soldiers being treated there.[97][98] He also stated that he respected any politician who visited Iraq, making note of Republican Minnesota Governor Tim Pawlenty who went in February 2007, along with five other governors.[97][99] Ellison said, "If this country is going to ask these young people to stand in a war zone, their political leadership should visit them."[97] In Iraq the delegation met with Iraqi and U.S. military officials, including Gen. David Petraeus.[100]
Israel and Palestine [ edit ]
Soon after he returned from Iraq, Ellison and 19 other representatives took a week-long trip to Israel sponsored by the American Israel Education Foundation. House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer led the group and personally invited Ellison to join them for a stay from August 12–18, 2007. The group met with Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas. Ellison's spokesperson told reporters that the trip was "a natural extension of his visit to Iraq" and that "the Middle East peace issue is important to the diverse communities of his Minneapolis-area district — from the Jewish Community Relations Council to the patrons of the Holy Land Middle Eastern eatery on Lake Street and Central Avenue. He hears about it every time he goes back to his district." The group traveled to Jerusalem, Tel Aviv, the northern Galilee region, and Ramallah, and viewed the Israeli border with Lebanon.[101]
During this trip, Ellison stated that Israel did not permit him to travel to Gaza, where a conflict was occurring. In a 2009 interview with reporter Shihab Rattansi, Ellison expressed his disappointment at his inability to see the humanitarian situation for himself. In the same interview, he called for a more open discussion on Gaza, stating: "The people who have a strong sympathy for the Israeli position... dominate the conversation. And it's really not politically safe to say, look, there are two sides to this, and Israel has not been an angel in this, and certainly there have been people on the Palestinian side who have not contributed to a constructive solution."[102]
During the Summer 2014 conflict between Hamas and Israel, Ellison published an editorial in The Washington Post that called for an end to the blockade in Gaza. Citing his three trips to Gaza since 2009, Ellison suggested that empowering Gazans by ending the blockade would weaken extremists and help move towards final status peace.[104]
Gaza and Sderot [ edit ]
On February 19, 2009, Ellison and fellow Representative Brian Baird visited Gaza to view firsthand the destruction from the Gaza War and to meet with international and local relief agencies, including the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East. This visit, which Ellison and Baird say did not have the official sanction of the Obama administration, was the first time any U.S. government official had entered Gaza in more than three years.[105] Ellison had this to say about what he saw:
The stories about the children affected me the most. No parent, or anyone who cares for kids, can remain unmoved by what Brian and I saw here.[106]
The following day, Ellison and Baird visited the Israeli towns of Sderot and Ashkelon, which were the targets of numerous Qassam rocket attacks, repeatedly launched from within the Gaza Strip.[106]
Norway [ edit ]
Ellison visited Norway in January 2008 because of Norway's prominent role in the Israeli-Palestinian peace process, and because of the Norwegian-American heritage of many of his constituents. While there, Ellison met with former Norwegian Prime Minister Kjell Magne Bondevik, then president of the Oslo Center for Peace and Human Rights. The Star Tribune reported that the "trip underscores Ellison's desire to play a role in the international peace movement."[107][108]
Africa [ edit ]
In mid-2008, Ellison joined a U.S. House Democracy Assistance Commission delegation that traveled to six African countries, including Liberia, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Malawi, Mauritania and Kenya. "The people of the 5th Congressional District [his own] know that, in this globalized world, to have peace and security relies on other people having a modicum of peace and security," Ellison said upon returning. He attended a July 4 reception at the U.S. ambassador's residence in Nairobi, Kenya, where Ellison met Sarah Hussein Onyango Obama, the step-grandmother of then-presidential candidate Barack Obama.[109]
Advocacy for American Muslims [ edit ]
With his victory to the United States House of Representatives Ellison became the first Muslim elected to the U.S. Congress and the highest Muslim elected official in the United States, with Congressman André Carson elected in 2008, as the only other Muslim serving in the U.S. Congress.[110] Ellison's election has been seen as inspirational to American Muslims, and he encourages civic empowerment through participation in the political process.[111][112] Ellison generally "downplayed the role of religion in his drive for office,"[113] but he has become active in advocacy for Muslim American civic engagement and civil rights causes on a national level since.[114][115][116][117]
North American Imams Federation [ edit ]
On November 18, 2006, Ellison gave a speech called "Imams and Politics" to the Fourth Annual Body Meeting of the North American Imams Federation. The Federation's materials presented the issues to be outlined in Ellison's speech as follows: "Many Muslims around the United States are involved in political activities at different levels. Recognizing the sensitivity of political issues and the potential for divisiveness within the communities as a result of divergent political views, Imams must be able to provide Muslims with the proper guidance and educate them on the etiquettes of any political involvement within the Islamic context. Questions also arise on whether Imams and Islamic centers should be involved in politics at all and what the extent of this involvement should be, therefore Imams should have the ability to address these concerns. Overall, it is important that Imams are aware and understand the general political climate of their communities and be especially conversant with the issues that affect Muslims." Ellison also took part in "Community Night" with Imam Siraj Wahhaj, and Imam Dr. Omar Shahin. This was "for Imams to meet and interact with community members."[118] Some of the participants of this meeting became involved in the Flying Imams controversy after being removed from an Arizona bound plane for "concerning behavior".[119] Ellison became involved in this controversy shortly after it erupted when he attempted to arrange a meeting between parties including US Airways executives, the Metropolitan Airports Commission, and other legislators and community members.[120]
MOSES interfaith group [ edit ]
On December 27, 2006, Ellison spoke at a meeting in Holy Redeemer Catholic Church in Detroit for Metropolitan Organizing Strategy Enabling Strength (MOSES). The meeting was with leaders from the Catholic, Muslim, and Arab-American communities, along with members of the organized labor movement. He told those in attendance that the principles of Islam guide his life, but he has no intention of imposing his faith on others, "I'm not a religious leader, I've never led religious services of any kind. I'm not here to be a preacher, but in terms of political agenda items, my faith informs me."[121] He addressed the Qur'an Oath controversy of the 110th United States Congress and said that he hoped religion could be a uniting, rather than a dividing force: "They've never actually tried to explore how religion should connect us, they're into how religion divides us.... They haven't really explored... how my faith connects me to you."[121]
Promoting U.S. with the State Department [ edit ]
Ellison with Minnesota Disabled Veterans
Two months after taking office, Ellison met with Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and other top State Department officials to talk about "showcasing his story as part of their public diplomacy efforts in the Muslim world." According to the Star Tribune, Ellison was "profiled three times by the State Department's overseas press bureau." He also "did a Voice of America interview from his office, where an American flag was placed conspicuously behind his desk for the cameras." In the interview which was set to play in the Middle East and South Asia, Ellison stressed global inclusiveness and quoted verse 49:13 of the Qur'an "Oh humanity, We created you from a single pair..." Ellison also accepted the Bush administration's request to be part of a "teleconference with Karen Hughes, the State Department's undersecretary for public diplomacy. The White House has asked that the teleconference promote American values and confront ideological support for terrorism around the world." The Voice of America applauded Ellison's cooperation saying "He is the most famous freshman congressman in the world."[122]
After he took his oath of office he was surrounded by the foreign press, intrigued in part by the oath controversy, who "had to be ushered out of his office after he took his oath to make room for home-state news crews." Ellison has been "featured in a series of articles written for foreign dissemination by the Department's Bureau of International Information Programs." Including an article that was translated into Persian and Arabic that "highlighted the diversity of his constituents in Minnesota, ranging from Swedes and Norwegians to 'the largest Somali immigrant community in America.'" In his work in cooperation with the state department, Ellison stresses the religious freedom available in the U.S., saying things like "religious tolerance has a much longer pedigree in America than some of the intolerance we've seen lately." Even in his work with the State Department he remained critical of President Bush's Iraq policy saying "he wants people around the world to know that 'there are many Americans who want to relate to the rest of the world in terms of cooperation, not military domination.'" Ellison staffers told reporters that "the State Department has shown no signs of squeamishness about publicizing his criticism of the war." When asked about working with elements of the Bush administration Ellison said "Hey, my country first. We can work out our political differences later. I've said I'm willing to do whatever I can to make some friends for America."[122]
Controversies [ edit ]
Interview with Glenn Beck [ edit ]
On November 14, 2006, Glenn Beck of CNN Headline News[123] said to Ellison, "I have been nervous about this interview with you, because what I feel like saying is, 'Sir, prove to me that you are not working with our enemies.' And I know you're not. I'm not accusing you of being an enemy, but that's the way I feel, and I think a lot of Americans will feel that way." Ellison replied that his constituents, "know that I have a deep love and affection for my country. There's no one who's more patriotic than I am, and so you know, I don't need to — need to prove my patriotic stripes."[124]
When asked by Beck for his opinion on Muslim extremists, Ellison replied, "They're criminals. But I think that people who commit criminal acts should be treated like criminals, regardless of their faith."[123] Ellison has also said, "Osama bin Laden no more represents Islam than Timothy McVeigh represented Christianity."[125] Asked about the incident later, Ellison dismissed it, saying, "It's just shock TV. Some pundits think they have to ask the most outrageous questions."[126]
On January 2, 2007, Beck said on his radio program that Ellison did not take offense at the comments and the two had a friendly chat off the air. On January 9, 2007, at the Television Critics Association's semiannual press tour, Beck said it was "Quite possibly the poorest-worded question of all time." He clarified by saying, "My point to Keith Ellison... is the same point that I make to my own faith, and that is — you must stand up before things get out of control... And it's important for people of all faiths, when someone is hijacking their religion, to stand and say, 'That is not what we do. That is not who we are."'[127]
Nation of Islam Membership [ edit ]
As a law student in 1989 and 1990, Ellison wrote several columns under the name "Keith E. Hakim" in the student newspaper, the Minnesota Daily. He defended Louis Farrakhan against claims of racism,[128] and further wrote that Farrakhan "is also not an anti-Semite" and called affirmative action a "sneaky" form of compensation for slavery, suggesting that white Americans instead pay reparations to blacks.[129][130][131][132] Mother Jones reported that, under the name "Keith X Ellison," he wrote defenses of Farrakhan against accusations of anti-semitism after the 1995 Million Man March, and again in 1997.[133]
Although Ellision would later attempt to minimize his involvement with the Nation of Islam, even going so far as claiming he wasn't a member,[25] Minister James Muhammad, a former leader of the Nation of Islam's Twin Cities study group, says that Ellison had served for several years as the group's "chief of protocol", in which capacity he acted as a liaison between Muhammad and local communities.[133]
Denunciation of the Nation of Islam in 2006 [ edit ]
During Ellison's 2006 campaign, Republican blogger Michael Brodkorb[134] unearthed posts about Ellison's Minnesota Daily articles and his involvement with the Nation of Islam. In response, Ellison wrote a letter to the Jewish Community Relations Council of Minnesota & the Dakotas falsely claiming he had never been a member, and that his connections with the Nation of Islam were limited to an 18-month period during which he helped organize the Minnesota contingent at the 1995 Million Man March.[25][130][135] In 2016, CNN referred instead to Ellison's "decade-long involvement in the Nation of Islam".[136] In Ellison's letter, he denounced the Nation of Islam and Farrakhan, writing, "I wrongly dismissed concerns that they [Farrakhan's remarks] were anti-Semitic. They were and are anti-Semitic and I should have come to that conclusion earlier than I did."[137] He explained his previous views, saying that he "did not adequately scrutinize the positions and statements of the Nation of Islam, Louis Farrakhan, and Khalid Muhammed." He also stated, "any kind of discrimination and hate are wrong. This has always been my position". During the 2006 campaign, many prominent Jewish DFL activists supported Ellison, including fundraisers Samuel and Sylvia Kaplan, and State Representative Phyllis Kahn, who said it was "inconceivable that he could have ever been an anti-Semite."[130]
Campaign contributions from members of CAIR [ edit ]
During the 2006 election Nihad Awad, executive director of the Council on American–Islamic Relations (CAIR) and James Yee, the former Muslim chaplain at Guantanamo Bay, spoke at an August 25 fundraiser for Ellison.[130][138] Awad and Ellison knew each other as they attended the University of Minnesota Law School at the same time.[12][139] According to the Minneapolis Star Tribune, Ellison accepted individual contributions from Nihad Awad and another leader of CAIR; Ellison responded that he had fully disclosed all contributions and said that he had "nothing to hide".[140] Ellison stressed that he was supported by individuals, and that the non-profit organization itself did not endorse his candidacy.[141]
His Republican opponent in the race, Alan Fine, criticized Ellison for accepting these contributions, saying that CAIR was "a group that Democrats say has deep ties to terrorism".[142] In response to Ellison's opponents, CAIR leaders Parvez Ahmed and Nihad Awad wrote, "We are proud of our personal donations to Ellison's campaign" and derided any 'guilt by association' arguments.[143]
Campaign finance violations [ edit ]
In early 2006, the Minnesota State Campaign Finance and Public Disclosure Board[144] reprimanded Ellison for unreported campaign contributions, discrepancies in cash balances, and misclassified disbursements during his campaigns for the Minnesota House of Representatives. These transgressions occurred in 2002–04. In 2005, the board opened an investigation, and Ellison was subpoenaed and fined.[145][146]
Ellison was repeatedly fined for late filings,[147] was sued twice by the Attorney General of Minnesota, and was warned about absent or incomplete disclosures.[25][130][148][149]
Reichstag fire and 9/11 [ edit ]
On July 8, 2007, Ellison discussed the power of the executive branch in a speech before the organization Atheists for Human Rights. He stated that Dick Cheney said it was "beneath his dignity in order for him to answer any questions from the citizens of the United States. That is the very definition of totalitarianism, authoritarianism and dictatorship."[150] He went on to say, "It's almost like the Reichstag fire, kind of reminds me of that. After the Reichstag was burned, they blamed the Communists for it and it put the leader of that country, Hitler, in a position where he could basically have authority to do whatever he wanted. The fact is that I'm not saying September 11 was a U.S. plan or anything like that because, you know, that's how they put you in the nut-ball box — dismiss you."[150]
Fox News picked up the story[151] and their commentator John Gibson categorized Ellison's comments as accusing "Bush of planning and executing the 9/11 attacks".[152] In Congress, Representatives Eric Cantor and Zach Wamp wrote House Speaker Nancy Pelosi demanding she "swiftly and immediately" reprimand Ellison for his remarks.[153] The letter said, "Even if Ellison asserts that he was not implying that 9/11 was orchestrated by the administration, the comparison he draws between Hitler and the President of United States is disgraceful. These comments inflame hatred and division at a time when we should be promoting our unity and reconciliation."[153][154] The Anti-Defamation League also stated "Whatever his views may be on the administration's response to 9/11 and the conduct of the war on terrorism, likening it to Hitler's rise to power and Nazism is odious and demeans the victims of 9/11 and the brave American men and women engaged in the war on terror. Furthermore, it demonstrates a profound lack of understanding about the horrors that Hitler and his Nazi regime perpetrated."[153]
When later questioned about his comments, Ellison told a reporter that Osama bin Laden, and not the Bush administration, was responsible for the attacks.[155] Ellison also said, "In the aftermath of a tragedy, space is opened up for governments to take action that they could not have achieved before that." He pointed to the Iraq War and provisions granting greater arrest and surveillance powers within the USA PATRIOT Act as examples.[156] Ellison also said:
In response to a question, I stated that the Bush Administration exploited post-9/11 fears to advance a policy agenda that has undermined our civil liberties. I stand by this statement.... I want to be clear that the murderous Nazi regime is historically distinct and the horror of the Holocaust must be acknowledged as a unique event in human history. I did not intend any direct comparison between the totalitarian state of Nazi Germany and the current administration. I have taken consistent and strong stands against Holocaust denial throughout my life in public service.[153]
Sali remarks [ edit ]
Representative Bill Sali of Idaho drew criticism for his comments in an August 8, 2007, interview with the conservative Christian-based American Family News Network. Sali, an outspoken Evangelical Christian, denounced the Senate leadership for allowing a Hindu to lead the opening prayer, claiming that the non-Christian invocation threatened to endanger America by removing "the protective hand of God."[157]
Former Democratic Idaho Congressman Richard Stallings, among others, demanded that Sali either apologize or resign. In response Sali sent Ellison an email saying he "meant no offense".[158] Ellison was in Iraq with a congressional delegation, but his spokesperson, Micah Clemens, said, "The congressman just doesn't respond to comments like that."[159] A New York Sun editorial wrote that claims that the founders did not anticipate Muslim legislators are incorrect.[160] The specific subject was brought up in several state conventions to ratify the Constitution, including by William Lancaster's opposition to the prospect during North Carolina's 1788 Hillsborough Convention.[160][161]
Personal life [ edit ]
Ellison and his former wife, Kim, a high school mathematics teacher,[162] had four children between 1989 and 1997.[19] Kim Ellison is not Muslim, but the Ellisons' four children were raised in the Muslim faith.[163] During Ellison's 2006 campaign, Kim Ellison revealed that she had been living with moderate multiple sclerosis for several years.[164] Keith Ellison filed for a legal separation from Kim Ellison in 2010,[165] and their divorce was finalized on May 2, 2012.[166] Kim Ellison was elected to the Minneapolis School Board in 2012 as vice-chair and in November 2016 as an at-large member.[167][168] In December 2016, the Ellisons' son Jeremiah announced his candidacy for Minneapolis City Council.[169] In April 2017, he won the DFL endorsement for that race, over the current incumbent, and in November he was elected to the City Council.
In 2006, Ellison faced an allegation that he "pushed, shoved and verbally abused" former girlfriend Amy Alexander.[170] He denied the accusation and alleged harassment by Alexander, saying she had threatened to "destroy" him. A judge granted Ellison's request for a restraining order against Alexander and refused a similar request by Alexander against Ellison.[171] In August 2018, Ellison was accused by ex-girlfriend Karen Monahan and her son of attempting to drag her off a bed while shouting obscenities. Ellison has denied her allegations.[172] An investigation commissioned by the Minnesota Democratic–Farmer–Labor Party concluded that Monahan's accusation was unsubstantiated."[173][174]
Awards [ edit ]
Ellison was chosen by the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee for its Trailblazer Award.[175] He was named an Utne Reader visionary in 2011.[176]
Memoir [ edit ]
Ellison's book, My Country 'Tis of Thee, was published in 2014.[177]
Electoral history [ edit ]
Minnesota House of Representatives
Minnesota House of Representatives - District 58B, 2002[178] Party Candidate Votes % ±
Minnesota House of Representatives - District 58B, 2004[179] Party Candidate Votes % ±
US House of Representatives
Minnesota 5th congressional district election, 2006 Party Candidate Votes % ±
Minnesota 5th congressional district election, 2008 Party Candidate Votes % ±
Minnesota 5th congressional district election, 2010 Party Candidate Votes % ±
Minnesota 5th congressional district election, 2012[180] Party Candidate Votes % ±
Minnesota 5th congressional district election, 2014[181] Party Candidate Votes % ±
Minnesota 5th congressional district election, 2016[182] Party Candidate Votes % ±
Minnesota Attorney General election, 2018 Primary election Party Candidate Votes % DFL Keith Ellison 281,142 49.8 Total votes 564,374 100.0
See also [ edit ]MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif., Sept. 20, 2017 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- The Linley Group today announced an impressive lineup of more than 24 technical talks by industry experts at the 11th Annual Linley Processor Conference taking place October 4-5, 2017, at the Hyatt Regency Hotel in Santa Clara. This unique forum explores the latest advances in processors and IP cores used for accelerating deep learning, automotive, IoT, communications, embedded, server designs, and other new processor technologies.
Featured keynotes include:
Chris Rowen, CEO of Cognite Ventures, will discuss how deep learning is changing the processor industry
Linley Gwennap, Principal Analyst at The Linley Group, will explore how processor innovation supersedes Moore’s Law
The conference showcases the following new technology announcements and disclosures:
NXP will introduce a new QorIQ processor
Qualcomm will reveal new details on their first Centriq processor
SiFive will introduce the new RISC-V U54 Coreplex CPU
NetSpeed will debut a new machine-learning-based design environment
ArterisIP will introduce a new coherency platform technology
Synopsys will share a new automotive safety package for high-end ARC processors
Presenting companies include Synopsys, Arm, AMD, Qualcomm, NetSpeed Systems, ArterisIP, Cadence, Rambus, CEVA, RISC-V, NXP, Micron, Silexica, Mellanox, UltraSoc, Achronix, Intel, Aimotive, IBM, Think Silicon, EEMBC, MCA, and OpenPOWER.
“Applications such as servers, high-speed networking, and deep learning demand increasingly complex processors. To assist in the design of these processors, many companies have stepped up to offer IP cores and tools,” said Linley Gwennap, principal analyst and conference chairperson. “The Linley Processor Conference gathers leading processor and IP vendors to deliver vetted presentations about their newest solutions. These talks, plus keynote speeches and Q&A panels, give attendees the critical information they need to select the best processor technology for their designs.”
Attendees will have an opportunity to visit the sponsor’s exhibits and network with industry leaders during the cocktail reception on Wednesday, October 4 from 5:00 – 6:30 p.m.
The Linley Group offers free admission to pre-qualified registrants who sign up by September 28. For the full conference program and to register, please visit www.linleygroup.com/processor-conference.
About The Linley Group
The Linley Group is the industry's leading source for independent technology analysis of semiconductors for networking, communications, mobile, and data-center applications. The company provides strategic consulting services, in-depth analytical reports, and conferences focused on advanced technologies for chip and system design. The Linley Group also publishes the weekly Microprocessor Report. For insights on recent industry news, subscribe to the company's free email newsletter: Linley Newsletter.Anatoly Zak • September 25, 2017
NASA, international partners consider solar sail for Deep Space Gateway
It sounds like it comes straight from an Arthur C. Clarke story, but an international team of engineers is considering equipping a future human outpost orbiting the Moon with a solar sail. Harnessing the slight pressure of solar radiation, a super-thin reflective film might help steer the Deep Space Gateway, or DSG, which is being designed by five space agencies to succeed the International Space Station.
The solar sail concept was presented last month by the Canadian Space Agency, or CSA, at the latest meeting of ISS partners. The event, specifically dedicated to DSG planning, was held at the European space center, ESTEC, in Noordwijk, Netherlands.
At this point, ISS partners are still debating whether to use the sail for practical purposes on the near-lunar station, or only as an add-on experiment to demonstrate its future potential, including possible use on a Mars-bound spacecraft. One of the declared goals of the DSG is to test technologies which could pave the way to the first human journey to the Red Planet.
It is likely the first time solar sailing technology has been considered for a spacecraft carrying humans. Only Japan's IKAROS, launched with aboard the Venus-bound Akatsuki spacecraft in 2010, has demonstrated controlled flight by light. The Planetary Society's LightSail 2 spacecraft, scheduled to launch next year, would be the second.
Anatoly Zak / RussianSpaceWeb.com Artist's conception of Deep Space Gateway with solar sail A Canadian Space Agency proposal would place a solar sail on the outside of the Deep Space Gateway in lunar orbit. A Canadian Space Agency proposal would place a solar sail on the outside of the Deep Space Gateway in lunar orbit.
According to an internal document presented to the ISS Exploration Capabilities Study Team, Canadian specialists believe a solar sail could play a secondary role in orienting the DSG, saving fuel for traditional rocket thrusters designed to maintain the outpost's position. Under this proposal, the main thrust for the station's maneuvers still comes from electric propulsion and traditional liquid propellant engines.
The baseline concept used for initial calculations calls for a rectangular sail spanning an area of about 50 square meters, deployed on the exterior of the station by a robotic arm. This could reportedly save at least 9 kilograms of hydrazine per year needed to keep the outpost correctly oriented in space. Although a relatively small number, 9 kilograms per year adds up over the station's projected 15-year mission, especially when considering the tremendous cost of delivering cargo to lunar orbit. The station's current design allocates 135 kilograms of hydrazine fuel for counteracting gravitational disturbances, as well as solar radiation pressure exerted on the station's exterior in lunar orbit. At least part of this attitude-control job could be shifted to a solar sail.
When the solar sail is not needed, it could be either folded or hidden behind the station's solar panels relative to the Sun, so that solar radiation no longer presses on its surface.
Besides the rectangular panel, other shapes and designs are also on the table, including discs and umbrella-type structures. One clever concept proposed to attach a foldable sail to a robotic arm, which will bend around its elbow to unfurl the sail like an old-fashioned fan.
The final architecture of the solar sail is important because the design team is hard-pressed to keep the mass of the sail structure to an absolute minimum to justify its effectiveness. Very preliminary estimates show the mass of the solar sail system could be kept between 38 and 52 kilograms.
Potentially, the solar sail could also be used as an extra power-generating array, but the cost-benefit analysis of such a combination is also in the early stages. Engineers will also be challenged to pick the right compromise between the size and mass of the sail; the bigger the sail, the faster it can steer the station, but the larger it gets, the more weight penalties it brings to the whole project.
NASA Orion approaches the Lunar Orbital Platform-Gateway NASA's Orion spacecraft approaches the Lunar Orbital Platform-Gateway in lunar orbit. NASA's Orion spacecraft approaches the Lunar Orbital Platform-Gateway in lunar orbit.
To keep the mass of the sail to a minimum, engineers considered Dupont's polyamide film, which measures just 7 to 25 micrometers thick.
Before its journey to the vicinity of the Moon, a prototype of the sail could be brought to the ISS to test its deployment mechanism and operations.
The Canadian Space Agency has yet to provide any public information on the solar sail concept for the near-lunar station, but in March, the agency announced Canada is "exploring how to contribute to the exciting new opportunities that will ensue as humanity takes its next steps into the solar system."
In another press release August 18, the CSA announced it had award a $2.75 million contract to the aerospace company MacDonald, Dettwiler and Associates, perhaps best known for the country's Canadarm systems. The official goal of the contract was to identify the requirements to build a deep-space exploration robotics system, which could be used to operate and maintain a future space station near the Moon. "This early-stage analysis will contribute to a better understanding of the technologies and equipment needed to support future international missions beyond the International Space Station," the announcement said.
According to a NASA source, the solar sailing concept will need further analysis, but is already being seen as promising and considered to be a good candidate at least as a demonstrator aboard the DSG, if not a fully operational system.
The construction of the Deep-Space Gateway is expected to begin in the first half of the 2020s with the help of NASA's SLS rocket and Orion spacecraft. The near-lunar outpost will be the main destination for the Orion during the next decade, promising to give NASA and its partner agencies enough experience for human missions beyond the Moon and, possibly, to Mars in the 2030s.Antoine Yver, MD Antoine Yver, MD
Doi T, Iwata H, Tsurutani J, et al. Single agent activity of DS-8201a, a HER2-targeting antibody-drug conjugate, in heavily pretreated HER2 expressing solid tumors. J Clin Oncol 35, 2017 (suppl; abstr 108).
The investigational HER2-targeting antibody-drug conjugate DS-8201 has received an FDA breakthrough therapy designation for the treatment of patients with HER2-positive, locally advanced, or metastatic breast cancer who have been treated with trastuzumab (Herceptin) and pertuzumab (Perjeta) and have disease progression after ado-trastuzumab emtansine (T-DM1; Kadcyla).According to the manufacturer of DS-8201, Daiichi Sankyo, the antibody-drug conjugate is composed of a humanized HER2 antibody attached to a novel topoisomerase I inhibitor (DXd) payload by a tetrapeptide linker.“The breakthrough therapy designation for DS-8201 in HER2-positive metastatic breast cancer acknowledges the unmet medical need these patients face when currently approved treatments no longer control their disease,” Antoine Yver, MD, MSc, executive vice president and global head, Oncology Research and Development, Daiichi Sankyo, said in a statement.The FDA awarded the breakthrough designation based on an ongoing, dose escalation/expansion phase I study, preliminary data from which were presented at the 2017 ASCO Annual Meeting by Toshihiko Doi, MD, PhD, of Japan’s National Cancer Center Hospital East.“In preliminary results in the first-in-human phase I trial, DS-8201 demonstrated promising antitumor activity and a favorable safety profile,” Doi said in his presentation at ASCO.In part 1 of the study, investigators used a modified continuous reassessment method to identify the expansion dose in patients with breast or gastric cancer. Part 2 was designed to evaluate the safety and efficacy in 4 expansion cohorts: HER2-positive breast cancer previously treated with T-DM1, HER2-positive gastric cancer treated with trastuzumab, low-HER2–expressing breast cancer, and other HER2-expressing solid tumors.Twenty-four patients were included in part 1 and 65 patients with breast, gastric, colorectal, salivary, and non–small cell lung cancer participated in part 2. The median number of prior therapies was 4.Doi et al administered DS-8201 at doses from 0.8 mg/kg to 8.0 mg/kg in Part 1. Doses of 6.4 mg/kg and 5.4 mg/kg every 3 weeks were chosen for Part 2. There was no dose-limiting toxicity, and maximum-tolerated dose was not reached in Part 1.In patients with breast cancer, the overall response rate (ORR) in patients receiving the Part 2 doses was 42.2% and the disease control rate was 97.8%. Among patients with prior T-DM1, the ORR was 45.7% and the DCR was 100%, and in those with prior T-DM1 plus pertuzumab, the corresponding rates were 46.7% and 100%, respectively.The median progression-free survival for patients with breast cancer was 45.4 weeks (95% CI, 32.1 – not reached).Doi said that more than 90% of patients with breast cancer remain on-study. Eleven patients have discontinued, including 6 due to progressive disease and 3 due to AEs.Among all patients receiving the Part 2 doses, 43.6% experienced grade 3/4 treatment-emergent adverse events (AEs), but investigators did not observe any dose-limiting toxicities or cardiac toxicity. The most common grade 3 AEs (≥5%) were anemia (14.3%), decreased neutrophil count (12.0%), decreased white blood cell count (9.0%), and decreased platelet count (8.3%). Grade 4 AEs included decreased platelet count (3.8%), decreased neutrophil count (3%), anemia (1.5%), and decrease white blood cell count (1.5%).Breakthrough therapy designation is designed to expedite the development and review of medicines that may demonstrate substantial benefit over currently available treatments in order to ensure that patients with serious diseases have access to new treatments as soon as possible.Daiichi Sankyo has initiated the pivotal phase II DESTINY-Breast01 study evaluating the safety and efficacy of DS-8201 in patients with HER2-positive unresectable and/or metastatic breast cancer resistant or refractory to T-DM1.Despite the fact that I've been using Windows 8 for the past three weeks, I somehow managed to overlook a rather stark feature in the OS: ads. No, we're not talking about ads cluttering up the desktop or login screen (thankfully), but rather ads that can be found inside of some Modern UI apps that Windows ships with. That includes Finance, Weather, Travel, News and so forth. Is it a problem |
be different from Eric Holder—the most partisan attorney general our nation has ever seen—she could identify no meaningful way she would differ from him.
When asked whether she would defend President Obama’s illegal executive amnesty—which Obama himself acknowledged, 22 times, he had no authority to undertake and which a federal court has just enjoined as unlawful—she responded affirmatively, saying that she thought the Administration’s contrived legal justification was “reasonable.”
When asked the limits of “prosecutorial discretion,” the dubious theory President Obama has put forth to justify his executive amnesty, she could give none.
When asked if it would allow the President to extend amnesty to all 12 million people here illegally … she refused to answer.
When asked who has “more right to a job,” a U.S. citizen or a person here illegally, she responded, “I believe that the right and the obligation to work is one that’s shared by everyone in this country, regardless of how they came here.”
When asked if a subsequent President could use “prosecutorial discretion” to order the Treasury Secretary to no longer collect any income taxes above 25 percent … she refused to answer.
When asked if a subsequent President could use the same theory to exempt the State of Texas from every single federal labor law and environmental law … she refused to answer.
These are extreme, radical positions.
When asked if she agreed with the Holder Justice Department’s view (rejected unanimously by the U.S. Supreme Court) that the government could place a GPS sensor on the car of every American, without probable cause … she refused to answer.
When asked if she agreed with the Holder Justice Department’s view (also rejected unanimously by the U.S. Supreme Court) that the First Amendment gives no protection whatsoever to a church’s or synagogue’s choice of pastor or rabbi … she refused to answer.
When asked at her hearing if she believed the federal government could employ a drone to kill a U.S. citizen on U.S. soil, if that citizen posed no imminent threat … she refused to answer.
And when asked if she would be willing to appoint a special prosecutor to investigate the IRS’s targeting of citizens for their political views—a prosecutor who was not a major Obama donor, as is the current lawyer leading the “investigation” … she refused to answer.
This is breathtaking—and brazen.
No senator who takes his or her oath of office seriously should vote to confirm such a nominee.
And Senate Republicans have all the authority we need to reject this nomination.
Two paths are available: First, if every Senate Republican on the Judiciary Committee votes no, the nominee will be rejected. Alas, to date, two Republicans have said publicly they will vote yes, and a third has strongly suggested he will as well.
Second, regardless of where the committee votes might be, Republican Leadership could simply decide not to report the nomination to the floor. If Leadership did so, the nomination would be rejected—and there is no procedural mechanism for Democrats to change the outcome.
Unfortunately, Leadership is loath to do so. It would somehow be “unfriendly” to do so. Nonsense. We should, of course, always be respectful. But there is a reason the Senate is given constitutional authority over “advice and consent.” We were not elected to be a “fraternal order,” as Reagan famously put it. Rather, we were elected to defend the Constitution.
Some argue that rejecting Ms. Lynch’s nomination would just keep Eric Holder in office. It is true that Holder has abused the office, turning a Department of Justice that had built a long bipartisan tradition of impartially enforcing the law into effectively a partisan arm of the Democratic Party. And he has repeatedly ignored the law and the Constitution, so much so that he is the only attorney general in history to be held in contempt of Congress.
But Holder’s lawless behavior occurred after he was confirmed. It is altogether different for the Senate to confirm a nominee who tells us ahead of time she will ignore the law. If the Senate does so, we are complicit in the lawlessness.
Senate Republicans have the power to stop this nomination. And we have a choice. We can honor our oaths to the Constitution—we can defend liberty and the rule of law—or we can confirm an attorney general who has candidly admitted she will impose no limits on the President whatsoever.1. Your forearm and your foot are the same length. Try measuring the length of your forearm (from the crook of your elbow to your wrist) and compare it with the length of your foot. You'll be surprised that they are the same length.
2. Our eyes see images upside down. The physics of light refraction causes the upside down impression on our retina. However, these sensory images travel through the optic nerve into the brain and flip the image to its actual upright position. The first time I learned about this, I had this crazy idea that the world is really upside down.
Try measuring the length of your forearm (from the crook of your elbow to your wrist) and compare it with the length of your foot. You'll be surprised that they are the same length.The physics of light refraction causes the upside down impression on our retina. However, these sensory images travel through the optic nerve into the brain and flip the image to its actual upright position. The first time I learned about this, I had this crazy idea that the world is really upside down.
These facial depressions, visible when a person smiles, adds to a person's attractiveness. However, dimples are actually an anatomical defect, caused by shortened facial muscles that cause the depression ("dimple") when a person smiles.
4. We have our own unique tongue prints. Just like fingerprints, we have our own unique tongue print. From now on, I would refrain from sticking my tongue out to protect my identity.
More often than not, the length of our wingspan is equal to our height. There may be an inch or two difference but this is still an amazing discovery.
Babies have poor vision at birth because their sense of sight is still in its developmental stage. At six months, they have clear vision at a distance of 12 inches. Their visual acuity reaches 20/20 at eight months.
7. We were born with about 300 bones in our body, and as we grow into adults, we will only have 206. We have more bones at birth than we have during our adult years. When we are born the bones in our head are not yet fused to enable us to traverse the birth canal. The bones in our wrists and ankles are the same. Complete fusion of the bones in the head are achieved at age 2, while the bones in the wrists and ankles are stable and completely fused at age 17.
9. Of the 5 senses, the only one that does not totally dim out during sleep is the sense of hearing. Our ears continue to receive sound waves during sleep, however, we do not "hear" these sounds because the brain does not process it during certain sleep phases.
Our ears continue to receive sound waves during sleep, however, we do not "hear" these sounds because the brain does not process it during certain sleep phases.
10. In a normal anatomical position, our true waist is on the same transverse line with the crook of our elbow. Waistlines are usually measured around the "narrowest" part of the body. However, this would be difficult for individuals who do not have an hour-glass figure. A better way is to use this method.
There are amazing things about the human body that are worthy of the "Wow! I didn't know that!" reaction. Here are some of the few:We need to maintain this amount of hydration for our bodies to function properly down to the cellular level. Once we lose 1% of our total body water, we start to have the sensation of thirstiness.Are there any other body facts you can add to this list? Share in the comments below.You have a story that you want to tell, don’t you. I’ve got a crazy idea…
Let’s all tell stories TOGETHER.
Out on the Wire is not like other podcasts you’ve heard. It’s got a beginning, a middle, and an end, just like the stories you love and want to be writing. It’s an HBO miniseries mashed up with a MOOC and a writing memoir. You can simply listen to me work through the stages of writing something, or you can create your own story right along with me.
Be inspired, and master the tools to put that inspiration to work.
Every episode of the Out on the Wire podcast is packed full of insight from the best in narrative nonfiction radio, comics, and writing, and every episode ends with a challenge that will get you developing and even completing a narrative project over the course of the podcast.
Let’s make great stories.
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Out on the Wire was a limited series, but we have TONS of great stuff in the show notes, and when they hit your inbox, you can pretend that the show is coming out live!
PLUS! Excerpt from Out on the Wire (the book), and more story tools in your email!FILE - This March 2, 2007 file photo shows a charter bus carrying the Bluffton University baseball team from Ohio after it plunged off a highway ramp early in Atlanta and slammed into the I-75 pavement below. Safety advocates compare the buses to commercial airlines, which have even fewer deaths and injuries but still require passengers to buckle up. Many buses seat more than 50 passengers, about as many as a regional airliner. And the nation’s fleet of 29,000 commercial buses transports over 700 million passengers a year, roughly equivalent to the U.S. airline industry. Commercial bus operators fought seat belts for decades, but opposition began to weaken after this 2007 crash in which a bus carrying Ohio’s Bluffton University baseball team plummeted off a highway overpass near Atlanta. Five players, the bus driver and his wife were killed. Twenty-eight others were injured, including some students who are still trying to put their lives back together seven years later, said John Betts of Bryan, Ohio, whose son, David, was among those killed. (AP Photo/Gene Blythe, File)
WASHINGTON (AP) — After a drunken driver on a California highway back in 1968 slammed into a bus carrying passengers to Las Vegas, killing 19, investigators said a lack of seat belts contributed to the high death toll. But 45 years later, safety advocates are still waiting for the government to act on seat belts and other measures to protect bus passengers.
Over the years, the National Transportation Safety Board has repeated its call for seat belts or some other means to keep passengers in their seats during crashes involving the large buses used for tours, charters and intercity passenger service. About half of all such motorcoach fatalities are the result of rollovers, and about 70 percent of those killed in rollover accidents were ejected from the bus.
The board has also repeatedly recommended stronger windows that don't pop out from the force of a collision and help keep passengers from being ejected, and roofs that withstand crushing. Those recommendations are nearly as old as the seat belt recommendation. No requirements have been put in place, even though all have long been standard safety features in cars.
Hundreds of motorcoach passengers have died and even more have been injured, many severely, since the board made its initial recommendations. Victims have included college baseball players in Atlanta, Vietnamese churchgoers in Texas, skiers in Utah, gamblers returning to New York's Chinatown, and members of a high school girls' soccer team en route to a playoff match.
"In 1998, my father was launched like a missile (out) a bus window and landed on his head on pavement. He is now permanently brain damaged and cannot even take care of himself," one woman wrote regulators, urging them to act. "This issue has been around for decades and it needs to change, NOW, before more people die or are severely injured like my father."
In 2009, the safety board said government inaction was partly responsible for the severity of injuries in a rollover crash near Mexican Hat, Utah, which killed 9 skiers and injured 43. Then-Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood promised the department would act to improve motorcoach safety, including requiring seat belts. Last year, when that still hadn't happened, Congress wrapped bus safety improvements into a larger transportation bill, which was signed into law. Regulations requiring seat belts on new buses were due in September, but are still under review by the White House Office of Management and Budget.
Other regulations on windows and roofs are due by Sept. 30, 2014, but safety advocates said they doubt the government will meet that deadline since it is less than a year away and regulations haven't even been proposed, let alone made final.
A spokeswoman for the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration didn't reply to an Associated Press request for an explanation of the holdup.
"Consumers have come to expect seatbelts in all motor vehicles; the regulator needs to get with the program and establish requirements that are long overdue. This is a simple issue: restraints save lives," NTSB Chairman Deborah Hersman told The Associated Press.
The delays are "unacceptable," said Sen. Sherrod Brown, D-Ohio, co-author of the bus safety provisions. He noted "safety measures like seatbelts are neither exotic nor complicated, and they are not new."
Motorcoaches typically cost between $350,000 and $500,000, according to the American Bus Association. Seat belts would add about $13,000 to the price of a new bus.
Safety advocates compare the buses to commercial airlines, which have even fewer deaths and injuries but still require passengers to buckle up. The nation's fleet of 29,000 commercial buses transports over 700 million passengers a year, roughly equivalent to the U.S. airline industry.
"These motorcoaches carry over 50 people. This is the over-the-road regional airline for some people," said Jackie Gillan, president of the Advocates for Highway and Auto Safety.
So far this year, 23 people have been killed and 329 injured in crashes, according to the organization's unofficial tally.
Seat belts have been required on motorcoaches in Europe and Australia since the 1990s.
Commercial bus operators fought seat belts for decades, but opposition began to weaken after a high-profile accident in 2007 in which a bus carrying Ohio's Bluffton University baseball team plummeted off a highway overpass near Atlanta. Five players, the bus driver and his wife were killed. Twenty-eight others were injured, including some students who are still trying to put their lives back together seven years later, said John Betts of Bryan, Ohio, whose son, David, was among those killed.News » Mexican President Bemoans U.S. Drug Policy Hypocrisy
Meixcan President Felipe Calderon says that Proposition 19, U.S. national drug policy, and the way the U.S. government is handling the War on Drugs in Mexico shows hypocrisy. The U.S. accounts for most of the demand for illegal drugs moved and sold by the drug cartels in Mexico which the U.S., at the same time, urges the Mexicans to crack down on.
“For me, it reflects a terrible inconsistency in government policies in the United States,” said Calderon to the Associated Press. Calderon believes that legalizing marijuana will lead to more consumption.
Of course, the debate is whether legalizing marijuana in California would increase or decrease the violent operations of the drug cartels in Mexico. The answer to that question depends on who you ask.
[source Washington Independent]
Tags: California, legalization, MexicoIn September 2015 we made our extensive archive of LIDAR digital elevation models (DTM – digital terrain models; and DSM – digital surface models) covering over three quarters of England, available as open data. Since then, businesses, local communities and individuals have taken full advantage of the data, using it for all sorts of projects including finding ‘lost’ Roman roads, identifying field boundaries for land management, and determining ideal rooftop locations for solar panel placement.
But, that’s not the end for LIDAR. Now, we’re releasing the raw point cloud data that underpins our elevation models.
When our aircraft fly over the landscape carrying out a survey, the LIDAR system collects hundreds of millions – sometimes even billions – of point heights measured by bouncing a laser off the landscape below. This three-dimensional collection of points is known as a ‘point cloud’.
The point cloud is used to generate the height models that the Environment Agency uses for flood risk modelling and coastal mapping. As well as the height values, much of our point cloud data contains a wealth of additional information, known as ‘attributes’, which are determined by how much laser light is reflected off objects, how the shape of the pulse changes upon reflection, and so forth. This information provides a rich source of extra detail which can be invaluable for scientific research and analysis, and can give more insight into the type of ground feature (vegetation or hard surface) being surveyed, or the time the survey was conducted.
By releasing the point cloud data, GIS professionals and expert users of the LIDAR data already released will be able to create their own customized digital elevation models that are specific to their needs, and derive useful products to help better understand the environment we live in.
The first delivery of point cloud data is available online now at: http://environment.data.gov.uk/ds/survey/#/survey
It contains 16,600 km2 of survey data captured between July 2014 and November 2015, equivalent to 10 times the size of greater London. The remainder of our point cloud archive, for surveys going as far back as 2005, will be released by the end of June 2016.
LIDAR data has been released under the #OpenDefra project, which will see 8,000 datasets made publically available by the end of June 2016.AP Images
If there were any doubts that Ronda Jean Rousey is the Ultimate Fighting Championship's biggest star (and perhaps its biggest-ever star), those notions were dispelled on Sunday.
As you may have heard by now, Rousey jumped the railing at WrestleMania and, side by side with Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson, appeared to set up a tag team match for next year's WrestleMania in Dallas: Rousey and The Rock vs. the real-life husband-and-wife power duo of Triple H and Stephanie McMahon. Paul Levesque (Triple H's real name) and his wife are the future operators of World Wrestling Entertainment (provided Vince McMahon is not, in fact, immortal).
Already their fingerprints are being felt on the product, Rousey included. Even one year ago, the idea of a UFC champion being involved in what was essentially one of the two biggest angles on the WWE's biggest and most prideful show of the year was an unthinkable one.
But Rousey has reached a plateau that few, if any, UFC stars have ever reached.
She is a raging success in her own sport and might be the UFC's biggest pay-per-view draw. She is on the silver screen. She appears effortless on morning talk shows, charming hosts and viewers alike. She is the perfect billboard for advertisers seeking a total badass with a touch of elegance and class.
Her appearance at WrestleMania perfectly illustrates her popularity. Popular mixed martial artists have appeared on wrestling programs in the past. The usual response from wrestling fans is something along the lines of: Who is that person, and why is he here? Either that or almost total indifference, which is not the reaction the company was going for.
But not Rousey. When The Rock began walking toward Rousey's ringside seat, the sound of the crowd at Levi's Stadium totally changed. There was a buzz. And then it began, slowly, but picking up steam quickly as the audience realized what was about to happen: chants of "Ronda Rousey."
Don Feria/Associated Press
And then Rock turned and smiled at Rousey, and she jumped over the railing, and the crowd went ballistic. Over the course of the next five minutes, one of the more surprising (and memorable) moments in WrestleMania history would unfold. This wasn't a wrestling crowd who was indifferent to Rousey. They all knew exactly who she was. They knew exactly what she was there for. And they knew exactly what they wanted to see: Rousey putting her signature armbar on McMahon.
Instead, we got something of a build for what will almost assuredly be a feature bout on next year's WrestleMania in Dallas. The promotion has a big stadium to fill. There are a lot of seats in Cowboys Stadium, and it'll be gunning for its all-time attendance record.
So Rousey did not armbar McMahon; instead, she hip-tossed Triple H (who do you think would win in a fight between Rousey and a Triple H?) and then used the same sort of armlock Jon Jones used on Glover Teixeira to dispose of McMahon. A moment was created, and the foundation for a future moment was poured out like cement.
And what of this? The fact that Rousey was the linchpin to all of this and not Johnson—one of Hollywood's biggest stars and a complete returning hero to all wrestling fans—absolutely revealed just how big of a star she has become.
Rousey has utterly transcended the UFC. She is not the world's biggest action-film star. Not yet, anyway. But she has nearly reached the threshold of being called a household name.
I tend to use my mother as a metric when determining how well-known a fighter is with non-fans, because my mother cannot stand violence and wouldn't watch a mixed martial arts fight if you forced her to. But she knows who Ronda Rousey is, and she likes her, and she'll ask me from time to time about her upcoming fight, even though she has no intention of watching it.
If you pass the Mom test, you're a star. If you make 76,000 people in Levi's Stadium stand up and cheer your name, you're a star.
We already knew Rousey was the UFC's biggest star. We just didn't know by how much. But now, we have that answer: Nobody else is close. And she might just be the biggest star in the history of mixed martial arts, and that includes human money-making machine Brock Lesnar. Lesnar drew millions of wrestling fans to the UFC.
Rousey will pull mixed martial arts fans to the WWE. But she'll also have something of a reverse effect, bringing back the wrestling fans she gains in WWE back to the UFC.
And if she continues doing both, dabbling in wrestling while continuing to crush her competition with ease in the UFC, by the time next year's WrestleMania is over, there will be no doubt who is the biggest star in the history of mixed martial arts.
Jeremy Botter covers mixed martial arts for Bleacher Report. Follow him on Twitter.Republican leader John Boehner said Sunday he was "flabbergasted" by Treasury secretary Tim Geithner plan to save the nation from the fiscal cliff, in the latest show of brinkmanship over a deal to avert the year end budget crises.
His statement came as Washington leaders took to the airwaves amid an escalation in the clash over how to avert the automatic triggering of massive spending cuts and the expiration of across-the-board tax cuts.
Geithner went on a media blitz Sunday to defend president Barack Obama's position over the fiscal cliff. With less than a month to go, Geithner said he could not promise Congress would find a solution. If the tax rates expire and cuts are imposed as they stand, the Congressional Budget Office calculates the US will be plunged back into recession and unemployment will spike to 9.1%.
"That's a decision that lies in the hands of the Republicans that are now opposing an increase in tax rates" for the wealthiest Americans, Geithner told Fox News Sunday.
Geithner told CBS's Face the Nation: "Just remember to extend those tax cuts costs $1tn dollars over 10 years. There is no way we can get back to a balanced plan that put us back on the path to living within our means, protects Medicare, invests in things we need, if you extend those tax cuts."
Boehner, speaker of the House of Representatives, renewed his stand against increased tax rates for the rich. "Here's the problem," Boehner told Fox. "When you go and increase rates, you make it more difficult for our economy to grow." Boehner said if Republicans agreed to give Obama a proposed $1.6tn in new tax revenue, "He's going to spend it," not reduce the deficit.
Last week, Obama said he believed the two sides would reach an agreement before Christmas. "We're nowhere," Boehner said Sunday. The president's advisers have set out a plan that calls for the expiration of tax cuts for those earning over $250,000 as part of a plan to raise $1.6tn more in tax revenues over the next 10 years. In exchange, Obama agreed to $400bn in savings from entitlement programmes over the next 10 years but pushed those talks into next year with no guarantees.
On CBS, Republican senator Lindsey Graham slammed Obama's plans to tackle the debt crisis by imposing higher taxes on the most wealthy. He said Obama's plans failed to address entitlement reform – cuts in social security and Medicare benefits. Graham championed a plan first put forward by failed presidential candidate Mitt Romney to cap the size of deductions that the rich can take.
"If you raise tax rates you get $400bn in revenue and you hurt job creation. If you limit reductions to about $40,000-$50,000 per person, you protect the middle class and you get about $800bn in revenue," he said. "And 100% of Americans are going to lose everything we know as America if we don't fix entitlements. We are becoming Greece because of out-of-control entitlements."
"I think we are going over the cliff. It's pretty clear to me they have made a political calculation," said Graham.
Geithner said he still believed a deal was possible and that the "political theatre" could be a sign of progress. "I actually think that we're gonna get there," he said on ABC's This Week. "I think we're actually making a little bit of progress, but we're still some distance apart."
The row comes amid signs that political deadlock is harming the US economy. Business leaders have said they are holding back on hiring as they deal with the uncertainty created by the fiscal cliff. On Friday, the US releases its latest non-farm payroll figures, the key monthly jobs report which may give a fuller picture of the fiscal cliff's true impact.Mystery shrouds death of Google engineer found in water near Sunnyvale trail
File photo of generic hospital emergency room. Close up of sign for emergency department in hospital File photo of generic hospital emergency room. Close up of sign for emergency department in hospital Photo: ERproductions Ltd / Getty Image Photo: ERproductions Ltd / Getty Image Image 1 of / 28 Caption Close Mystery shrouds death of Google engineer found in water near Sunnyvale trail 1 / 28 Back to Gallery
A woman found dead last week in the San Francisco Bay off a hiking trail in Sunnyvale was identified as a 23-year-old Google software engineer, but the cause of her death remained a mystery on Monday, officials said.
Chuchu Ma of Mountain View was found Friday in the water along the Bay Trail by a dive team from the Santa Clara County Sheriff’s Office, according to the Sunnyvale Department of Public Safety.
RELATED: 23-year-old snowboarder dies in Tahoe after losing control, hitting fence
The circumstances surrounding Ma’s death remained unclear Monday and authorities said they are waiting for an autopsy report to determine if foul play was involved, the Sunnyvale Department of Public Safety said.
“Chuchu was an excellent software engineer in our developer product team. We are devastated to learn of her passing, and our deepest condolences are with her family and friends,” a representative from Google said in a statement.
ALSO: Man fatally shot outside Oakland shopping center
Ma was reported missing from Mountain View.
Sarah Ravani is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: sravani@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @SarRavaniA parasite responsible for toxoplasmosis - Toxoplasma gondii - may be involved in the cause of around a fifth of schizophrenia cases in the US. This is according to a new study published in the journal Preventive Veterinary Medicine.
University of Pennsylvania researcher Greg Smith calculated that around a fifth of schizophrenia cases may be attributable to T. gondii infection. University of Pennsylvania researcher Greg Smith calculated that around a fifth of schizophrenia cases may be attributable to T. gondii infection.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) estimate that around 60 million people in the US may be infected with T. gondii. Infection most commonly occurs through eating undercooked, contaminated meat, drinking contaminated water and coming into contact with cat feces that contain T. gondii.
Most people with T. gondii infection are unaware they have it; people with healthy immune systems are usually able to stop the parasite causing illness. But for those with weaker immune systems, such as older people, pregnant women and those with immune system disorders, the parasite can cause toxoplasmosis.
Toxoplasmosis a disease characterized by flu-like symptoms, including swollen lymph glands and muscle aches and pains. In severe cases, toxoplasmosis can cause damage to the eyes, brain and other organs.
Some studies, however, have linked T. gondii infection to mental health conditions. In 2012, for example, Medical News Today reported on a study linking T. gondi to increased risk of self-harm or suicide among new mothers.
More recently, studies have linked T. gondii infection to schizophrenia, and some have found that antipsychotic medication may even stop the parasite from replicating. But such research has been met with much criticism.
In this latest study, Gary Smith, of the School of Veterinary Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania, wanted to gain a better understanding of the link between T. gondii infection and schizophrenia.
Link between T. gondii and schizophrenia'should be considered, not ridiculed'
Smith wanted to determine the proportion of schizophrenia cases that could be attributable to T.gondii infection. He did this by calculating the population attributable fraction (PAF) - a measure used by epidemiologists to understand the importance of a risk factor.
"In other words," explains Smith, "we ask, if you could stop infections with this parasite, how many [schizophrenia] cases could you prevent?"
Smith calculated the PAF fraction throughout an average lifetime to be 21.4%, meaning that a fifth of all schizophrenia cases over a lifetime could be prevented by stopping T. gondii infections from occurring. "That, to me, is significant," says Smith.
He notes that many countries have a much higher prevalence of T. gondii infections than the US, and such countries also have a higher prevalence of schizophrenia.
Schizophrenia is one of the leading causes of disability in the US, affecting more than 3.5 million people.
Smith believes that his findings indicate the importance of gaining a better understanding of the link between T. gondii infection and schizophrenia. He adds:
"By finding out how important a factor T. gondii infection is, this work might inform our attitude to researching the subject. Instead of ridiculing the idea of a connection between T. gondii and schizophrenia because it seems so extraordinary, we can sit down and consider the evidence. Perhaps then we might be persuaded to look for more ways to reduce the number of people infected with toxoplasma."
MNT recently reported on a study suggesting that obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) may be a risk factor for schizophrenia.Media playback is unsupported on your device Media caption Air France human resources manager Xavier Broseta was forced to climb over a fence to escape
Two Air France managers have had their shirts torn as they were forced to flee a meeting on job cuts by angry workers.
Human resources manager Xavier Broseta and senior official Pierre Plissonnier had to clamber over a fence, while several others were injured.
The men were taking part in talks about plans for 2,900 job losses when hundreds of workers stormed into Air France headquarters at Roissy.
Pilots had earlier rejected an offer to work longer hours.
Parent firm Air France-KLM said it would take legal action over the protesters' "aggregated violence".
The airline later confirmed the job losses as part of a big restructuring plan dubbed "Perform 2020" that also involved several routes to India and south-east Asia being cut in 2017.
The measures include cutting 1,700 ground staff, 900 cabin crew, and 300 pilots, as well as a 10% reduction in its long-haul business, a reduction in the size of the aircraft fleet and an increase in pilots' working hours.
Image copyright Reuters Image caption Human resources manager Xavier Broseta was escorted away after his jacket and shirt were torn off
Image copyright Reuters Image caption Pierre Plissonnier (second from right) was also manhandled by workers
Image copyright AFP Image caption Mr Plissonnier, director of Air France at Orly airport, was eventually led to safety with his shirt torn
Air France said the restructuring would see the airline's costs reduced by €1.8bn (£1.3bn) over two years.
Chief Executive Frederic Gagey had already left the works council meeting when the room near Charles de Gaulle airport, north of Paris, was interrupted less than an hour after it had begun.
Several hundred demonstrators were reported to have entered the building shortly after four unions announced they were going on strike.
The company said it would aim for "voluntary departures" but said compulsory redundancies could not be ruled out.
One union official said Mr Broseta had "narrowly escaped being lynched". Security guards helped him flee the protesters by climbing over a fence, but not before his jacket and shirt were ripped from his back.
The airline's human resources manager later told a news conference that "what we saw this morning is not the image of the company's employees".
Prime Minister Manuel Valls said he was outraged by the violence and, along with Economics Minister Emmanuel Macron, added his support to the Air France management. The French government owns a 17.6% stake in the company.
Image copyright Reuters Image caption Air France workers demonstrated outside Charles de Gaulle airport as the talks took place
Image copyright Reuters
Profits at the airline have been hit in part by strikes by pilots, who have been protesting over the expansion of its budget subsidiary, Transavia.
Air France cut 5,500 jobs between 2012 and 2014 in response to stiff competition from low-cost competition in Europe.
The company, which employs 52,000 staff, has said that it faced "the impossibility of reaching an agreement to implement the productivity measures to restore long-term profitability".
The company added that it "considered it essential to introduce an alternative plan" and had unanimously agreed to mandate Air France KLM and Air France Management to carry this out.News
GC2019 Update: Tuesday, Feb. 26 published 2/26/2019 Tuesday, February 26 Highlights VIDEO HIGHLIGHTS: Bishop Lawson Bryan and Dr. Scott Hagan, pastor of Bonaire UMC and a reserve delegate, talk about the final day at General Conference. General Conference concludes, adopts Traditional Plan On a day when “time is our only enemy” and three years’ worth of decisions had to be made by the 6:30 p.m. deadline in order for a Monster Truck Rally to be set up in The Dome at America's Center in St. Louis, Mo., time was still made for prayer, worship,...
GC2019 Update: Monday, Feb. 25 published 2/25/2019 Monday, February 25 Highlights VIDEO HIGHLIGHT: Bishop Lawson Bryan and Dr. Scott Hagan, pastor of Bonaire UMC and a reserve delegate, talk about Day 3 at General Conference. Legislative Process Continues The third day of the special called session of General Conference began with delegates in legislative committee, determining what the General Conference, in plenary session, will take up tomorrow. All petitions were reviewed by today’s legislative committee to determine which petitions will...
GC2019 Update: Sunday, Feb. 24 published 2/24/2019 VIDEO HIGHLIGHT: Bishop Lawson Bryan and Dr. Scott Hagan, pastor of Bonaire UMC and a reserve delegate, talk about Day 2 at General Conference. Legislative Process Begins After a day of prayer and worship, day two of the special called session of General Conference focused on the business side of things. The morning began with the 864 delegates hearing a report from the Commission on a Way Forward, and the afternoon was spent prioritizing and organizing the business of the conference. While...
GC2019 Update: Saturday, Feb. 23 published 2/23/2019 The United Methodist Church’s top legislative body is meeting in St. Louis, Missouri, February 23-26, 2019. Eight voting delegates from South Georgia - half clergy and half lay - are among the 864 delegates from around the world. General Conference is the top policy-making body of The United Methodist Church, typically meeting every four years. At the request of General Conference 2016, the Council of Bishops set a plan for addressing the overwhelming number of proposals related to same-sex...
2019 appointment-making season begins in the South Georgia Conference published 2/18/2019 It’s appointment-making season in The United Methodist Church, and last week Bishop Bryan and the Appointive Cabinet met for several days to pray, worship, and begin the decision-making process of appointments. The 2019-2020 appointment-making schedule is available here. “Each year as we approach the appointment-making season, I always do it with a sense of freshness, because every year it is fresh and a bit different … but we are all in this together,” said Bishop Bryan in a video. “I want to...
Boundaries published 2/18/2019 OUR CONNECTION MATTERS NITA CRUMP 27for all of you who were baptized into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ. 28There is neither Jew nor Gentile, neither slave nor free, nor is there male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus. 29If you belong to Christ, then you are Abraham’s seed, and heirs according to the promise. (Galatians 3:27-29, NIV) Our third annual multicultural luncheon was held last Saturday in Cordele. People from across the conference gathered to celebrate unity...
Following General Conference 2019 published 2/18/2019 WATCH THE LIVE STREAM TRACK LEGISLATION GC AGENDA (reminder: all times listed on this agenda are CST) ADCA (contains all of the legislation submitted for consideration by the delegates.) DCA (the official journal of the General Conference of The United Methodist Church. It serves as the record of those who have been elected to serve as delegate, the legislation submitted, and the decisions made by the General Conference. RECAP FROM |
Garden, and peahens can lay three to eight eggs at a time.
“My view is, if we don’t stay on top of this, it will become more of a problem because the animals do breed,” said Clark County Commissioner Mary Beth Scow, who represents the district. “I know when I was out there, I saw several young peafowl.”
County commissioners spent more than 30 minutes at a recent meeting discussing how to best handle the problem.
Animal control has a cage large enough to capture peafowl, but commissioners decided its staff is too small to constantly monitor the trap.
And once the peafowl are caught, there remains the question of what to do with them.
Nevada Department of Wildlife spokesman Doug Nielsen said his agency can’t help. He compared the situation to someone raising a pet duckling and releasing it at a local park after it matures.
“At this point, the community is going to have to figure it out and decide what they want to do,” Nielsen said.We aimed to determine the disagreement in primary cervical screening between four human papillomavirus assays: Hybrid Capture 2, cobas, CLART, and APTIMA. Material from 5,064 SurePath samples of women participating in routine cervical screening in Copenhagen, Denmark, was tested with the four assays. Positive agreement between the assays was measured as the conditional probability that the results of all compared assays were positive given that at least one assay returned a positive result. Of all 5,064 samples, 1,679 (33.2%) tested positive on at least one of the assays. Among these, 41% tested positive on all four. Agreement was lower in women aged ≥30 years (30%, vs. 49% at <30 years), in primary screening samples (29%, vs. 38% in follow-up samples), and in women with concurrent normal cytology (22%, vs. 68% with abnormal cytology). Among primary screening samples from women aged 30–65 years (n = 2,881), 23% tested positive on at least one assay, and 42 to 58% of these showed positive agreement on any compared pair of the assays. While 4% of primary screening samples showed abnormal cytology, 6 to 10% were discordant on any pair of assays. A literature review corroborated our findings of considerable disagreement between human papillomavirus assays. This suggested that the extent of disagreement in primary screening is neither population- nor storage media-specific, leaving assay design differences as the most probable cause. The substantially different selection of women testing positive on the various human papillomavirus assays represents an unexpected challenge for the choice of an assay in primary cervical screening, and for follow up of in particular HPV positive/cytology normal women.
Competing interests: All authors have attended meetings with manufacturers of HPV assays. Matejka Rebolj and her employer received honoraria from Qiagen for lectures on her behalf. Sarah Preisler received honoraria from Hologic/Gen-Probe for lectures. Ditte Møller Ejegod received honoraria from Genomica and Qiagen for lectures, and is project manager on a study funded by BD Diagnostics. Carsten Rygaard has served as an unpaid advisor to Roche. Elsebeth Lynge has served as an unpaid advisor to Hologic/Gen-Probe and Norchip. Jesper Bonde used to serve as a paid advisor to Roche, is a paid advisor to Genomica, and received honoraria from Hologic/Gen-Probe, Roche, Qiagen, Genomica, and BD Diagnostics for lectures. He is principal investigator on a study funded by BD Diagnostics. Hvidovre Hospital holds a recompense agreement with Genomica on a KRAS/BRAF diagnostic system. None of the authors was compensated for their work on this project, holds stock, or received bonuses from any of the manufacturers. According to the contract between the manufacturers, Hvidovre University Hospital, and University of Copenhagen, all four manufacturers had the right to comment on a draft version of this manuscript, but had no editorial rights. This does not alter the authors’ adherence to all the PLOS ONE policies on sharing data and materials.
Funding: Genomica, the manufacturer of the CLART HPV2 Assay; Hologic/Gen-Probe, the manufacturer of the APTIMA HPV Assay; Roche, the manufacturer of the cobas HPV Test; and Qiagen, the manufacturer of the Hybrid Capture 2 Assay, provided tests, instrumentation, and limited co-funding for laboratory material. According to the contract between the manufacturers, Hvidovre University Hospital, and University of Copenhagen, all four manufacturers had the right to comment on a draft version of this manuscript, but had no editorial rights. MR and SP were funded by the Danish Strategic Research Council (grant number: 10-092793; URL: http://fivu.dk/en/research-and-innovation/councils-and-commissions/the-danishcouncil-for-strategic-research ). The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript. The researchers worked independently of the funders.
The proposed management strategies for women testing positive for human papillomavirus have so far been based on evidence from a small number of assays. Until now, the newly commercially available assays have most often been compared against Hybrid Capture 2 in women with recent cytological abnormalities [4] – [18]. In routine screening, however, women with cytological abnormalities constitute a selected population, whereas a majority of positive human papillomavirus samples are from women without cytological abnormalities. Hence, studies of women with cytological abnormalities cannot capture the diversity of outcomes of human papilomavirus testing in primary screening. Furthermore, the few primary cervical screening studies comparing various assays used relatively crude outcome measures, e.g. kappa coefficients, and suggested good overall agreement [15], [19] – [24]. However, to determine whether the management strategies for women with positive tests are applicable to other assays, more detailed analyses of outcomes from the various assays are needed. A first step is simply to know whether the same women test positive on different human papillomavirus assays.
Screening for human papillomavirus has better sensitivity for high-grade cervical intraepithelial neoplasia and provides protection against cervical cancer for a longer time than cytology screening [1] – [3]. This was demonstrated in studies using predominantly the Digene Hybrid Capture 2® HPV Test (Qiagen, Gaithersburg, MD), and GP5+/6+ polymerase chain reaction assays. However, several human papillomavirus assays have since become commercially available, and well-documented comparative studies are needed for laboratories to select the most appropriate assay for primary screening.
A positive human papillomavirus test was defined according to the manufacturers’ recommendations (Hybrid Capture 2: relative light unit per cut off value ≥1; cobas channels 16, 18, and other high risk genotypes: critical threshold values ≤40.5, ≤40.0, and ≤40.0, respectively; APTIMA: signal to cut off value ≥0.5). CLART was considered positive if at least one of the 13 human papillomavirus genotypes classified as high risk by the International Agency for Research on Cancer, including genotype 68, was detected [26]. Kappa coefficients were calculated as a standard measure of agreement for each pair of assays; their 95% confidence intervals were calculated by analysing 1,000 bootstrap replications (IBM® SPSS® Statistics, Version 20). The frequencies of positive concordant (positive on assay A/positive on assay B), and of discordant (positive/negative, negative/positive) samples were calculated separately. The sum of the proportions of discordant samples equalled [100% - proportion of overall agreement]. Positive agreement was calculated as the conditional probability that all compared assays were positive (concordant positive samples) given that at least one assay returned a positive result (concordant positive+any discordant samples), and was reported as a proportion. Its 95% confidence interval was calculated assuming binomial distribution of the studied events.
As described above, all women were previously screened with liquid-based cytology, and those with atypical squamous cells of undetermined significance at age 30 years or above were triaged using the Hybrid Capture 2 assay. The screening history of women from 1 January 2000 onwards was retrieved from the Danish Pathology Data Bank. Following Danish recommendations for follow-up of cervical abnormalities, Horizon samples with an earlier diagnosis of cervical cancer, a diagnosis of cervical intraepithelial neoplasia in up to three years earlier, with atypical squamous cells of undetermined significance in the previous 15 months, with more severe cytological abnormalities or a positive human papillomavirus test in the past 12 months were considered follow-up samples. Samples with no recent abnormality were considered primary samples; reflecting routine practice, these included screening samples and a small proportion of samples taken by indication.
1 ml of the diluted sample was aliquoted into an APTIMA Specimen Transfer Tube containing 2.9 ml of buffered solution (Hologic/Gen-Probe). Samples were treated with proteinase K prior to testing, using the Pace 2 Fast Expression Kit containing 1 ml diluent and lyophilized reagent (all from Hologic/Gen-Probe). 100 µl of the reconstituted proteinase K was added to each Specimen Transfer Tube and incubated at 65°C for two hours. The treated specimen tube was stored at 2 to 8°C until testing. Testing was performed on the PANTHER platform.
1 ml of the diluted SurePath sample was spun down (five minutes, 14,000 revolutions per minute), with supernatant removed and cell pellet re-suspended in a mix of 180 µl phosphate buffered saline (10x conc. pH 7.4, Pharmacy product) and 20 µl Proteinase K (recombinant, PCR Grade, Roche Diagnostics, Rotkreuz, Switzerland). Samples were then vortexed and incubated for one hour at 56°C and one hour at 90°C. Human papillomavirus DNA was purified using MagNa Pure LC 96 and MagNA Pure LC 32 instruments (Roche Diagnostics) with MagNA Pure LC Total Nucleic Acid Isolation Kit (Roche Diagnostics). Polymerase chain reaction amplification was performed using CLART® HPV2 Amplification kit (Genomica). 5 µl of purified DNA were used for the polymerase chain reaction amplification. Prior to visualisation, the polymerase chain reaction products were denatured at 95°C for 10 minutes. Visualisation was performed using 10 µl of the denatured polymerase chain reaction products on the CLART microarray. Hybridisation between the amplicons and their specific probes on the microarray resulted in formation of an insoluble precipitate of peroxidase when adding a Streptavidin conjugate that binds to the biotin labelled polymerase chain reaction products. The precipitate was analyzed automatically on the Clinical Array Reader (Genomica).
1 ml of the diluted material was aliquoted into a 13 ml round bottom test tube (Sarstedt, cat. no NC9018280), stored at 2 to 8°C until testing. No pre-treatment of SurePath samples was required. Extraction of DNA was undertaken on cobas x480, and amplification and detection of high risk human papillomavirus DNA on cobas z480 analyzer. Fluorescent TaqMan® probes were used for detection of the amplicons during polymerase chain reaction cycles. Amplification and detection of the 330 bp β-globin was used as an internal control of the testing processes.
On the post-quot material from the cytology procedure, DNA was either denatured prior to testing by pre-treating manually according to the manufacturer’s CE-IVD protocol, or DNA was isolated and purified using the DSP AXpH DNA kit on QIASymphony SP (Qiagen, Hilden, Germany). As part of the cytology processing, post-quot material was diluted approximately 1∶1 in SurePath. Testing was undertaken on automated Rapid Capture® System (Qiagen, Gaithersburg, MD, USA). A minority of samples used for routine Hybrid Capture 2 triage of women aged ≥30 years with atypical squamous cells of undetermined significance were denatured and tested manually.
From the 12,138 routine samples processed during the collection period, 6,258 (52%) were selected for Horizon. For 1,194 (19%) samples, complete human papillomavirus testing could not be undertaken: 1,165 samples were tested only with Hybrid Capture 2 owing to lack of residual material for the other three assays, whereas 29 samples could not be systematically tested on all four assays owing to human error. Consequently, 5,064 (81%) samples with cytology and complete results on the four human papillomavirus assays and cytology were included in the analysis ( Table 2 ). A single sample was available from 5,005 (99%) women, whereas 59 samples (1%) were from the remaining 29 women.
Upon arrival at the laboratory, consecutive samples were collected in racks of 48. They were collected from 10 June to 25 August 2011, equally from Monday to Friday. Approximately 2 ml of residual material were collected after completion of routine SurePath liquid based cytology and Hybrid Capture 2 triage of women aged ≥30 years with atypical squamous cells of undetermined significance. Samples were collected from the first four racks or fewer processed on the collection days. This method mimicked a collection of unselected consecutive samples, assuming that the time of sample arrival in the laboratory was not associated with its characteristics. Samples were diluted with 2 ml of SurePath to obtain enough volume for all four assays. Based on capacity and processing considerations, the target number of samples was set to 5,000.
The Department of Pathology at Hvidovre University Hospital in Copenhagen, accredited by the Joint Commission International, handles all cervical cytology from central Copenhagen. Copenhagen has been covered by an organized cervical screening program since the 1960s. Currently, women aged 23 to 49 years are invited for screening every three years, and women aged 50 to 65 years are invited every five years; in recent years, 76% of women had cytology in the recommended interval [25].
Virtually all kappa coefficients for pairwise agreement were ≥0.60, suggesting good overall agreement between the four assays ( Table 4 ). Yet, only 52% of primary samples from women aged 30 to 65 years testing positive on either Hybrid Capture 2 or cobas were positive on both. When comparing Hybrid Capture 2 with CLART and APTIMA, these figures were 50% and 58%, respectively. In total, 8.7% of these primary samples were discordant on Hybrid Capture 2 and cobas, 9.2% on Hybrid Capture 2 and CLART, and 5.7% on Hybrid Capture 2 and APTIMA. Discordant samples between cobas and CLART constituted 8.5% of primary samples from women aged 30 to 65 years, 9.7% between cobas and APTIMA, and 10.3% between CLART and APTIMA. Cytology was abnormal in 4.4% of the same primary samples ( Table 5 ).
Overall, 1,679 (33.2%) out of 5,064 samples were positive on at least one of the four human papillomavirus assays ( Table 3 ). Of these 1,679 samples, 681 (41%) were positive on all four, 260 (15%) on three, 268 (16%) on two, and 470 (28%) on a single human papillomavirus assay. Positive agreement between the assays was lower for women aged 30 to 65 compared to women aged 23 to 29 years. Among women aged 30 to 65 years, positive agreement was higher for follow-up than for primary samples; disagreement among primary samples in this age group is presented in more detail on Figure 1. Among the latter samples, positive agreement was substantially higher in women with atypical squamous cells of undetermined significance or worse compared to women with normal cytology. These patterns remained when the comparison was limited to the three DNA assays.
Among the 5,064 samples included in the analysis, 4,790 (94.6%) were from women targeted by the Danish cervical screening program, aged 23 to 65 years ( Table 2 ). Cytology was abnormal in 371 (7.3%) of the 5,064 samples, cobas was positive in 1,356 (26.8%), CLART in 1,273 (25.1%), Hybrid Capture 2 in 1,035 (20.4%), and APTIMA in 846 (16.7%) samples. These proportions were higher for follow-up than for primary samples for all four assays.
Discussion
Principal Findings Horizon is among the largest studies to compare several human papillomavirus assays in primary screening. Although we found kappa coefficients suggesting a good level of agreement among pairs of the four commercially available human papillomavirus assays, our analysis of positive samples demonstrated substantial disagreement between the assays, particularly in primary screening samples from women aged 30 to 65 years. For all pairwise assay comparisons, there were roughly as many discordant as concordant positive samples. While 4% of these samples showed abnormal cytology, 6 to 10% were positive on one but negative on the other human papillomavirus assay. Our analysis indicates that to fully elucidate the extent of disagreement between human papillomavirus assays, it is necessary to compare them on positive samples. The reason is that, even in a screening population with a high background risk of cervical cancer, a majority of samples test negative, and consequently discordant samples may have little impact on traditional measures such as the kappa coefficient. Similar limitations may apply to the relative sensitivity, relative specificity, and non-inferiority [19] of one assay against another. Our approach relies on the same principle as the calculation of the proportion of overall agreement, which is another commonly reported measure. Unfortunately, it has been rarely used on primary screening data [21], [22], [27], and in those studies attention has not been drawn to the implications of this type of analysis for the management of women with positive human papillomavirus tests. While APTIMA detects E6/E7 mRNA from human papillomavirus infections, the other three assays detect viral DNA. Some disagreement in comparisons between the three DNA assays and APTIMA is therefore not surprising, yet the DNA assays showed more inter-assay disagreement than expected. Possible explanations for this finding include, firstly, that cobas and CLART, but also APTIMA, were run on a fixed volume input from the residual sample material. In contrast, Hybrid Capture 2 was run after re-suspension of the pelleted processed cytology material. Theoretically, the CE-IVD post-cytology processing protocol for Hybrid Capture 2 might have removed some free viral particles prior to human papillomavirus analysis and, consequently, the assay may have returned a lower proportion of samples with a positive human papillomavirus outcome. Whether the clinical performance of the assays was affected will be determined when histological outcomes become available. Secondly, the designs of the assays differ. While Hybrid Capture 2 relies on signal amplification from RNA probes to the entire human papillomavirus genome, cobas and CLART are DNA polymerase chain reaction amplification assays targeting L1 sequences of human papillomavirus genotypes. Thirdly, CLART (by our definition) and Hybrid Capture 2 were designed to detect 13 genotypes, and cobas to detect the same plus genotype 66. Samples positive only for genotype 66 though explain few discordant samples, with 11/190 (9%) of cobas positive/Hybrid Capture 2 negative, and 20/127 (16%) cobas positive/CLART negative primary samples from women aged 30 to 65 years showing infections with genotype 66 and none of the 13 high risk genotypes. Fourthly, assay cross reactivity to low risk genotypes, which could increase the positivity rate, might vary between the DNA assays. These cross reactivity profiles and their significance for discordant samples will be evaluated in a separate report. Fifthly, assay specific calibration of primers/probes for individual human papillomavirus genotypes might result in different analytical sensitivities for detection of infections. Consistent with this, the higher average human papillomavirus viral loads in younger women [28] and in women with dysplasia [29] might increase the positive agreement between assays, as indeed suggested by the patterns observed in our data (Table 3). A possible explanation is that human papillomavirus positive samples in young women or in women with cytological abnormalities have on average higher viral loads than the minimum detectable amount needed to return a positive result even by the comparably least analytically sensitive assays. By the same token, samples with a relatively low viral load might be those that are more susceptible to the set cut-off on any assay before these assays return a positive result. Therefore, a relatively high frequency of agreement between assays in young women and in women with abnormalities observed in our study could be a consequence of the fact that in these women samples with infections but a relatively low viral load are limited in number. In unselected screening samples, on the other hand, viral loads will be much more heterogeneous, representing everything from recent transient infections to high level persistent infections, allowing samples with lower viral loads having a more prominent role in determining the frequency of disagreement between the assays. Within the WHO proficiency testing panel, CLART was evaluated against known genome equivalents of genotype specific L1 plasmids. It detected the 13 high risk human papillomavirus genotype plasmids in copy number 50 to 500 genome equivalents per genotype [30]. For assays like Hybrid Capture 2 and cobas, a similar analysis would not be possible as they return a combined outcome for the targeted genotypes (cobas though also separately for genotypes 16 and 18). To increase the transparency of assay calibration for the targeted human papillomavirus genotypes, a call for international standards of calibration could be suggested.
Strengths and Weaknesses of the Study All samples were evaluated in the same laboratory by the same staff, trained and certified by the assays’ manufacturers, using testing protocols agreed upon prior to the study, and instrumentation and software as supplied by the manufacturers. Unlike in previous studies, samples were collected and stored in SurePath, and experts have called for an evaluation of new human papillomavirus assays using media other than PreservCyt [31]. Previously, 11,617 (primary) SurePath samples from the same area evaluated in the same laboratory were tested with Hybrid Capture 2 [32]. The median age of the women in that study was 36.4 years, and 6% had atypical squamous cells of undetermined significance or worse. The proportion of women aged 25 to 64 years testing positive on Hybrid Capture 2 was ∼17%, similar to the 16% in Horizon in the same subset of samples. Horizon results are therefore in good agreement with the earlier results from the same population. Although 19% of the collected samples had to be discarded, a selection bias is unlikely as excluded samples were similar to included samples. There were no significant differences between the 5,064 included and the 1,194 excluded samples in terms of women’s age, cytology, and Hybrid Capture 2 outcomes, but follow-up samples were slightly more prevalent among the included than the excluded samples (Table 2). Following the Danish routine recommendations, women with abnormal cytology were referred for colposcopy or for repeated testing. In addition, we are currently inviting women with positive human papillomavirus tests and normal cytology for repeated testing (about one year after the baseline test). False positive rates, clinical sensitivity, and clinical specificity of the assays will be reported upon completion of this histological follow-up. The lack of histological verification might appear as a weakness of the current report. However, this is not the case as screening programs have to implement follow-up procedures for all women with positive tests.By -
Nuovo Bollo Auto
Che cos’è il bollo?
Il bollo auto è un’imposta patrimoniale che si applica a chiunque detenga un mezzo di trasporto a motore; è una tassa di proprietà, non una tassa di circolazione (com’era prima). Questo significa che un soggetto è tenuto al pagamento dell’imposta se ha intestato un veicolo, anche se poi non lo usa.
L’anno scorso il gettito del bollo auto è stato, ha calcolato la CGIA di Mestre, di 5,9 miliardi. Un bel bottino per lo Stato.
Nel 2014 il bollo è la terza imposta patrimoniale in Italia, dopo l’imposta sugli immobili (20,2 miliardi) e l’imposta di bollo (6,6). È anche per questo che è particolarmente odiata: è pesante. In Italia, benché si costruiscano i veicoli migliori al mondo, c’è un po’ di antagonismo verso il mondo delle quattro ruote. Siamo quelli che pagano l’assicurazione più alta, quelli che pagano la benzina più alta, i pezzi di ricambio più costosi e le tasse di proprietà più alte. Siamo anche quelli con meno gente che se li potrebbe permettere (ufficialmente) ma questo è un altro discorso.
Tutto questo pone un freno agli acquisti di un automobile: è visto come un investimento importante, molto più importante che all’estero. E il cambio di vettura viene visto come qualcosa di rilevante, non ordinaria amministrazione. È per questo che l’Italia ha l’età media del parco circolante più vecchia d’europa: 9 anni e mezzo. L’automobile media italiana ha quasi 10 anni. Tantissimi, se pensate la differenza in termini ecologici, di sicurezza, di efficienza tra un’auto di oggi e un’auto del 2005.
Ma la situazione peggiora ancora per quel che riguarda il trasporto pubblico, dove l’età media è 16. Tra due anni prendono pure loro la patente.
Sticchi Damiani, Presidente dell’ACI, Automobile Club Italia, non usa mezzi termini: “In Italia aumenta ancora l’età media del parco auto circolante più obsoleto d’Europa: l’età media delle quattro ruote è ormai di 9,5 anni; il rischio di morire in un incidente a bordo di un veicolo di 10 anni è più che doppio rispetto a una vettura di nuova immatricolazione; un Euro1 a benzina del 1993 fa registrare emissioni di monossido di carbonio superiori del 172% rispetto a un Euro4; un diesel Euro1 rilascia 27 volte il quantitativo di polveri sottili di un moderno Euro5″.
C’è chi si è impegnato a trovare una soluzione: Daniele Capezzone, un personaggio fantastico, diceva nel 2014: “In Commissione c’è forte condivisione sulla proposta di azzerare il bollo auto per 3 anni sulle auto di nuova immatricolazione, con benefici estendibili fino a 5 anni per i veicoli più green, ma nel primo passaggio alla Camera è stata scelta la via delle sabbie mobili. Tra 20 giorni si torna in Parlamento: la copertura del provvedimento è ampia e a parole sono tutti favorevoli. Vigileremo affinché il pacchetto non venga affossato”. Il procedimento è stato affossato, e c’è da esserne grati per un volta.
La manovra avrebbe portato zero risultati.
Nuovo bollo auto
Per facilitare l’acquisto di un mezzo allora come possiamo fare? Possiamo far leva sui bolli auto, sulle tasse di proprietà, abbassandole e rendendo meno oneroso non l’acquisto, ma la manutenzione (che è la vera spesa per la macchina).
Direte voi: Capezzone ha detto la stessa cosa, poco fa. Che cambia? Cambia, cambia.
Nessuna auto pagherà bollo zero (fatta eccezione per le eccezioni già presenti, come le elettriche). Ne pagherà meno. Prima di tutto, andrà fatta una rivoluzione: via il superbollo. Il superbollo è stata una manovra introdotta dal governo Monti, già iniziata da Tremonti, che prevede un pagamento extra per automobili con potenze elevate.
In particolare, si pagano 20€ ogni KW di potenza oltre il 185 (o 251 CV).
Eh, direte voi, sono un sacco di cavalli.Che se ne fa una macchina? Se ne fa, se ne fa. Lo Stato introducendo questa norma ha perso perché chi acquistava una macchina molto potente pagava bollo già alto, più benzina, più assicurazione (su cui lo Stato applicava poi la tassazione) ecc.. Le persone hanno deciso di vendere l’automobile e se ne sono comprati una meno potente.
Inoltre, a differenza di come in apparenza si può pensare, il superbollo non colpisce le auto di lusso. Infatti un Audi Q7 3.0 TDI da 65 mila euro non la paga. La Porsche panamera diesel, 184KW, non paga. Una Bmw i8 da 150mila non la paga (170KW). La Porsche Macan diesel non paga (250CV, uno in meno rispetto al limite) Un Mercedes G350, uno tra i SUV più costosi e longevi in commercio, non la paga. Eppure costa oltre 100mila euro. Ma nemmeno un Range Rover TD6 Autobiography, da 125 mila euro, non la paga (183KW). La Porsche Cayenne diesel, non la paga (250 CV). La Maserati diesel, non paga (250CV). La BMW x5, l’Audi A6, le Mercedes GL. Basta che abbiano un motore inferiore a 250 CV e non pagano. Poi se hanno 50 mila euro di accessori sopra, è uguale. Comunque non sono ritenute di lusso.
È un’idiozia. Tutte le auto riportate lì sopra sono considerate di lusso. Dall’altra parte si scopre che una Seat Leon 2.0 paga il superbollo. Una Opel Astra OPC pure. Una Golf R anche. Una Peugeot RCZ da 25 mila euro lo paga. Una Fiat Freemont 4×4 V6 paga il superbollo. C’è qualcosa di sbagliato.
Si vuole punire la passione per le automobili potenti per fare cassa, si fa leva sulla disponibilità a non privarsi di un lusso per colpire forte e racimolare qualche risorsa. È sbagliato. Non tutti quelli che hanno auto potenti sono ricchi sfondati. Una BMW M3 del 2005 con 420 cavalli si trova a nemmeno 30 mila euro. Una M5, con 507 cavalli, sempre del 2005 con 25 mila euro viene via. Una Porsche 911 996 con 300 cavalli si trova a 20 mila euro, una Boxster da 320 si trova facilmente a 25 mila. Le prime Posche Boxster si trovano anche a meno di 10 mila euro, e hanno 185KW! Limite superbollo!
Come sciogliere questo nodo allora? Introducendo un nuovo bollo auto.
È corretto che chi ha di più contribuisca di più. Quindi va introdotto qualcosa che tenga conto del “lusso” di una vettura. Ma è anche corretto che chi inquina di più paghi di più per le esternalità negative.
Nuovo bollo auto: come?
Continua a leggere nella parte due:
Nuovo bollo auto, per far ripartire il settore Automotive pt2Like many of the free apps and experiences you can try on the Oculus Rift and HTC Vive, Toybox isn’t really a game, it’s more of a space. After about five minutes of tinkering with blocks, remote controlled tanks, and fireworks, you’d think you’ve “seen everything there is to see” and you’d mostly be right. But what makes Toybox so special isn’t so much what you can do in the literal sense, but what you can experience once another person is in the virtual room with you.
If you’ve ever high-fived someone before a match in Dead & Buried, fist-bumped a buddy in Rec Room, or taken down an enemy sniper in a game of Onward, then you know how powerful of a thing social VR can be. Toybox is poised to be one of the go-to social VR experiences not because of all the games and activities it presents — like Rec Room or Pool Nation VR — but because of how little it tells you to do.
As one of the only true sandbox experiences, I compare Toybox to something like a lobby or waiting room you might find in another game. But the major difference here is that you’re free to goof off and mess with everything you see, using your actual hands through the interaction afforded by the Oculus Touch controllers. When I first loaded up the app on my own, I got bored quickly. Lighting a stick of dynamite and blowing up virtual blocks was cool, especially considering how nice the physics were, but part of me just wanted to get back to shooting zombies in Arizona Sunshine.
Then I tried it with another person. I picked up a remote control and drove a tank around the table, shooting him in the face. After flailing and laughing a bit, he tossed a block at my head and I actually ducked to move out of the way. My other hand bumped another block over, which caused me to turn and notice the boomerang I hadn’t seen before. We both tossed boomerangs into the air, practicing catching them as they returned, or shooting them out of the air with our laser guns.
In another environment we were underwater and everything floated up to the surface above us after we let them go. It was soft, soothing, and relaxing. Then we smashed one of the teleportation orbs — similar to those used in The Lab — to return to a bland, empty room. This area had a table with two structures on opposite ends and a bridge in the middle. We placed sticks of dynamite all around these buildings, then lit one and watched what I liked to call “dynamite domino” as each successive explosion lit the next stick, and so on.
Shooting fireworks at each other, blasting tank missile, and general playing around with all of the toys made me feel like a little kid in a toy store. And before long, I actually looked as tiny as I felt after getting shot with the shrink gun. It morphed my voice to that of a pint-sized pipsqueak, and my companion’s towering voice turned into that of a giant, like something ripped out of a cartoon.
Instead of describing the features and toolsets available in Toybox, I thought it would be more useful to just describe what happened while I played. After spending a few hours inside the wondrous world of toys and fun, I came away with a smile on my face. This is the type of experience I’d put someone in if they’re new to VR and want to see what it’s like engaging with a single person. Once you’ve got your VR legs, I’d highly recommend taking the plunge into Rec Room, which is a much more robust and diverse collection of toys and games — all for the same low price of free.
Final Verdict: Must Try
It’s free, so I’m not sure why you wouldn’t at least download it. Just like First Contact is a great introduction to the use of the Touch controllers and Quill is an amazing suite of artistic tools, Toybox is the perfect introduction to social VR in an interactive space. You likely won’t spend a ton of time here — unless building things with blocks and blowing them up is one of your very specific fantasies — but it’s a fun distraction when you bring your friends along for the fun. Social VR is the future, and Toybox is just a small step at the beginning of that journey.
Tagged with: oculus touch, social vr, toybox'Anxious' May 'begged for help' from Juncker
'Anxious' May 'begged for help' from Juncker
The Prime Minister was described as having 'deep rings under her eyes'
Theresa May's former chief of staff has accused his opposite number in Europe of leaking details of a Brussels dinner.
The comments reportedly made by EU chief Jean-Claude Juncker were published in the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung (FAZ) after last Monday's dinner between the two.
Mr Juncker had assessed Mrs May as being "anxious, despondent and disheartened" during the private meeting.
Nick Timothy blamed Martin Selmayr, Mr Juncker's chief of staff for leaking the comments to the German newspaper.
He tweeted: "After constructive Council meeting, Selmayr does this.
"Reminder that some in Brussels want no deal or a punitive one."
Image: Theresa May and Jean-Claude Juncker during their meeting last week
Mr Selmayr was also blamed for leaking details to the same newspaper about an April meeting between his boss and Mrs May.
At last week's dinner, the Prime Minister was said to have "begged for help" and was described as being "marked" by battles over Brexit with her own Conservative ministers.
The newspaper report said: |
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